TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY Series Premiere Preview

Give Me My Remote got a sneak peek at the series premiere of TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY, and we have some thoughts (and scoop!) on the first season!

My favorite part about TORCHWOOD has always been its fearlessness. Russell T. Davies and his exceptional team of writers don’t allow themselves to be tied down by rules or risk, and MIRACLE DAY is no exception. When you hear the words that Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) uses to confess his truly despicable crime, it’ll send chills up your spine. And when medical examiners try to identify the laws of the Miracle by pushing life to the limit with an explosion victim, you’ll be watching through the gaps of your fingers as they press against your scandalized eyes.

The episode itself contains a lot of exposition. Newcomers will be quickly caught up — in fact, only three main characters carry over from the previous series. And with the Torchwood Institute literally erased from the history books, any institutional memory is long gone, as well. Long-term fans will still recognize references to old TORCHWOOD characters and episodes, and the show’s heroes, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), are the same as ever. New viewers are introduced to these characters’ personalities as everyone gets a heavy heaping of Miracle logistics in this premiere.

They’ve really thought of everything in the show: How does the American judicial system respond to an execution that, while technically successful, didn’t yield the intended result? How does the Hippocratic Oath stand up under these conditions? What’s going to happen if the insect population (ick!) stops dying?

One of the most delightful new elements of TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY is that original series character, Gwen, now has a family. There are pictures of her holding her baby daughter in one arm while she wields a gun in the other (like the one to the left), but the snapshot doesn’t even compare to the actual scene, which features a secret gun closet, a bazooka, and a high-speed helicopter chase. (Again with the fearlessness: it’s hard to imagine even ALIAS’s Sydney Bristow assuming such a stance with her infant.) Meanwhile, they really couldn’t have gotten a cuter baby to play little Anwen. Her face is all the evidence needed to convince me that Gwen really could leave Torchwood…at least for a while.

Overall, many may find the premiere somewhat tedious, as the show sets up the relationships and logistics that will play out over the following nine episodes. The good news is that even the new characters are interesting and fun to watch, and they’ve definitely got a lot to work through this summer.

What do you think? Will you be tuning into TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY premiere July 8 at 10:00 PM on Starz?

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