4.06: Miracle Day - The Middle Men

[Dave]

With Gwen, Rex and Esther trapped on both sides of the Atlantic, it's a race against time as Jack goes straight to the heart of the conspiracy. Gwen and Rhys finally get her dad out of the Overflow Camp but Rhys and the rest of Gwen's family have been kidnapped in the end and they must be set free by serving Jack up.

The pre-credits sequence was interesting, but Stuart Owens never mentioned this to Jack, and it wasn't touched upon again. The whole of the Welsh part of the episode had me thinking "why are we interested in one old man when the 'burns units' are full of Category One people. But the end trailer explained it, as it is all merely to set up next week.

 

[PTeppic]

For me it raised the interesting question - how much of the physical body can be "killed" whilst still be infused with life spirit/essence? Since strangulation would appear to induce unconsciousness, certain effects are clearly still valid. I'm also thinking of toasty experimental man from episode 2(?). Judging from all previous comments, Vera is still technically alive, albeit in powder/ash form...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I thought it was a very intense, edge-of-the-seat episode.



And spoiler for the following episode, highlight to read:

If it was the set-up to the next episode, the set-up was better than the pay-off.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Dare I comment?

I always thought the Welsh side of the plot was lacking in any relevance other than the relatively good start that got Gwen on the plane.

The plot stupid flash backs to the valleys are in my opinion just annoying.

As for the casual discarding of main plot characters, I think this brings a bit of imagination to the story for a change. However, the idea that Gwen would be fooled into betraying Harkness, given the history of the characters and the well established known outcome of hostage situations why would she agree?

If it is a double bluff on her part why would they believe she would do it?

I was never really happy with the way the Harkness character came about in the first place. If they are now introducing some dark deed from his past then it will make the situation worse.

Sadly, I'm disappointed at the way the story has developed from what was in the beginning a promising start.

As regards the touching on aspects of the holocaust, I'm a little surprised they haven't been inundated with letters of protest. Is it too soon or has that taboo faded. I thought (as I previously argued) the introduction of the spitfires into the Who plot was disrespectful. In a similar way I'm not sure that Science Fiction is the right setting for the dumbing down of the murder of 6M Jews.

Yes there have been films, stories, plays etc. concerning those horrific events and SF has had many story lines where the evil tyrant has taken to genocide. I can't remember (though I don't read much) a situation that was quite so near the knuckle in terms of it's location and proximity to those events.

In this respect the character of Gwen is at least the voice of sanity, if seemingly a lone voice both in the story and surprisingly with the US pro Israeli public.

Pteppic: I did hear on the radio once that, as his body was burned, every person on Earth has 50 or so carbon atoms that spent a period of time being part of Hitler's body.