Review: Torchwood 4.5: The Categories of Life

SPOILERS - Vera Juarez, who dies in this episode.

Before watching this episode I made the mistake of visiting a fansite where its American audience had already given their opinions on what was going wrong. I tried not to have them to mind while assessing the episode, but one particular comment caught my attention. It asked, "Why should I continue to watch this show?" I'm beginning to sympathise. Miracle Day's fifth episode was plagued by a bombardment of plot holes and serious problems to do with its characterisations. There was more focus on the overwhelming arc, but this meant that the goal-posts were shifted for reasons that only existed for the purposes of dramatic tension.
     This episode was an examination of the "overflow camps" from last week's episode - stemming from a new system of healthcare in which people are sorted into categories. Type 3s are healthy human beings, Type 2s have a long-standing disease orinjury, and Type 1s are unconscious and "untreatable". All 2s and 1s have been called to the camps, where Esther has discovered, using schematics, hidden buildings called The Modules where the Type 1s are kept. The team, now bolstered by Vera Juarez after Gwen has buggered off back to Wales, plan to infiltrate one of the nearby camps by impersonating an office worker, an inspector and a patient. (Esther, Vera and Rex respectively.) Since Jack is mortal, he is left to cover things and so goes off to talk to Danes again.
     When Vera comes to investigate the camp, she is met by camp leader Colin Maloney (played by Marc Vann, who we know as the doctor on the Freighter. His performance here is great.) He is, to be brief, a royal cock, and when Juarez gets too close to discovering the truth he locks her in one of the modules (which Rex has conveniently escaped from) and activated it. It turns out, to everyone's horror, that the Type 1s are being burnt alive to dispose of them. Vera dies; Rex watches.
     Esther has conveniently forgotten all about her crippling family issues, and so have her colleagues. The writer for the majority of this series is Jane Espenson, and it shows as she didn't write Escape to L.A. and thus most of the characterisations follow on from Dead of Night. Jane Espenson has however opened up a can of worms here by changing the goalposts on the main premise. This episode shows people who are, for all intents and purposes, dead - unconscious, unresponsive. The entire point of the Miracle is that people are too alive - they are conscious throughout their entire ordeal. Are the writers seriously trying to tell us that the man who was blown up in The New World wouldn't have fallen unconscious from the trauma? Or that Ellis Monroe wouldn't have done the same from being crushed last week? It doesn't make sense. The rules are being changed, and with sci-fi on this level that is a big no-no.

Oswald deliberates over another BS speech.

     This week's secondary plots both shared similar problems. My comments last week about the Welsh team being a footnote were answered here and confrimed rather expertly, with Gwen trying in vain to recue her Dad and Jack going off to chat with Danes, who ignores him. Neither of them had anything important to do or say. Meanwhile, Danes' character, who used to be the most well-characterised and interesting, has now become diluted with conflicting ideas. Does he want to die? Does he want fame? Does he want little girls? It changes from scene to scene, and rather than providing an image of a complex and conflicted character it just comes off as jarring and inconsistant.
    This morning I was prepared to say that I was invested in Miracle Day, that I thought the concept was high enough in scope and ambition to tickle my interests no matter the course. But the story as told in the first half of this mini-series has taken too long to get off the ground, and the internal rules of the premise are being shifted as much as the characters' personalities. I want to like Miracle Day, but this episode has really that into doubt.
     Sorry for the ranty post.

Thanks.

P.S. It was Gallifrey Base.

Review: Torchwood 4.4: Escape to L.A.

I'm starting to feel some fatigue towards Miracle Day. The slow theme is uninspiring and there are several factors that make watching the show a tedious experience. It feels like Torchwood in name only, and I care more about the new American characters and their respective issues than I do about our fast-redundant Welsh characters. Escape to L.A. did nought but codify my irritations despite its increasingly enjoyable tone.
     The team this week, while heading to California to hack into PhiCorp, also managed to all explore their pasts. Esther visited her sister's house, where her already psycho sister was holding Esther's nieces hostage, and reported her to social services. In the face of a campaign from a far-right republican, Ellis Monroe, to strip rights from "dead" people (appropriately and satirically called "Dead is Dead"), Rex visits his hobo dad who fobs him off. The increasinly irritating Gwen repeatedly called her hubby in Wales about her daughter and her dad, something she managed to avoid for the past three effing years.
      Gwen at the moment is entirely superflous for me. Her entire purpose as a character was the Torchwood equivalent of a Doctor Who companion - someone more human and down to earth than the rest of the characters for the audience to relate to. We don't need that now - this is more of a political thriller than a fun moster-hunting romp, more of an American slow-burner than a British classic. All Gwen does is act ridiculous, worry about her relatives and make condescending remarks. Her character at the moment is empty, vapid and irritating beyond belief.
     Oswald Danes, who is really enjoying his comfy hotel rooms, is having trouble too - Ellis Monroe's Dead is Dead campaign is upstaging him and is directly opposed to his continued existence. He's also used his... skills... as a kiddie-fiddler to discover PhiCorp's hidden information network. In the episode's climax, at an "overflow" hospital designed to hide away the sick, Danes upstaged a speech by Monroe by walking into the hospital and seemingly getting the "dead" vote.
     It's telling that after this momentous piece of political television the climax felt more like a whimper. Our Welsh characters, half-way through hacking into PhiCorp, were knocked out and tied up by an assassin working for The Triangle (the unseen enemy behind this series, the Triangle being their only representation so far). The assassin, who at that point had also stalked Esther, tortured the guy who made the Phicorp server and left Ellis Monroe to be crushed in her car, was shot by Rex... in the throat. This felt like a very contrived "prophecy" tease, although I should be used it that with RTD by now. 
     Overall I was glad for this week's development of Rex and Esther, which made the characters finally feel a tad more three-dimensional. The downside to this, of course, was that our Welsh characters, despite having three years' worth of development, felt surplus to requirements. At the moment I'm really wishing that this series was an independant project by Davies that didn't involve Torchwood, as that would change the tone of it completely for the better.


Thanks.


P.S. RTD is really writing Jack as a carbon-copy of the Tenth Doctor at the moment. It's subtle but still irritating.

Review: Good Omens

It's been a while since I did a book, isn't it?

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I’ve loved the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett for a few years now – that way that the the stories often transcend fiction and mess around with narrative certainties while being steeped in satire that lasts through the ages. Pratchett, a humanist who started writing in the 80s, is one of the greatest sci-fi-fantasy authors of his generation. I couldn’t, however, review any one of his books on their own without gushing madly about the entire series.

     Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, is someone whom I wish I’d heard of but unfortunately haven’t had the time or energy to investigate. My first encounter was only recently this year with the The Doctor’s Wife in the six series of Doctor Whom and immediately I was won over by the episode’s complete admiration not only for the series it was in, but also for all fiction. As a British ex-pat, Neil has a healthy admiration for both cultures. His greatest (and most well known) work is the Sandman graphic comic series, which I have never read by am in fact rather curious about. I’ll have to look into it.

     I’d heard of Good Omens but I hadn’t really considered seeking it out, not knowing about Gaiman’s writing style or tastes. Seeing the book recently in a book shop, however, I bought it and was not disappointed by its less than modest reception. The subject matter may be a little suspect for some more pious and possibly American audiences – the book surrounds Armageddon as happening in 1990s England.

     With a rich wealth of characters, it’s difficult to know where to start when discussing Good Omens. In a nutshell, the story follows the apocalypse as predicted by the fictional witch Agnes Nutter, who, after being employed to cash in on the trade of false prophecies, turned out to be completely right. Heaven and Hell both have their servants – albeit it’s difficult to tell which side is which. Two such servants, Aziriphale and Crowley (nee Crawly, who happens to be the Snake from the Garden of Eden), are charged with overseeing the Antichrist, who is brought to Earth eleven years before Nutter has prophesised the Apocalypse. Aziraphale, a camp book-collecting angel, has made good friends with his supposed opposite Crowly, a snake-like demon who adores the 20^th century.

     The Antichrist, Adam, unintentionally gains the powers to change the world according to his will, and thus starts creating magical things from nowhere; Atlantis rises from the sea, and Tibetans tunnel up through the Earth. Not helping things are the anthropomorphic personifications of War, Famine and Pollution (Pestilence retired after the discovery of penicillin in 1936), who are intent on causing the apocalypse no matter the cost.

     The duo have managed to turn in an exciting page turner that not only tickles my funny bone but presents itself as a satire of both political and religious dichotomy. The characters, while often unnecessary quirky or weird, are so well characterised that you can’t help but be charmed by their idiosyncrasies. As is often true in both their writing, the characterisations are so thickly woven into the story that it wouldn’t be the same without them; nothing is predictable but everything makes its own kind of sense in hindsight. One of my favourite things about the book is its unique running gags which punctuate it, with the results being blamed on Pratchett’s oft used ‘power of belief’.

     This is a book that I would refer to anyone and everyone, if only for the ability to say that one has read the book; sufficient nerd cred in itself. Good Omens is an example of terrific writing, excellently pitched humour dripping with timeless satire, and a set of characters so rich that they reach from the page.

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Opinion: (Other) Shows I Love

You know the shows I love - Doctor Who, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, etc. . But there are some shows that I can't find either the time or the nerve to review but do watch on a regular basis. So; here are four (Other) Shows I Love.

Star Trek

The Cast of Voy. Season 4 onwards.

I’m not enough of a fan to really review any Star Trek episodes – there are other people on the internet that can do and are doing it better. I love Star Trek because unlike Doctor Who, it takes one central sci-fi idea and expands upon it in a wonderfully technobabble-filled setting. Like that show, Star Trek is best when examining character and realistic moral dilemmas, something it does very often.

     That said, my favourite series of Trek is probably Voyager, mainly for its focus on the Borg. Its bad episodes are, unlike certain episodes of the putrid Enterprise, funny because of said poor quality. While not every character gets enough development, I think that the excellent development of The Doctor and Seven of Nine are enough to watch Voyager’s highlights. I also like Deep Space Nine for its deeper political tales and its very strong characterisation across the board (although to me the Ferengi are downright ridiculous and entirely superfluous to proceedings.)

    Part of Voyager’s fun that I really enjoy is Janeway, whose splintered and inconsistent characterisation is even joked at in some of the later seasons. Her character is a “matriarchal hypocrite” – like Karen Fisher but with 100x more responsibility. Her exploits make the show dynamic, and even when this applies to the show’s quality it’s still something that keeps me coming back.

    Star Trek, while more science-based than Doctor Who, is in some ways a perfect Americanised staple. Maybe I’m being too heavy on the comparison, but both have had a profound influence on their home cultures and on each other. Different, but the same.

     For good reviews from everything Star Trek, I reccomend Sci Fi Debris.

Luther

I said at the beginning of the year that I’d be reviewing the second series of this excellent cop-drama series, but I couldn’t conjure the words. Luther (Hollywood actor Idris Alba) is fundamentally a tired concept amongst tired concepts – a maverick cowboy cop who doesn’t play by the rules and has nothing left to lose. But, for some glorious reason, Luther takes this and rejuvenates it with perfect art-deco style and a series of characterisations so fun to witness that it feels a shame not to come back every week.

    The first series had its share of issues, but the show was held together by the side-character Alice, a psychopath who managed to escape prosecution for the murder of her parents. A charming stalker, she assisted Luther and helped him with not only his troubled private life (with ex-wife Indira Varma and new hubby John, played by Paul McGann) and his cases.  The second series left those characters behind, and with some strong characterisations the series stood on its own two feet with a series of three powerful villains.

    One thing that separates Luther with other cop-shows is that, rather than trying to discover who the killer is, the show introduces the villain as a main character and then follows how the police find out what we know. Not new to the genre, maybe, but it’s a concept not seen on British crime drama at the moment and thus feels very fresh and exciting.

The Brittas Empire

Readers of my blog know that I absolutely adore Red Dwarf mainly for the performances turned in by Chris Barrie as Rimmer. In 1993, Barrie got his own sitcom – The Brittas Empire, set around the neurotic and incompetent Gordon Brittas in his day-to-day management of a Leisure Centre.

     The series’ charm for me, like a lot of other, “UK Gold Comedies”, is that the humour relies on both slapstick and on the characterisation. Gordon is probably one of the most well-characterised comedy protagonists this side of Reginald Perrin, and this is in no doubt codified by Barrie’s stunning performance.

            The show ran for seven series before it was cancelled, and after that Barrie went off to film a full series of Red Dwarf (the horrifically bad Series VIII). Despite British Brevity, this means that I unfortunately couldn’t review it as I haven’t the money nor the time to discover which episodes are in which order and to find them in television together at a convenient time.

            The Brittas Empire will always hold a special place in my heart, not only for its cast of brilliantly written characters, but also for the tremendous performances and the often powerful and satirical stories.

Jeeves and Wooster

One of the more well-known adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse’s series of written comedies, Jeeves and Wooster took the incredibly well-written and enjoyable stories and took them to screen with the same vigour. Starring two of the early nineties’ best comedians – Hugh Laurie (fresh from Blackadder) and Steven Fry, who had been popular with their sketch-comedy series A Bit of Fry and Laurie – I love the show for its trademark wit and charm, taking an Edwardian feel and translating it to modern audiences. It feels more like an ITV Costume Drama than a typical “UK Gold Comedy,” and so is too oft ignored – a crime, considering the quality of its writing and acting.

There are many other shows I like but can’t review, but these are the ones that I have considered reviewing in the past and just haven’t been able to.

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Opinion: The Harry Potter Film Series

As I've pointed out, I really love Harry Potter. The series is adaptive and challenging, taking a new generation of kids and exposing them to some brilliant writing. The series’ planning and forethought is often mindboggling to behold. However, like many children I didn’t start out reading the books – I grew up on the first three films in the series, directed by Christopher Columbus and Alfonso Cuaron respectively. I loved these films direction and their spellbinding worlds, as well as how the characters were portrayed by the ambitiously cast main actors. I started reading the books before the fourth film was released, and I was immediately hooked into this richer world. It’s no coincidence that I didn’t like the films afterwards as much, maybe because I now noticed the problems of translating the series from stage to screen.

     The first two films, directed by Christopher Columbus, had an eerie fantasy feel that reflected the relative innocence of the early books. The books here were only around 200 pages long, meaning that not a lot had to be cut out or changed to fit the new medium. Regardless, a lot of things were, but nothing that affected the story in major ways. Of the first three films, I prefer the second – it was the last on-screen performance of the late Richard Harris, whose performance as the earlier, more mystical Dumbledore fit that version perfectly. I also loved the chilling climax, where the threat felt very real.

     The third film, directed by Alfonso Cuaron took a more mature feel as the actors were beginning to out grow the ages of their characters. The film took a lot more liberties with the source material, especially in the omission of several key points affecting the series’ mythos that make certain scenes in later films more nonsensical. It also saw the arrival of Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, a character whose skilful introduction is carried over from the book. Most of all, I enjoy this particular film’s dealings with the book’s time-travel aspect, which really captured my imagination as a child. Michael Gambon’s new Dumbledore, while strange at this early stage, is better later on when Dumbledore takes on a darker persona.

    The fourth film was somewhat of a no-brainer for me, as it didn’t abuse the source material in any meaningful ways and actually introduced us to the film series’ badass version of Lord Voldemort. It was a more-or-less perfect translation from script-to-screen, helped no doubt by the book’s plot, which is pretty much a filler arc until the climax. The director, Mike Newell, was drafted in at the last minute and thus has no obvious grandiose takes on the series.

     The last four films were directed by David Yates, whose style took on a more adult and epic feel. After the fourth film, I became a lot more disconnected with the franchise. The seventh and final book came out just after the fifth film, meaning that all of the previous plot-significance that the previous films had omitted would hopefully be left in. The fifth film took a hell-of-a-lot of liberties – several major character arcs were omitted, making previous characters useless – an example here being Rita Skeeter, whose arc here in posting negative propaganda about Harry, as well as being revealed to Hermione as an unregistered Animagus, were left out. We never saw the character again, making her inclusion in Film Four a rather wasted opportunity.  

     The only Harry Potter film which has really disappointed me is the adaptation of Book Six, whose focus moved away from the mythos and more into an irritating adolescent drama filled with kissing, dating and other such trifles. I understand the desires of screaming fangirls and Shippers in the Harry Potter fanbase, but the film could have been so much better had it focussed more on the mythology set out in the book – one that examined not only our villain’s main motivations, but also shone some light onto Dumbledore. I was, most of all, worried for the adaptation of the final book – this film had been scripted with the final book in mind, and yet it leaves out so much that the final tale needs.

     A lot of fans were irritated when they learnt that the final adaptation, being around 5 hours long, would have to be separated into to two different films. I was intrigued and I had my hopes up – and I wasn’t disappointed, with a much more mature and considered directing style that perfectly captured the feel of the book. In places, the film was actually better – especially in the climactic battle, where the film did things that literature cannot, making it much more epic and exciting to witness. I also loved the final film’s treatment of Snape, who is the series’ true protagonist – the section where his loyalties were revealed was much more moving and poignant than I ever could have imagined.

     The all-star cast of the series help to cement its pedigree – among others, Alan Rickman’s Snape is a perfect translation and adds a new dimension to the character; Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid also fits his character very well. The three main leads, despite being complete unknowns, show a genuine growth in both their characters and their acting ability.

     The series’ fourteen year legacy ended this July with the release of the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. But despite the films’ (and the books’) problems, Harry Potter will go down in history as the first time that such an ambitious project was undertaken – the first time that Hollywood even tried to adapt a series like this to the big screen. Its effects are everywhere – the recent Avengers Series, for example, wouldn’t have been possible without the proof and long-lasting appeal that the Harry Potter series brought with it. The series, now on its deathbed, is already working its way into the history books.

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Review: Torchwood 4.3: Dead of Night

This week’s episode of the Welsh drama was much an improvement, even if the only reason that I say so is that the episode felt a lot more like standard Torchwood fare. That does, however, include some of the old Torchwood’s issues, but overall it was more engaging than last week’s slow crawl. Dead of Night still has a lot of work to do, but it’s a step in the right direction.

     This week the main cast came together in a much more Torchwood-esque way, leading them from the corrupt Brian Friedkin to PhiCorp, a medical company. They track the company back to a warehouse where it turns out PhiCorp has been storing non-narcoleptic drugs (the painkillers that the Miracle needs) for over a year. Rex disagrees with Jack’s attitude and goes off on his own when they realise that everyone (including Rex’s ex-CIA mentor) has been poised against them.

     As armies of Anonymous-esque people wander the streets claiming to be “soulless,” Oswald Danes’ television career leads to him being beaten up by some policemen. Kitzinger is waiting for him and brings him to a PhiCorp conference – she works for the company. Rex by now has also rejoined the Torchwood team after bonking Dr. Vera Juarez, who’s also at the conference.

     Gwen uses the Camera Contact Lenses from Children of Earth to hack into Kitzinger’s PhiCorp computer while Jack faced Oswald Danes to try and settle his own guilt with killing his grandson last series. Turns out Danes is still a freaky paedophile and, as Jack reasons, is so self loathing that he wanted to be executed, and is now suffering because of the Miracle. Unfortunately Jack is escorted out by PhiCorp’s guards, who’ve now got a vested interest in Danes – PhiCorp is exploiting his new cult of personality to push through legislature to allow PhiCorp to take a monopoly over all pharmaceuticals and to allow all drugs to be bought without prescription.

     Part of the fun in this week’s team dynamic was the near-constant American-British discordance, almost as if the show is trying to translate the cultural differences across the audience. It really stands out and it isn’t very interesting in the long run, and on my end felt very condescending. For example; everything Gwen said Esther would “translate” into an American version. Also strange was that this episode cut out some sex scenes that were present in the American version – usually it’s the opposite. Not that those sex scenes were at all necessary – in any way. Maybe Rex bonking Juarez was important to the plot but I still don’t see how Jack picking up a barman did anything to advance the plot.

     The episode had a lot more ties to Children of Earth than we saw in episodes one and two, in ways that actually made some sense – Jack misses Ianto, is guilty over killing his grandson and has kept the only gadget they had left, the Camera Contact Lenses. It may not really gel with the new American audience, which is always a consideration now, but I liked the stronger continuity that went together with said references. One of the strongest points in the episode was a touching telephone call between Gwen and Jack, talking about the events of that storyline. As someone who thought that Jack’s actions at the end of Children of Earth were extremely out of character, I was glad to see (albeit after three hours) that the character acknowledges this.

     Now it seems we actually have a face behind the villains of this story (except for Danes, of course.) PhiCorp’s activities are perhaps more villainous to us here in the UK with Universal Healthcare, as the call for the ability to “buy whatever drugs you want” is nothing new to the American system (from an ideological point of view.) What an alien presence wants America’s money for I really don’t know, but it’s an interesting concept that I’d like to see developed.

     Overall this week’s episode felt like it actually went somewhere and it advanced the plot into unseen directions that were fun and gave us a lot to think about. There was still a lot of things going on that were unnecessary, such as random sex scenes and arguments for the sake of argument, but Dead of Night was a deeper exploration of our characters and a fun romp that showed that this miniseries is heading in a direction close to being to the right one.

Thanks.

Review: Torchwood 4.2: Rendition

Torchwood end their Rendition

After a premier that tried to reassure old viewers and drag in new ones, the second episode of this serial drama managed to paradoxically take a step back from the action and become much more exciting. While it wasn't as idea-focussed as last week, this often felt to its detriment as it was far too fluffy. The pace was the main issue, however, again not giving us enough tension or suspense until the last five minutes.

     Our main protagonists spent an inordinate amount of time this week on the five-hour plane journey across the Atlantic, a situation which provides the episode's best scenes when Jack, the last mortal man on Earth, is poisoned by a CIA agent working with a group of people trying to eradicate Torchwood and all those who know about them. Using Rex's contact to Doctor Vera Juarez, who's at a medical conference discussing the issues surrounding Miracle Day (which include peace in the east due to the Indians and Pakistanis no longer believing in an afterlife/reincarnation, and the increase of anti-biotic resistant bacteria), the team manage to create a makeshift cure for the arsenic poisoning. During this sequence, in which Gwen very much played the hero, the character ws very irritating, with shrill shreiks and unrealistic bouts of excitement. I don't know whether to blame Eve Myles' acting or the script itself. In better news, Arlene Tur's Doctor Juarez is still proving a more competent and compelling character than the rest of the main cast. 
     Back at the CIA, and Governer Friedkin was organising the cleanup operation, in conjunction with a strange third party sending him instructions via email. Esther, slowly getting closer to the truth, had $50,000 put in her bank account and her security card invalidated. This storyline didn't have much going on and it felt like a second player to the events on the plane and elsewhere - areal shame considering that the situation with Firedkin is probably one of this series' overarcing lines.
     A different storyline saw Oswald Danes, our series' antagonist, make a fuss on a chat show, where he broke down in an unrealistic fit of tears. For some reason, this actually made some of the characters feel sorry for the peadophilic rapist. Later on, Danes was accosted by PR manager Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose), who praised him for his excellent perfomance.

Lin acts as assassin to kill mortal Jack.

     What's pissing me off the most about Torchwood:Miracle Day is how slowly it's going. It's as if the show is treating its shorter run with the American mentality of a slow-burning drama. It doesn't work - we're one fifth of the way there and we've only just really sorted the premise out. I want conflict, I want tension, I want some genuine plot development beyond shuffling new characters into place and going on philosophical quandries about the implications of your premise that interupt everything else. Maybe this should have been a shorter series; the premise, which I doubted would stretch to ten episodes, has failed on the second week. 
     It's good to see a more character-focussed show but there comes a point where good characterisation doesn't make up for lack of plot development. It's enjoyable to an extent, but it's more of an intellectual exercise than I need from a show like Torchwood. I'll still be reviewing this next week, but if it doesn't get a move on I might have to reconsider.


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Upcoming Break

From Sunday 24th July to 6th August, I'll be off on Holiday, as last year. Regardless, I'll still be writing reviews for Torchwood: Miracle Day, as well as anything else I see fit, all of which will be posted when I return.

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Review: Being Human 1.5

Mitchell meets old lover Josie.

"If you don't do this then you have done to yourself the one thing that Owen could never do; you have finally died." George to Annie.

In this first half of the Series One finale, the very tightly scripted series shows its salt, working purely on main character motivations and plotlines without going off into Freak-of-the-week tangents like Episodes 2-4. Everything from the past four weeks payed off in a spectuacular climax to the series, leaving an excellent cliffhanger leading into the sixth episode.
     Mitchell's storyline came to a head this week, having rejoined the Vampires after his experiences with Bernie. The Vampires are planning a mass-conversion, leading to a coup, and Mitchell is quietly refering influential people for Herrick to "recruit". While in the hospital, Mitchell meets the dying Josie, who was his lover in the 1960s. Concerned for her wellbeing, Mitchell refers her to Herrick. Josie is repulsed by the idea, and rejects his proposition. She later tells George, who along with Annie has been ignorant of Mitchell's activities.

Herrick reveals all.

    Back at the House, and Annie, after recovering last week from her existential slump, decides to haunt Owen. She starts out practicing with George, and when she tires it on Owen he is visibly shaken. However, once given a few moments to recover he simply belittles her more and finds the situation funny. Disheartened, Annie then goes and haunts Janey, Owen's new girlfriend. She warns Janey about Owen's abusive behavious, but before she is convinced Owen returns home and tells Annie about the fact that he was having an affair with Janey even before she died. She returns home, paralysed.
    Mitchell discovers an area of the undertakers' where the Vampires have been hiding humans in squalid conditions as food. Outraged by this, Mitchell confronts Herrick but he fobs it off with a, "Really?" speech. They prepare to kill one another. At the house, George returns home from the hospital and inspires Annie to help him raid the Undertakers'. They manage it pretty successfully, with the lecherous Seth weakened by George's Star of David. As Mitchell is about to start fighting, the two storm in and they all escape, thanks to Lauren, who stakes Seth.

Lauren dies.

     On the way back, Lauren asks Mitchell to stake her, which he does, saving her from losing all of her humanity. When the three retreat to the safety of the House, Owen comes round. Using their respective "talents" and Annie's knowledge of life after death, they scare Owen insane. After Owen is locked up, Annie's door finally opens, but a tearful farewell is interupted by Herrick arriving at the door and staking Mitchell.
     George, notably, didn't get a storyline of his own this week, which suited me fine as her stood as the human catalyst to the inhuman exploits of the other two. Nina was only in the episode for a few minutes, but again that didn't matter as at the moment she doesn't play a large part in proceedings. More notably, this is the true finale of Annie's storyline and character development - everything after this would feel slightly off pace with this very tightly-scripted journey presented in the first series. What else is there for her to do, after having accomplished her goals as a Ghost. The decision to keep her character on was ultimately to the show's detriment, as Annie's lighthearted attitude doesn't sit well with the later series' darker overtones.

The gang assembles.

     Mitchell's storyline had the potential to come off as an overarching dystopian path into villiany, but aside from voluntarily converting one man and a room full of five tortured people, the "takeover" didn't come across as well as it could have. It would have made much more sense to show the development of this over the series as a whole rather than trying to squease the arguments into one hour, as it comes across as far too dramatic and silly for purpose. Lauren's end, while flagged throughout the episode by a more sobre and sarcastic portrayl, came out of nowhere storywise. Her character, from the beginning, had been seen to relish her vampirism and had never shown any doubts about it. It was, however, a touching scene that no doubt enriched Mitchell's character - or it would have, had this not been the last ever mention of the character in the series.
     The trailer was very skillfully made, not providng any insight as to whether Annie, Mitchell or both would leave or not. Join me next time, as I look at the finale of Being Human Series One.

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Alice Cooper was right

Yes, School's Out and I should now have much more free time in which to post for this site. While I make no promises, hopefully this will mean that I can post more. For the time being I'll be reviewing the finales of Being Human Series 1, Lost Season Four and week-for-week with Torchwood: Miracle Day, with my recurring Classic Doctor Who reviews.

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