I’m a huge Dr. Who fan, and when they spun off the charming, roguish Captain Jack into his own show I was delighted.  Torchwood was dark and sometimes made me shudder and cry, but I loved the characters, especially Jack and Gwen, and I enjoyed the show.  So when I heard it was coming to Starz’s I was excited.  I even added that channel to my cable package for this show.

Well, what a mess and what a waste of time.  I’ve already ranted about the writing which has the characters doing stupid things, and the idiocy of suggesting that a murdering pedophile would become a world wide celebrity.  But, I thought, maybe they will end it wonderfully, and I will forgive them.  Though I suspected that was a faint hope.  This was like watching a slow motion train wreck, rather like the final season of Galactica.  Russel T. Davies gets very cool ideas, but he can never execute them.  And something you learn early on as a writer — sometimes a cool notion just can’t be executed and you have to walk away from it.  This looks like one of those situations.

********NOW THERE WILL BE SPOILERS SO YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***********

 

Apparently the whole “miracle”  “Blessing” thing was a giant artery or vein, or heart valve that ran _literally_ through the center of the Earth terminating in Buenos Aires, and Shanghai.  And it loved the little monkeys running around on the surface, and when it got a taste of Jack’s immortal blood (apparently it liked to taste blood which seems rather creepy and not real loving to me), it reset the world and made everybody immortal like Jack while turning Jack mortal.

In the second to the last episode two months have passed and everybody’s in England/Scotland.  How or why I do not know.  And the evil child killer has abandoned his fame, and come looking for them in England.  I don’t know why.  And there is a tedious subplot about Gwen’s dad who should be dead and they’re hiding him so he won’t be taken off to the ovens except he’s living in their basement, and he’s not a drain on society so it’s crazy to think society would waste police hours searching for him, but an understanding of the how the real world works is not big with the creators and writers of this show.

Anyway, then Jack’s blood proves to make like a bloodhound, and they find the giant corpuscle that bisects the world.  (And this is so dumb it’s breathtaking).  Putting aside the whole mantle, magma, hard nickel/iron core, and the massive amounts of radiation that’s trapped in the Earth and would be leaking out both ends of this loving corpuscle, why does it want blood?  And why does it show people their souls?  And why does the evil child killer suddenly get religion and decide to kill the people who’s plan to take over the world makes no sense?

And why did they make Jack no longer unique.  Jack is immortal because of the Tardis.  If he can just give you a blood transfusion and make you immortal that not very interesting.  But apparently that’s how it now works because the C.I.A. guy Rex is no immortal too.

The only good thing that happened.  They killed the tiresome and tedious Esther.

I kept watching this because Gwen is a wonderful character.  A strong, well realized woman in a very loving and realistic marriage.  And Captain Jack is way easy on the eyes, and has a breezy charm, though he was utterly wasted in this mess.

So here’s my advice.   Keep that ten hours of your life and do something useful — like read a book, or mop the floor or wash your hair.