Oswald Danes is a fictional character in the BBC television programme Torchwood, a spin-off from the long-running series Doctor Who and is portrayed by American actor Bill Pullman. The character was promoted as one of five new main characters to join Torchwood in its fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day (2011), as part of a new co-production between Torchwoods British network, BBC One, and its American financiers on US premium television network Starz. Pullman appears in eight of the ten episodes, and is credited as a series regular. Whilst reaction to the serial and Pullman's character was mixed, Pullman's portrayal was praised by critics and in 2012 he received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor on Television.
Danes is a former schoolteacher who molested several of the little girls he taught, and eventually killed one of them. He was sentenced to death, but on the day of his execution - the so-called Miracle Day, when death ceases worldwide - Danes survives his own lethal injection. His survival draws global attention, and he subsequently is released from prison on a legal technicality. After being offered both exposure and protection by public relations expert Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose), he becomes her client, which helps him gain more publicity. Following a series of events he ends up aiding Torchwood, a team composed of two former alien-hunters and two former CIA agents, on their mission to restore death to the world. Danes is killed off in the final episode of the series; when death is restored he takes one of the Torchwood team's enemies out in a murder–suicide.
Critics commented upon the character's resemblance both to horror film killers such as Freddy Krueger and Hannibal Lecter, as well as to American Evangelists and to the biblical Jesus Christ. The series also follows Danes' rise and fall in the public eye and the precariousness of fame. Though critics questioned the wisdom of having a pedophile as a character, the show's creative team was adamant that they had deliberately made him unlikable. In killing the character off, the creative team did not wish to suggest that the character had been redeemed for his earlier crimes, and made sure that this was emphasised even in his final act of self-sacrifice. Pullman has expressed interest in reprising the role in a future Torchwood series.
Appearances
The first scene of Miracle Day depicts Oswald Danes surviving execution by lethal injection due to death spontaneously ceasing. His lawyers successfully advance a force majeure argument; as a result, the Governor of Kentucky is forced to release Danes on parole. Danes accepts an offer of representation from public relations guru Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose) after his fame leads to him being assaulted in public, leading to him becoming a spokesman for Phicorp, a drug company hoping to capitalise on the absence of death. During Torchwood's investigations into PhiCorp, Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) confronts Danes, who brags about killing his student, calling it "the best moment of my life". Tensions arise between Kitzinger and Danes when he is eclipsed in the media by Tea Party politician Ellis Hartley Monroe (Mare Winningham) and her "Dead is Dead" campaign. Danes launches an ad hoc publicity stunt; a video of Danes holding and comforting a baby girl goes viral and results in Monroe's media attention waning. At the "Miracle Rally" held by PhiCorp in Los Angeles Danes gives an impassioned speech, stating his belief that humanity had evolved into "everlasting angels" and revels in the audience chanting his name.
Danes' brief media career comes to an end in "End of the Road". While at a hotel in Dallas, Texas a prostitute named Claire (Megan M. Duffy) tells him that he is due to be classified as "Category Zero". Kitzinger reveals that this is a ruling that would have convicted criminals like Danes incinerated, and that his 15 minutes of fame are over. Danes smuggles himself into Wales, where he arrives at the home of Torchwood agent Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles). Having stolen Kitzinger's laptop, Danes reveals that she left clues to the location of "the Blessing" in mistranslated news stories from China and Argentina. Fearful that Rhys (Kai Owen), Gwen's husband and father of their daughter, may murder Danes, she and Harkness take him to Shanghai. In "The Blood Line" Harkness straps Danes with explosives and uses him as insurance against his and Gwen's lives as they face the Families, the perpetrators of the 'Miracle'. When death is restored, Danes detains the Mother (Frances Fisher), the leader of the families, before detonating them both. With his last words he states that he will again pursue "bad little girls" in Hell.