'Torchwood: Miracle Day' - 'Immortal Sins': Ever-lasting love
The series takes a trip back in time for a Captain Jack-centric episode
John Barrowman as Captain Jack on "Torchwood."
"Torchwood: Miracle Day" has, for the most part, been a very big disappointment, but "Immortal Sins" felt much more like some of the show's better moments from the earlier seasons - mainly because most of it put the miracle storyline on hold to tell a tale from Jack's long life as an immortal time traveler. It still doesn't fill me with faith for how the rest of this season will go in the present-day, but for one night, John Barrowman and writer Jane Espenson gave me something that didn't make me feel like I was just watching out of loyalty or stubborn insistence on making it to the end.
What did everybody else think?
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Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupLorraine
August 20, 2011 at 12:03AM EST Reply to CommentWhen I saw that Espenson was the writer, I was hoping for the best and she didn't let me down. I was praying that this episode went longer than 45 minutes, it was TORCHWOOD! Yea!
I might be in the minority, but it was great! Barrowman's acting was at its best, the story was thrilling and engaging. This would have been something else as a five-eight parter. For the first time, I can't wait until next week!
Lorraine
MsGabby
August 20, 2011 at 2:04AM EST Reply to CommentI have watched the episode for the 3rd time tonight! Throughout the whole season I have not been disappointed. But I have to say tonight's episode was hot and it moved plot forward more than any other episode previous. Can't wait till next week!
Hwat
August 20, 2011 at 9:05AM EST Reply to CommentSo I guess one has to be a horny beast to like this nonsense, eh? Yet again no real story, just running in place - or rather - sleeping in place.
Chris You say that as if there's something wrong with being a horny beast. *confused*
August 22, 2011 at 9:58PM ESTRick
August 20, 2011 at 11:20AM EST Reply to CommentHard to say if it was better because they put the miracle day storyline on hold or because Rex and Ester had such a reduced role. Either way, it moved fast enough to make you stop thinking things like: if they knew Jack would be interested in coming anyway, why kidnap Gwen's family in the first place? Why not just make a phone call?
Cjl I'm guessing the reason for the subterfuge will be made clear next week when we meet present day angelo, we'll see.
August 20, 2011 at 2:29PM ESTb carroll
August 20, 2011 at 12:23PM EST Reply to Commenti really enjoyed the first night, then was coasting until this episode - i'm now fully re-engaged, and hoping the last three episodes are more akin to this episode than eps 2-6. hopefully those were the 'filler' episodes and we're back to something more closely resembling CoE.
but judging by the lack of comments, i don't think too many have hung in to this point. thanks alan for at least giving us a minimum post and a forum for the remainder of this year.
debbie
August 20, 2011 at 1:31PM EST Reply to CommentSo is Angelo a 110 year old big bad?
I was initially annoyed that jack was using the name Jack Harkness in 1927, as in season 1 or 2 it showed how he procured the name for him self, in th 1940's ( from a dead ww2 captain) but figured out this was some timey-wimey thing and he had gone back in time.
Elsa Jack was stranded in time after the events at the end of the first season of Doctor Who and again after the end Torchwood season two.
August 20, 2011 at 1:47PM ESTkelly
August 20, 2011 at 2:29PM EST Reply to CommentI agree with your review of Torchwood Miracle Day, and to the extent the epi was Jack/Gwen centric, I enjoyed last night's episode. I'm finding myself thinking that I can't believe this world-wide crises is coming down to what I think it's coming down to...REALLY???
That being said...I love John Barrowman and his portrayal of Capt Jack, and I love his relationship with Gwen. I'm a little confused, though, with the in your face sexuality in this series to the extent that it doesn't seem true to the past (or future) Capt Jack, who seemed to me to at least be bi (probably just wishful thinking on my part).
I'll hang in there, though, until the hopefully not bitter end.
JH
August 20, 2011 at 6:53PM EST Reply to CommentDefinitely the first decent episode of this season. Not all of the story-related relationship notes between Angelo and Jack were hits for me, though. For instance, at the end, it seemed like Jack left Angelo because of the whole I'm-immortal-you're-not trope, where it would've felt more real if Jack had left Angelo because Angelo had a) killed Jack and b) stood by and watched while Jack was continually tortured to death. That seems like a pretty big betrayal to me -- based on the scene with the brain parasites, Jack had shared some sci-fi stuff with Angelo. I guess the whole resurrection thing is harder for a Catholic to grasp?
Anyway, still a way better watch than anything that's come before.
JH Also: hooray for surprise Nana Visitor at the end!
August 20, 2011 at 9:27PM ESTMark S. I was under the impression that Jack DID leave Angelo because of the betrayal. He waited for him to get out of jail (even stating that he never does that). But after the betrayal, he couldn't stay with him anymore.
August 22, 2011 at 12:09PM ESTAnyways, this was easily the best episode of the season. The torture scene was horrifying, not just for Jack continually coming back time after time, but for the looks on the faces of the people as they shot, stabbed and flayed him.
nic919
August 20, 2011 at 10:46PM EST Reply to CommentIt's probably not a good sign that this was the best episode so far and that it featured Jack, Gwen and a previously unseen actor. And Nana Visitor did more in her short time on the screen than that doctor who lasted a few episodes.
Anyway, I suspect that Angelo may have taken some of Jack's blood and that has sustained him beyond the usual life span. I am now interested in how this ends, and don't really care if Oswald and Julie show up again. I really do wonder how this would have played out with half the episodes, like Children of the Earth. I think the sense of urgency would have been jacked up.
graemeburk
August 21, 2011 at 2:28PM EST Reply to CommentI still don't quite know what the fuss is about Jane Espenson. Her scripts all rely on lots of speech making, which frankly lack Russell T Davies sparkle.
The episode itself was a hot mess: lots of standing around or driving making speeches, Jack making his usual bad decisions, a seduction scene which sounds like bad phone sex... and yet the nightmare sequence where Jack is repeatedly killed by an frightened mob scared the willies out of me, and the ending was quite good.
Other things that really bugged me: in every other episode with a flashback to Jack in the past, Jack has dressed in semi-contemporary fashion (albeit with the coat) and had hairstyles from the era. So why is he dressed and coiffed so anachronistically in the 1920s sequences? And, at the risk of sounding like a total Doctor Who nerd, Jack didn't learn he was a fixed point in time until the Doctor told him in Utopia, so he wouldn't be able to tell Angelo that.
Immortal Sins was a real mixed bag: at times it felt like bad fan fiction, others like the scariest episode of Torchwood ever. I'm still watching though.
Eos Throughout Miracle Day it's been suggested that Jack's personal timeline has gotten substantially more complicated since the end of Children of Earth.
August 22, 2011 at 5:39AM ESTIt would appear that the Captain proceeded generally in a straight line from his return to Earth in 1869 through the end of CoE (aside from two gigantic loop-the-loops at the end of DW season 3 (Utopia, etc.) and the end of TW season 2 (buried for the better part of two millennia).
But once he's departed Earth at the end of CoE -- with an apparently functional vortex manipulator -- all bets would be off. Jack might have met Angelo on his third run through the twentieth century -- or on his thirty-third.
Benjamin Kabak
August 23, 2011 at 10:00AM EST Reply to CommentThey gay stuff is just too over the top. The dude who played Angelo was god awful.
AmyJ
August 26, 2011 at 5:42PM EST Reply to CommentI know this sounds silly but I really like the music that started playing when Angelo turned on Jack which rendered him getting butchered. Anybody know the name of it or where I could find the soundtrack?