‘So… why the hell…? Bollocks. Start again,’ Gwen stutters at the beginning of ‘End of the Road’, and oh, how we wish that we could. Everything seemed so hopeful at the start of summer, when Miracle Day began in a haze of action and intrigue which not only matched the expectations set by 2009’s Children of Earth miniseries but actually surpassed them. Now, two months on, the promise has soured and gone flat like sparkling wine left open too long. The fizz has gone.
Possibly it was the endless wait for answers and the way characters popped up one week and were then either dead or forgotten the next; maybe it was the uneasy way the series has swung between extended arc storylines and a compulsion to resolve things at the end of many of the episodes; or perhaps we’re simply missing the original team, the Torchwood Hub (both referenced in this episode) and the other familiar tropes of a show that has tried bravely to broaden its appeal but lost its identity in the process.
Whatever the reason, the answers that finally come to some of the long-standing questions about the Miracle and those behind it have, unfortunately, come too late to appease viewers whose patience has finally expired.
Even the reappearance of the dysfunctional duo Oswald Danes and Jilly Kitzinger – usually reliably entertaining – can’t save things. The sinister behaviour of the former when he tries to behave normally with a hired hooker (‘Is this like your first date ever?’ she asks incredulously) is, in a way, more disturbing than seeing Jack butchered by a group of superstitious, 1920s New Yorkers last week; but it’s become unhappily clear that Bill Pullman has been outgrown by the creepiness of the character.
Fine actor though he is, there’s something too ruggedly good-looking and wholesome for him to remain wholly convincing as Danes plunges deeper into dark mania. The further he spirals, the less convincing the stark contrast between actor and role (so refreshing at the beginning of the series) becomes onscreen. His fight with Jilly is as disappointing as it is unlikely; even Lauren Ambrose’s hysterically enraged shrieking at him – ‘They’re going to reopen those ovens and you’re going in!’ – is more grotesque than gripping.
There’s still a bit of sparkle left in the script, thank goodness. Rex retains his grumpy way with a homo-sceptic putdown (‘You telling me the whole world got screwed because two gay guys had a hissy fit?’) while Allen Shapiro (John de Lancie), his boss’s boss at the CIA, flounces in and out of scenes with irresistible irascibility, dropping a succession of cutting remarks. ‘Tell her to line up her lawyers so I can piss on them, long and hard,’ he snaps about Angelo’s po-faced granddaughter before deporting Gwen, docking Esther’s pay and asking Jack, ‘What is it with you, Red Baron – got Snoopy up your ass?’ He even delights over the joy of cigarettes in the new, deathless world, rhapsodising: ‘We’re smoking our way into the new Depression.’
But just as one swallow proverbially fails to make a summer, a few pleasantly snarky lines from the guy who played Q in Star Trek aren’t nearly enough to carry Torchwood safely into autumn. The episode’s title seems unhappily prophetic: barring a miracle – if you pardon the expression – in the final two instalments, this series has reached the end of the road.
Aired at 9pm on Thursday 1st September 2011 on BBC One (UK) and at 10pm on Friday 26th August 2011 on Starz (US).