Review: Torchwood 4.7: Immortal Sins

Angelo and Jack

This week's episode was the first real sign of a move towards actually uncovering our main enemy, although it took its damn time and was fundamentally badly constructed. Designed half as a flashback and half a procession of current events, the episode felt more like a mix of Boardwalk Empire, Queer as Folk and Lost. While the slower character stuff would be welcome in any other show, Miracle Day's current record made it feel like a firefighter turning up to the smouldering remains of a burning building...
      Our flashback followed Jack picking up a gay lover in the form of an Italian immigrant called Angelo during the prohibition period in 1927. In between them having sex, Jack makes cryptic remarks about the future. The two investigate a piece of alien cargo - a parasite that makes people go insane, designed to attack President Roosevelt - but afterwards Angelo is shipped off to prison and sees Jack "die." Ten years later, when Jack returns to newly-released Angelo without a scar on his body, the theif kills him and invites people to watch him revive, effectively turning him into a visitor attraction for people to witness. Three men make an agreement to "own" Jack. Guiltily Angelo helps Jack to escape, but Jack escapes him after telling him about his immortality and how they can't be together.
     In the present, and Gwen decided to do a stupid thing and tied up Jack, taking him to an undisclosed location as ordered to by her eyepieces. They talk, and Gwen says that she doesn't want to be in Torchwood any more because she can't handle it. When the Triangle representatives arrive at the spot, three people get out (led by Star Trek's Nana Visitor} and Esther and Rex spring from nowhere and take the situation under control. Then the lead woman says that nothing has changed; Jack will come with them because Angelo this there.
      As you've probably guessed, I'm not "invested" in the storyline of Miracle Day as much as this episode clearly wants me to be. This thing has crawled along a snail's pace and I really haven't been interested in the majority of it. Most of it stems, as I've said three times now, the segregation of the two halves of Torchwood, and to this episode's credit they did work together well in a way which was typical and yet more fluidic. The flashback, while being a noble gesture in itself, was completely wasted. The first twenty minutes or so, which was composed entirely of flirting and sex, felt more like RTD's gay fanfic than an episode of Torchwood. 
      And that's really the problem. It doesn't feel like Torchwood, it doesn't have the same vibe. Series One certainly had its problems, as I'm detailing at the moment, but it still felt like you wanted to tune in for the team's next "exciting adventure." This long, drawn out and unfulfilled mystery with a team that's desperately fractured in all the wrong places doesn't encourage me to come back each week.

He gets better.

      This episode definitely showcased Jack, which should have been a good thing. He's consistantly been one of the show's more interesting and generally competant characters, and yet due to his newfound mortality he's been very much sidelined in this series. His flashback - what could have been an intriguing use of his character and a way to escape the rut that the series has been in - was an academic failure many regards. The writers' insistance that the omni-sexual Jack is only gay is further highlighted here, and it's incredibly irritating - not to mention the continuing sex scenes which add nothing to the story or to the characters.
       For now, Torchwood has redeemed itself with an interesting format (for this episode at least}and sign that things are going to happen son, but the show's insinuation that this miracle was as the result of one of Jack's gay flings isn't a good sign. As one viewer noted on Twitter, "It would be a Miracle if this series ended well."

Thanks.