mainly because it became Douglas Adams’s problem instead

TV It’s quite apt that Big Brother’s back in a couple of weeks, since Gwen’s making another video diary. No mention of the Doctor this time and how embarrassed he is about the world going to shit (though to be fair once again he’s got his own mortality problems) but it’s still the kind of teary doom laden apology that was also the trailer for C of E Day Five with talk of secrets revealed and flashlights flickering through darkened rooms. That the Cardiff ex-pats have resorted to this narrative technique again, however dramatic, just adds to the general impression of recycling that pervades the series, of trying to recapture the magic of C of E and Doctor Who itself offering the same notes in a slightly different order.

Not that Jim Gray & John Shiban's Escape to LA isn’t entertaining. Going in with the kind of grim determination that got me through the latter stages of the first series, I was delighted to find a few genuinely funny moments, Gwen’s attempt at an American accent for one, Jilly’s lack of a moral compass for another. Ellis Hartley Monroe is a pitch-perfect viciously one-dimensional portrayal of a Tea Party spokesperson, Mare Winningham observantly capturing the glassy-eyed, single minded, single push button issue approach to the political debate and it’s amazing that we’ve not had more feed back from the show’s original US home about her ultimate fate of being able to uncomfortably watch the work of a car-crusher from the inside.

The family scenes are also emotionally strong and although my head says that Esther’s jeopardy laden visit to her sister stretches credibility, in the real world, the fallibility of humans indicates that even someone who works for the CIA wouldn’t be able to help themselves, perhaps even knowing the risks. It’s also surprising to find a parental relationship in a Davies series as estranged as that between Rex and his father. In fact, grown up children don’t come out at all well from Escape to LA, not least the woman dumping her elderly father off at the boring doctor's hospital because she doesn’t see why she should spend the rest of her life looking after him. It’s in these moments that Miracle Day bothers to impress, the interpersonal horror of society breaking down.

Except we know that Davies can economically demonstrate this horror, we’ve seen as much in Turn Left and C of E, and that’s rather the problem with this whole endeavour so far.  Even with all the usual bonaroo bibi with an omi-palone, the Daily Mail will be criticising Miracle Day for its recycling (or should that be composting?).  There are bits of old episodes jammed in everywhere.  Only a week after the dongle incident, the Torchwood team are breaking into another Phicorp facility to capture another bunch of files, the only difference being on this occasion they’re attacked by C Thomas Howell’s laconic male equivalent of Johnson, again from C of E, after employing a Werner Brandes with a twisted Jonny Lee Miller on the security system.

Not that Terry Nation had too much of a problem presenting the same incidents time and again (mainly because it became Douglas Adams’s problem instead) but it is disappointing to have Jack fishing about in his memory for another old acquaintance he’s pissed off, a villain monologuing only to be shot/destroyed just as he’s about to reveal his secret, or talk of camps being set up to deal with an overspill of humanity. About the only time this familiarity pays off is in Danes’s speech to the huddled masses, the kind of hopeful rhetoric we’ve heard from the Doctor before with the same triumphant soundtrack, but rendered twisted and wrong from the mouth of a convicted child molester holding a baby.

Nevertheless, as indeed always seems to be a case with anything Who-related, there is a certain frisson to the mystery of who owns Phicorp and the creepy rotating triangles though in terms of scale it’s more in the order of who’s on Floor 500 rather than who Mr Saxon was. With all the talks of families rising, it might well be the Slitheen. But in the past week, I have considered if one the general prejudices I have with Miracle Day (other than the overall squandering of a great premise) is that it doesn’t seem worthy as a continuation of the contemporary Whoniverse begun in Rose (or The End of the World if you're being really pedantic) but currently ignored by the main series. Throughout I keep wondering how it’s effecting Sarah Jane and the gang, Amy’s parents, Martha, Gramps, Donna, Ian, Barbara, Jo Jones and well everyone.

As both Marvel and DC will tell you, one of the problems with shared universes is that when you conduct a massive world manipulating event of a magnitude that effects everybody, there’s always be the nagging thought in the mind of the fan as to the implications for that world. In Journey’s End, we were allowed to see, huge crossover event. Turn Left’s approach to the spin-offs was to ignore the ripples created when the relevant heroes themselves died completing the missions the Time Lord couldn’t.  Now we have Miracle Day which because it's a co-production, can only flirt with this universe but must be a continuation of it, yet is essentially Turn Left in the "prime" Whoniverse, so "has" to end with all the toys put back in the box.

Suspension of disbelief and all that but is anyone else a bit tired of all these reset switches?