Review: Torchwood 4.6: The Middle Men

It's comparatively difficult to get these images...

There's little, in fact, to say about The Middle Men. I've reached a point in the series where I really don't care. The plot holes are gaping, the characterisations are irritating and inconsistant and, worst of all, the story isn't going anywhere fast. My experience of the series so far has been like swimming in maple syrup - it may be novel to begin with, but it's slow, incredibly difficult and wrong on a couple of levels.
     Again our cast was seperated into American and Welsh, with the two originals not appearing until half-way through. The Americans faced Maloney in the stupidest way possible; Rex got himself kidnapped, tried to appeal to Maloney's sensibilites and then got tortured. Esther acted like a bumbling busybody (sorry, acting isn't the appropriate word here) and then wrestled Maloney to save Rex, and she still had to be saved by a Camp Guard. Gwen saved her Dad (third time's a charm, then) before blowing up the Wales camp and, using her lenses, somehow exposing the camps to the world. Jack, meanwhile, went and harrassed the head of PhiCorp who knew less than he did. The episode ended on the cliffhanger that the Triangle Group have not only been monitering Gwen's lenses, but have also kidnapped her entire family.
     That's very exciting, I assume. The truth is that I don't care about Gwen's plight in the slightest - I haven't since the series began. Maybe it's because I'm not a parent and I "don't get it," or maybe it's the more likely explanation that Gwen's character has strayed so far away from the likeable, human Gwen in the early series that I've no empathy left. Like Abby Grant, Gwen has become nothing more than a tedious distraction to the main chain of events. At least Oswald Danes had the courtesy to not be in this episode.
     The reason that, last year, I was afraid to review Lost (which I will complete... at some point) was because I thought that the heavily serialised nature of the episodes would make it too different from my norm to actually review. That didn't happen with Lost, but it is happening with Miracle Day. The direction, the music - it's all ultimately forgettable, something that Torchwood, a show devoted to spectacle and outrage, shouldn't be.
    I tried not to give into temptation, but I'm afraid that unless next week's Torchwood manages to captivate me in some way, I'm not reviewing it. Simple as.

Thanks.