S04E10 - Miracle Day: "The Blood Line" *Season Finale*

[Joelist]

Since it underperformed in the ratings on both sides of the pond hopefully this is the end of Torchwood.

What a lame finale. The 'blessing" turned out to be a totally dumb and not well thought out Deus Ex Machina "cleft" running through the Earth (in a way unsurprising because excessive use of Deus Ex Machina was a major issue RTD had on Doctor Who as well). Plus, the developments in the plot made no sense either internally or as part of Who canon (and Jack's "immortality" is a Who canon trait so it needs consideration).

Jack (not his blood the person) became sort of immortal because Rose used the power of the Time Vortex to undo his death. She inadvertently made him into a temporal "fact" or fixed point (per the Doctor in Utopia). It isn't something that can be passed on through his blood or any other agent. So therefore Rex cannot become "immortal" through the agent of Jack's blood nor could it have activated the "blessing".

In a way it symbolizes one of the underlying reasons this Torchwood series was a train wreck. The plotting was super weak and illogical. As already stated Bill Pullian's character was superfluous, none of the new characters evoked any sort of feeling and Jack was almost an aside in the story. Plus we had the same unlikeable character issues that plagued Torchwood previously (especially season one). Add in lacking the British feel and the result was dreck.

I think the poor plot was the clincher though - for all its flaws at least the previous Torchwood series had reasonably logical stories.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I suspect that is just RTD playing games. If Jack is not the face then the plots of multiple episodes suddenly become completely illogical, as the only way the story could develop in the manner it did was for the Face to have knowledge only Jack possessed.

Other possibility here is that Jack told it to Face of Boe, or it inherited his name through him, but it might not be him. Another possibility.
Overall I liked this series, but as I said in my other post and I will quote myself here:

I just watched the final episode as well. The blood thing isn't that simple, you see the blood is useless, until the morphic field comes to play and that thing through the center of earth, even though it wasn't well explained then again what really was explained thoroughly in Torchwood compared to Doctor Who, very few things, most were just mysteries because of course they can't have clear answers that Doctor can have.

But...the blood on itself is part of Jack, it's part of the fixed point somehow I presume. But the whole point is that they fed his blood to the thing and it made the morphic field in its "mirror", but not inherited the real fixed point properties of course, I mean they were just undying, not regenerating etc. I agree, there should have been more explanation to this and it is shoddy writing and it fell flat in the end despite having great moments. The ending was kind of letdown too, it got rather really epic and then it slowed down and the actual ending was left with sort of cliffhanger in the end, so not really happy with that.

But anyway as for Rex's part, he had the blood of Jack, and for some reason the morphic field brought back the effects, switched it back because it recognized Jack in him so it used the same for Jack and him, even though he wasn't mortal or immortal before, for some reason it can nullify the effects of the fixed point then, but why? It must be something of extreme power and beyond time and space to do that, I really would want that to be explained.

But becasue it was nullified, it was brought back, but on both sides because it thought both was Jack so it added the fixed point in that blood back and it changed Rex into fixed point fully. Yes, it's mind numming and not entirely explained, if they ever had any proper explanation at all.
But the morphic field can work that way, transfer the energy and stuff and he was also at the center of it all.
Remember when it was said that average human life was exactly the same in shanghai in that area, it is where it cilmunated but elsewhere in the world it didn't have that same effect, the effect varied and was not exact becasue it was not at the center as well.

 

[Joelist]

Leo, what you are proposing doesn't work. The Face knows stuff it could only know if it is Jack. There isn't any way else, and in any event if it becomes necessary to posit unlikely events never covered in any previous plotline in order for this one to work then this one is a total failure.

As to the blood, you're doing it again. You're trying to construct stuff (in this case a huge amount of stuff) to rescue the script from its utter ineptitude. Jack is the fixed point not his blood (or hair or saliva or feces, etc.). He cannot die not because Rose gave him some magic regenerating gene but because she made him a fact in space/time for millions of years because she used the Time Vortex without understanding how. The Doctor explained it to Jack in Utopia.

Thus their entire plot falls totally apart. They should have explained the blessing without any reference to Jack at all. The whole morphic field nonsense was out and out illogical and contradictory of plot points from Jack's earlier history. If the plot cannot function completely logically going solely on what is directly revealed on screen then it is poorly done. We the viewer should not be trying to add detail and structure to make it work.

The fact is Torchwood stunk royally. The UK version wasn't that good but compared to the dreck on Starz it was sublime. Hopefully the bad ratings mean we won't get another series.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

You still say hopefuly we don't get another series. I am for the contrary I would like to see another series, done right though, maybe with someone else overseeing it. RTD took a big risc here, first resurrecting a story in a way it would work, second, using pseudoscience terms like morphic field and then doing something with it that was not really seen before. So think of it in that way. It could have ended FAR worse. I at least appreciate it for the things it did right and for what it tried to achieve but fell flat.

 

[Joelist]

Perhaps it would be better to say that if they greenlight another one they need to keep RTD away from any of the writing duties. Find actual legitimate SciFi writers and if they let RTD direct then require him to adhere 100% to the script. This train wreck merely confirmed what the horrific "End of Time" in Doctor Who had made plain - RTD can direct but he is rubbish at screenwriting.