'Torchwood: Miracle Day:' It's time for some answers

We're four episodes into "Torchwood: Miracle Day" and while the mystery continues to unfold, it's time for some answers.

We get it, people aren't dying and that's bad, but at some point we need to move past the what and get to the why.

Russell T. Davies has always been the kind of storyteller that backloads plot revelations. However, at a certain point the mystery becomes redundant. It's as if Davied really only had enough story for six or seven episodes but needed an even number so he stretched to 10.

As repetitive as it felt, episode four did have a few fresh moments. Esther showed some character development when she went to visit her unstable sister and had to call child protective services for her niece and nephew.

Unfortunately, the trained CIA analyst didn't remember that shady people were chasing them and led the bad guys right to Torchwood.

Over in the world of Oswald Danes, he found himself competing for soundbites with Sarah Palin clone, Ellis Hartley Monroe. She argued that "dead is dead" and the sick or dead should be segregated from the healthy population.

This became a horrifying reality at a formerly abandoned hospital when it overflowed with the ill. One character called it a modern day plague ship.

Danes got himself back on top by invading the hospital and making a rousing speech about not forgetting the sick, because he's one of them. It's obvious Davies is trying to make a statement about the nature of fame, but it's hard to believe that everyone would just magically forget that this guy is an admitted child murderer because he looks good on a talk show.

Meanwhile, Torchwood keeps going on these elaborate missions to find out more about PhiCor, but somehow seems to know less every week. Every time Esther is sitting at the computer hacking into something, it's hard not to think "Tosh would have figured this out by now."

This week they broke into PhiCor headquarters and were inevitably captured by C. Thomas Howell who got to be creepy for a few minutes before he was shot without serving any purpose.

And about Rex, enough already.

Enough with the pouting about being dead, enough with yelling at Esther for every little thing and enough with the ridiculous gay jokes. You know, when Owen died and came back, he got over it in two episodes and got back to work. You're dead, deal with it.

In the end, the only revelation was that Davies must really not like Sarah Palin, since he had Ellis Hartley Monroe crushed in a car and alive to feel the whole thing.

Davies has promised that episode five will be a game changer that jumpstarts the story. It pretty much has to be, because there's really nothing left to set up. It's time for some answers.