Web of Lies (webcast)
Web of Lies was a "motion comic"-style Torchwood animated serial. It was released online and on Apple iOS devices concurrently with series 4. It ties in with the events of Torchwood: Miracle Day. It has elements interactive with the story, particularly puzzles that unlocked portions of the story as the game/story progressed.
It also makes a small mention to one of the Torchwood Three team members who is deceased by the time of the Miracle, Toshiko "Tosh" Sato. A shocking surprise is that the Three Families have been keeping track of Jack and are curious to see how far his immortality goes for resurrecting him. They also copy the Retcon drug Torchwood uses, making a gaseous version of it for effectiveness (as the pill method is not very reliable).
Synopsis
A young man is shot in 2011 Los Angeles, but he doesn't die — this is Miracle Day. When it's revealed that he knew the Miracle was coming, his sister, Holly Mokri, sets to work to figure out what he knew and why he was silenced. Can she figure it out before someone decides to silence her next?
Back in 2007, Gwen Cooper saw Jack Harkness get abducted during a misson. Who did this and why do they seem to be experimenting with how they kill Jack? And how does this tie into the events happening in the future...?
Plot
2007. "Missing Day".
Gwen narrates that working for Torchwood, it's a rather normal night on the job; instead of an alien as usual, she's chasing a mysterious stranger with her boss, Jack. However, Jack gets ahead of her in the chase, chasing the unknown figure behind some vents on a roof. However, once Gwen gets there, she discovers that Jack and the unknown target are missing, and all that's left is a mysterious green gas being sucked up by the fans. Gwen radios Tosh, informing her that Jack's been kidnapped.
Miles Mokri promised his sister Holly that he'd celebrate her cancer remission with her. When he says he can't, she leaves for a nearby club. Outside two men grab Miles but he slips out from his coat and run away through the night street, realising he is being chased he starts recording video on his mobile phone.
Miles runs into a mysterious man who suddenly pulls a gun and shoots him three times before catching his body and then flees from the scene. Holly leaves the club to find paramedics outside tending to the shot Miles. A distraught Holly learns that Miles, along with everyone else in the world has stopped dying, no matter what their injuries...no one dies. Holly finds Miles phone and realises he was recording video of his attack. Figuring out the password to his phone, she discovers his conspiracy blog "Watch Your Head" including an article about the miracle, which Miles wrote before the Miracle even began.
2007. Gwen bursts into a shop apologising to the shopkeeper but uses his mains power and Torchwood portable computer software to track Jack. A holographic map shows he's moving at an incredible speed across the world.
2011. With people with more serious injuries (including a man cut in half) not dying, hospitals are in need of more space for the more critical patients. Miles is deemed not critical and sent home with Holly and his best friend Nick. Meanwhile Holly has been studying the footage Miles recorded of his shooting, it appears that there were 3 shots fired but only 2 hit Miles, and after studying the footage carefully the shooters face is seen.
Further study of Miles' phone reveals that Miles knew his shooter as he possesses a picture of them together, and that he hid the shooters phone number in a Sudoku puzzle. When Holly calls the number the shooter arranges to meet them at the Ambassador Hotel High School.
At the high school, while surrounded by "The Soulless" Holly and Nick discuss how death is not the worst part of dying but that the pain and suffering before it, such as Holly's chemotherapy, is. Miles' shooter reveals himself and leads Holly and Nick into a van at gunpoint. Once on the road, he reveals himself to be FBI Agent Joe Bradley, who was working with Miles after he came to the FBI six months ago with evidence that the Miracle was being planned by someone and that he had discovered the key to the Miracle. However, due the nature of the information, no action was taken.
2007. Gwen has discovered Jack is on a plane, and with the help of satellite tracking that he is being flown over Russia. Meanwhile on the plane Jack banters with his mysterious kidnapper, wondering if he's trying to either intimidate or seduce him. When the mysterious man pulls out a gun, Jack points out that if he fired it, the air pressure release caused by the bullets puncturing the hull would kill them both; Jack would come back, but the kidnapper wouldn't. The kidnapper explains it's practice ranger ammo and that it will stay in Jack, before shooting him.
2011. Holly, Joe and Nick are tracked down by the men who tried to grab Miles on the night of his shooting and a car chase ensues. Holly still in possession of Miles laptop hacks into it to discover information implicating Phi-Corp has something to do with the Miracle.
2007. After witnessing Jack's resurrection from being shot with his own eyes, the kidnapper decides to see how much Jack can really survive and throws him from the plane at 30,000ft over Chernobyl. After recovering what parts of Jack's body could be found, Jack comes back to life inside a building at Chernobyl. His kidnapper shows interest in Jack's ablility to survive seemingly anything.
2011. Hacking further into Miles computer, Holly discovers that Miles set his computer to restrict access to 15 seconds at a time and after 3 tries the hard-drive self-destruct, before this happens she discovers holding information about Phi-Corp, documents relating to a flight from the US to Kiev, an "Iron Wheel", satellite photos and plans for medical overflow camps including industrial oven blueprints.
She also discovered four photos with coded letters for each person. S is a mysterious man in an military uniform with the word Torchwood on his photo, R is a red haired woman, Z is a shadowed photo of a blonde man (Jack's kidnapper) and M is an executive man in a suit. Another coded message from Miles reveals that "Only S can die" and also that the secret to the Miracle is to be found on Coney Island.
On the way to Coney Island, Holly realises that when Miles was shot at in crossroad, the third "shot" may have been a camera flash from a speed camera instead of a muzzle flare. Checking the camera's in the area at the time of the shooting reveals that Nick himself fired the shots that hit Miles from a moving car, and the speed camera took his picture as he sped past.
2007. At Chernobyl, Jack's kidnapper has been taking X-Ray's on Jack using an old MRI machine, revealing that while Jack resurrects completely healthy, bullets and shrapnel are still present in his body; he doesn't suffer pain from them remaining inside him. Jack only laughs, "X-rays in Chernobyl; seems redundant."
2011. Arriving at the fairground on Coney Island, Holly restores the power which causes the ferris wheel and one shooting game to become active. Holly reveals to Joe that she knows Nick is the real shooter, just as this happens the people who tried to grab Miles arrive and Nick reveals that along with him they all work for a group who want the secret of immortality for themselves. Knowing that Miles had discovered the location of the key to the Miracle, Nick shot him so Holly would try to track down his shooter and at the same time solve Miles clues to the location of the key.
2007. Gwen has finally tracked down Jack but using the magnets in the MRI machine to pull her gun from her, the kidnapper gains the upper hand on Gwen, using this as a distraction Jack reaches for a scalpel to unlock his handcuffs
2011. Having stolen Joe's gun, Nick forces Holly to play the shooting game to solve the final puzzle to get a see through map to the location of the key. Nick reveals that while he shot Miles he only did so so that he wouldn't give the location of the key to the FBI, if the Miracle was ever in danger the key would give the power to restart it. Holly is still sickened by Nick's actions but he reveals that while people aren't dying things like cancer are no longer an issue, Holly realises how hard a choice Miles had to make, if the Miracle ends, he knew she could end up getting cancer again. Due to inactivity in Miles account Holly receives an automatic email from him explaining the Miracle "begun under Vatican control". Solving the clue that the "Iron Wheel" is a reference to the ferris wheel, they take a ride and Holly discovers that the map points to a specific location in the fairground. Escaping from Nick and his thugs Holly and Joe follow more clues left by Miles and find the key, a giant vat of blood. Nick having followed them reveals that the blood is that of the immortal man, now the worlds only mortal.
2007. Gwen is thrown into a van filled with blood packs containing Jack's blood and the kidnapper returns just in time to stop Jack from reaching the scalpel. However Jack reveals that he wasn't reaching for that but the switch to the MRI machine. Turning on the machine activates the magnets in the machine which rips all the bullets and shrapnel from Jack's body, and fires them through the body of his kidnapper, killing him.
2011. Holly, realising Miles prepared for the discovery of the key in the clue "began under Vatican control" (gun under vat) gains the upper hand shooting Nick's thugs and shooting Nick through the left eye. Holly reveals to Joe that Miles couldn't make the choice if destroying the key was the right idea so he left a laptop computer programmed to be wired into the destruction system for the vat. Realising that even though it means Miles will die from his injuries and that she may get cancer again some day Holly destroys the blood, not before shooting Nick's other eye causing him to fall into the vat and be destroyed in the subsequent explosion.
2007. Gwen finally frees Jack but as she does the same mysterious green gas from the rooftop appears. Jack, realising that it is a retcon gas, says that they must try and remember what happened here, but Gwen says whatever happens they'll deal with it together. As they finally succumb to the gas, three men arrive to take them and the blood in the truck away. Back on the rooftop in Cardiff, Jack states that he feels like they've forgotten something very important. Gwen narrates that they never did remember what happened on that "Missing Day".
2011 Post-End Of Miracle Day Holly pours a glass of wine as Miles enters the room, surprised she's letting him have wine now, Holly says that as the Miracle gave him time to heal she felt like it was about time. Miles jokes that if he got sick again she would be cutting him off from all alcohol and sugars and things bad for him. Holly smiles, saying that she "would think of something". As she puts the wine back in the fridge, a pack of blood is seen at the back, implied to belong to Jack.
Cast
- Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
- Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
- Holly Mokri - Eliza Dushku
- Miles Mokri - Bob Harris
- Paramedic - Andrew Fiscella
- Joe Bradley - TBA
- PhiCorp man - Tom Poole
- Nick - TBA
References
- It is implied that Holly has kept a pack of Jack's blood at the end of Part 10.
- The story establishes that The Families had access to a gas form of retcon in 2007, which results in Gwen and Jack losing their memories of Jack being abducted (although referred to as "Missing Day" the story makes clear that they lose at least a couple of days' worth of memories).
- An element of Jack's immortality is revealed in that bullets and shrapnel remain in his body after it reconstitutes, although at the end of this story he is able to expel much of this material from his body using a strong magnet.
Notes
- The parts of the story involving Torchwood are narrated by Gwen. The parts involving Miracle Day are narrated by Holly.
- At the fair ground a "plush" Police Box can be seen in the prize machine.
- Holly suggests Torchwood might be an anagram and Nick comes up with several possibilities, one of which is "Doctor How". This references the fact Torchwood is an anagram of "Doctor Who".
- It is not an error for Gwen or the kidnapper to be present in Chernobyl without health issues, as by 2007 limited exposure to the region was considered safe. However in the real world both would likely have donned radiation suits.
Continuity
- The Torchwood segments take place in 2007 and Gwen contacts Toshiko Sato, placing this story prior to the events of TV: Fragments / Exit Wounds.
- It is indicated that Jack's body was destroyed in the 30,000-foot fall into Chernobyl but reconstituted itself. This predates Jack's later reconstitution after being blown up in TV: Children of Earth (though it appears that, unlike the later event, his clothes either survive intact or are provided by the kidnapper).
- The reliability of Torchwood's Retcon pill is brought up here. The negative effects caused from using it were shown in TV: They Keep Killing Suzie.
Digital distribution and other releases
- The motion comic element of episode 1 was uploaded to Starz' YouTube channel on 6 July 2011.
- It was released as an iOS app onto the United States iTunes App Store on 7 July 2011[1], it was released onto the Australian iTunes App Store on 16 July 2011, and onto the UK iTunes App Store on 21 July 2011. Each subsequent episode within the app was released a week following the broadcast of Torchwood on television in each specific region.[2]
- An edited version of the motion comic is included with the DVD and Blu-ray releases of Miracle Day. The home video version omits the puzzle-solving aspect of the story.
Footnotes
- ↑ Torchwood: Web of Lies Release Information for iPhone/iPod. GameFAQs (2011). Retrieved on 4th October 2011.
- ↑ Philip Fleming (22.06.2011). BBC Worldwide and Starz announce interactive Digital Companion to Torchwood: Miracle Day. BBC Worldwide Press Releases. Retrieved on 4th October 2011.
