Review: TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY

TORCHWOOD
TV series starring John Barrowman and Eve Myles.
Series 4, Episode 1
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: iTunes download

About Torchwood:

Overview
The series is set in Cardiff and follows the Welsh branch of a covert agency called the Torchwood Institute which investigates extraterrestrial incidents on Earth and scavenges alien technology for its own use, its origins outlined in the Doctor Who episode "Tooth and Claw". As the opening monologue explains, the organisation is separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations. Their public perception is as merely a 'special ops' group. The events of the first series take place some time after the Doctor Who series two finale, in which Torchwood's London headquarters was destroyed. This format was maintained for the first two series.

Series three, a miniseries, saw the Cardiff headquarters completely destroyed and the team temporarily operating as fugitives in England's capital city of London, its membership wiped and the organisation thoroughly broken over the course of the serial. Series four, another mini-series, starts with Torchwood fully disbanded. Jack has left Earth after the events of Series Three, and Gwen has retired to be with her family. The group is reformed (unofficially), this time operating primarily in the United States and including two fugitive ex-CIA agents framed for treason.

Source: Info in the About Torchwood was taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood on 20/11/2012.

Show Trailer:

My Thoughts:

I watched this episode last winter thus the snowed-in reference but haven't posted my review straight away. So this is months late retrospective review.

I have to admit to some prejudice about this show after reading that this is a spin-off of the Doctor WHO series. I am just not wild about a Dalek robot with a toilet plunger for parts! I mean, ewww!!! So, I am not a Doctor WHO fan. Don't watch, don't follow, don't buy it. But I was snowed in and desperate for entertainment. The dvd boxsets I bought hadn't arrived yet. Probably due to the difficulties the fragile British transport system was experiencing due to the weather. Anyway, so I caved in and downloaded this episode just to try to feel the show out of how good it is or is it really as bad as I thought it was... This is the first episode and of course it ended in a cliffhanger, but it doesn't make me want to spend any more money in it though. Okey, maybe I am just such a miser. But still, of what I have seen of the show thus far does not make me want to spend more money in it. Maybe it was character flaw. Or maybe it was really bad acting on Alexa Havins' part. Or both. Whatever it is, it clouded my view of the entire show. However, it made me smile... an American complaining about paying for a "damn bridge". Ah, yes, that would be the Severn bridge. So this show is not all that bad. But it wasn't that brilliant either.

Empirical Evaluation:
Cinematography = 4
Script/Story Itself = 2.5
World building = 3
Attention To Detail = 4
Plot = (cannot be determined)
Acting = 2

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries