STARZ will present the original series premiere of “Torchwood: Miracle Day” entitled ‘The New World,’ on Friday, July 8^th at 10pm ET/PT.

Asylum – July 1st

When PC Andy arrests a teenager for shoplifting, he thinks it is going to be a routine case. Then he sees the weapon she is carrying and decides to call in the Torchwood team. Under questioning from Gwen, the girl remembers her name but little else, and when she speaks it is in a strange mix of English and Scandinavian, but with a Cardiff accent. Then the girl’s blood tests come through and the team is faced with a dilemma.

Golden Age – July 2nd

The Torchwood team are led to Delhi on the trail of a dangerous energy field. As the field grows, they witness the simultaneous disappearance of hundreds of people. Jack discovers that the field centres on an old colonial mansion, Torchwood India.

Shocked to find that Torchwood India is still going strong after he shut it down himself over 80 years ago, he is even more surprised to find that its members, including his old flame the Duchess, haven’t aged a day.

The Dead Line – July 3rd (Written by Phil Ford, who also wrote season 2′s episode “Something Borrowed”)

When a Cardiff hospital is inundated with patients who have fallen into coma -like trances, Torchwood move in to investigate. The trances appear to have been triggered by phone calls, all received on retro phones and made from a number that hadn’t been active for over 30 years. Determined to find out who has been calling the unfortunate victims, Jack rings the mysterious number, but the line is dead. But then it calls Jack back.

The event takes place in San Diego from July 22nd-26th. If you’re attending the Con and plan to go to any of the panels, let us know what you learn. We’d love to have some TVZ reporters there.

photo credit: Lord Jim

Wednesday, July 22:

6-9 p.m.: WB Pilot Preview Night

Thursday, July 23

TBD: Burn Notice, Legend of the Seeker, Psych

5-6 p.m.: Dexter

Friday, July 24

TBD: Caprica, Eureka, Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Stargate Universe.

11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Flash Forward

1-2 p.m.: The Big Bang Theory

2:15-3 p.m.: 24

2:15-3:15 p.m.: Past Life

3-3:45 p.m.: Bones

4-6 p.m.: Dollhouse (including Epitaph One screening)

Saturday, July 25

TBD: Heroes, Sanctuary and Warehouse 13

10-11 a.m.: Chuck

10:15-11:15 a.m.: Eastwick

11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Lost

11:15 a.m.-12 p.m.: Family Guy

12-12:45 p.m.: The Cleveland Show

1-1:45 p.m.: Futurama

1:30-3 p.m.: Glee (including new episode screening)

1:45-2:30 p.m.: The Simpsons

2:45-3:45 p.m.: V (including full pilot screening)

4-5 p.m.: Fringe

4:45-5:45 p.m.: Human Target

6-7 p.m.: Vampire Diaries

7:15-8 p.m.: MythBusters

Sunday, July 26

10:00-11:00 a.m.: Dr. Who

10:30-11:30 a.m.: Smallville

11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: American Dad

11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Supernatural

1-2 p.m.: Ghost Whisperer

2:15-3:45 p.m.: Torchwood and Being Human will be a shared panel.

photo credit: fatalfarm

Thursday, June 4
The Listener (NBC), 10 p.m. – Paramedic Toby Logan is a telepath!

Sunday, June 14
True Blood (HBO) – Season two of the hit vampire drama.

Sunday, June 21
Merlin (NBC), 8 p.m. – A 13-part miniseries about the legend of Camelot.

Sunday, June 21
Impact (ABC) – The moon is about to crash into Earth! Can David James Elliott save us?

Wednesday, June 24
The Philanthropist (NBC), 10 p.m. – Rome star James Purefoy is a billionaire vigilante.

Friday, June 26
Virtuality (FOX), 8 p.m. – Ronald Moore’s sci-fi show about a crew headed for a habitable world who are also filmed for a reality show back on Earth.

Saturday, June 27
Doctor Who (BBC America) – The stateside showing of the 2008 Christmas special “The Next Doctor” and other specials begins here.

Sunday, July 7
Warehouse 13 (SyFy), 9 p.m. – Homeland security agents protect supernatural objects.

Wednesday, July 10
Eureka (SyFy), 9 p.m. – Ten more episodes to complete season three.

Monday, July 20
Torchwood (BBC America) – 5-part miniseries of the Torchwood crew battling aliens and government conspiracies.

Saturday, July 25
Being Human (BBC America), 9 p.m. – A vampire, werewolf, and ghost try to live normal lives and share a flat in England.

Tuesday, July 28
Angel of Death (Crackle.com) – The DVD feature-film edit of the hit web series written by Ed Brubaker and starring Zoe Bell hits store shelves.

Curious about other shows? Got more info? Let’s get a discussion going below. What do you want the podcast to cover this summer?

WINTER PREMIERES:

Thurs., Dec. 25
Doctor Who (BBC)

Sun., Jan. 11
24 (Fox)

Thurs., Jan. 15
Smallville (CW)
Supernatural (CW)

Fri., Jan. 16
Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi)

Wed., Jan. 21
Lost (ABC)

Wed., Jan. 28
Life on Mars (ABC)

Fri., Feb. 13
Dollhouse (Fox)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX)

Mon., Mar. 9
Castle (ABC)

Tues., Mar. 17
Reaper (CW)

Tues., Mar. 24
Cupid (ABC)

Thur., Apr. 9
Harper’s Island (CBS)

To Be Announced:
Torchwood (BBCA)
Fringe (FOX)

So dreamy!

As with most Radio 4 audio dramas, the mp3 file will be available as a free download for the 7 days following broadcast, so if you’re curious, grab it fast.

The episode is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bigbang/torchwood.shtml

I will warn you that it’s a bit campy and over the top. The story follows Captain Jack, Gwen, Ianto, and Martha as they investigate problems with the Large Hadron Collider and how it’s seemingly summoning the recently dead. And it just so happens that the Torchwood staff is still dealing with the fallout of losing two members of their team from the season 2 finale.

There were episodes that I definitely enjoyed. Looking back, I dug the season premier, “Sleeper,” Martha Jones’ first ep, the wedding ep, and the final two-parter. That’s five out of 13 that I really liked. Probably not the best average. I suppose it will really amount to personal taste.

However, if you enjoyed any episodes of Torchwood in the past, you’d almost assuredly appreciate this one. It had action, intrigue, pathos, twists. It was about as good as the show gets, and when the show starts up its third year, it will probably be changed a lot due to the events of this episode. So read on for a recap with my thoughts and plenty of spoilers.

Last week the Torchwood team was ambushed but escaped a bombing at the hands of Captain John Hart, who claimed he would make Jack suffer by tearing apart everything around him, due to Jack rejecting him. And he had a trump card – he’d captured Jack’s long-lost brother, Gray.

The team discovers major rift activity throughout Cardiff and Jack dispatches the Torchwood members to focus on different problems. Gwen is sent to police headquarters where four senior officers have been killed by a Weevil outbreak. Tosh and Ianto head over to the central server building. Rift activity indicates aliens there and if they take down the servers, the military, police, emergency services, and the city nuclear power station will be plunged into darkness. Owen heads over to the hospital, where a Hoix alien is rampaging. Jack heads back to the Hub where he’s ambushed by Captain John Hart. John is prepared for Jack with twin automatic weapons and kills Jack. Once he revives, John has tied him up and taken away his weapons and tools.

John takes Jack to the rooftop and calls on the other team members to go to their respective roofs. Then he sets off multiple huge explosions throughout the city, plunging it into chaos. John uses his time agent device, activating the rift and taking himself and Jack through. They end up in Cardiff in the past, around 27 AD, before the city is ever built. John quickly explains that his time agent wristband has been molecularly bonded with his skin, rendering it unremovable. It’s monitoring him and is set with a remote detonator, ensuring his compliance. Then Gray appears through the rift!

John breaks down, crying, happy to see his brother and embraces him. He looks up with a look of shock because Gray buries a knife in his chest. When Jack revives, Gray explains that he was captured by the aliens they both ran from as children and they tortured him for years. He blames Jack and is just using John to get to him. He forces John to dig a grave for Jack, saying that Jack will have to live under the city he protects, dying for all time. John begins covering Jack in dirt, throwing his ring on top of him, saying it’s of no more sentimental value to him.

John returns to the Hub in Cardiff, his work for Gray done, to help the team. He encounters and convinces Gwen that he’s there to help and the rest of the team join them, minus Owen who is at the nuclear power plant, trying to stop a meltdown set off by the explosions. Gray shows up, having hidden in the Hub for them all along, and traps John, Gwen, and Ianto in the old Weevil cells. He shoots Tosh in the gut and leaves her for dead when he hears loud banging.

Gray goes to the morgue and opens one of the cryochambers, where the noise is coming from. Jack steps out. A quick flashback reveals that in 1901, the Torchwood team of the day digs up Jack because the ring is giving off an alien homing beacon signal. He convinces them that they have to freeze him in a cryochamber with it timed to open up at a specific time in 2008. In the present, Jack subdues a stunned Gray and forgives him, and puts him in the cell, letting out the others.

Meanwhile, Tosh has been holding on and helping Owen remotely stop the meltdown process. They lockdown the room Owen is in, to vent the cooling system, but Tosh puts a time delay so that Owen can escape the room. Unfortunately, a power surge causes the room to shut early, trapping Owen. He rages, but Tosh begs him not to because he’s breaking her heart. The room vents, killing Owen. Jack finds Tosh and she dies in his arms.

Jack puts Gray in suspended animation in a cryochamber. John says he should kill him, but Jack says there’s been enough death. Then John asks why Jack didn’t struggle when he was being buried, to which Jack replies that it was his form of penance, for leaving his brother behind and causing all that he did. John decides to stick around and explore earth, and that he might see him around.

Ianto logs Owen and Tosh’s deaths in the official records, which triggers a pre-recorded video by Tosh in which she says it’s ok and thanks Jack for all that he showed her.

Pretty powerful stuff. I liked it a lot. We didn’t get to see a “funny” Jack, but I don’t know how you would’ve fit anything flippant in an episode filled with so much drama. It moved quickly and had a lot of action. Jack and John’s plan of burying him and allowing the Torchwood of 1901 to help was especially cool.

I’ll miss Owen and Tosh, but the rumors are that Martha and John might join the show. I’d be pretty happy if that were the case, since both are honestly much more interesting. It was pretty rough if you cared for Owen and Tosh at all, though, learning about their past and joining Torchwood in the last episode and losing them in this one. Hopefully, with the show almost definitely continuing next year, they can finally find a real direction and tone for the show.

I give this episode a 4 and a half out of 5 Cardiff flags.

The show launched in 1994. On April 2, 2008, NBC announced that ER’s next season- its 15th- will be the final season.

I used to watch this show back in the day. There used to be something on in the time slot before ER that I watched (it might have been WWE Smackdown) and, as I had no life, I would stay up an extra hour to watch my look-alike George Clooney. This was circa seasons 4-6. I didn’t watch every episode and I was never a die hard ER head, but the truth is that those years really were better than Torchwood.

Top four reasons why ER Seasons 4-6 are better than Torchwood.

4. Ground Breaking Action Scenes. In 1994 we had never seen hospital scenes as emotionally charged or sickeningly graphic. There was debate at the time about censoring those scenes because TV viewers weren’t prepared for them. In Torchwood, sometimes they drive over the speed limit.

3. ER Science Is Believable And Consistent. I know that Torchwood is scifi, but if Owen the Dr. spends a series of episodes failing and barely succeeding in getting alien technology to work but Ryes can do it first try, I call shenanigans.

2. Rich And Powerful Character Development. ER had a huge cast of I-don’t-know-how-many. Maybe you didn’t know a lot about some of the orderlies or nurses, but the ones you knew were not just standing there operating, they were living, breathing people that had fully developed lives outside of work. Torchwood is full of episodes where nothing and no one changes.

1. George Clooney Has A Secret Crush On Me. It’s true. Even though neither of us is gay and although he left the show is season 5, Clooney continues to send me autographed nudes of himself. It used to be cute, now it’s old.

I promise, no more posts about Torchwood.