Oswald Danes

Oswald Danes is an antagonist in ''Torchwood: Miracle Day. ''He is a pedophile who is executed for sexually abusing and murdering a little girl, but comes back to life when death mysteriously ceases worldwide.

He is portrayed by Bill Pullman.

in Torchwood
Danes is a former schoolteacher who molested several of the little girls he taught, and eventually killed one of them. He was sentenced to die, but at the moment of his execution, death mysteriously stopped worldwide. His lawyer argues that imprisoning someone who, technically, has already been executed is cruel and unusual punishment, and Danes is released. He becomes the most hated man in the country, until a publicity seeking agent takes him on as a client and gives him an image makeover as a redeemed criminal. Danes expresses remorse for his crimes and claims to have evolved into an angelic being. He is then filmed holding and comforting a baby, which transforms him into a media sensation.

Danes goes on a media tour, at one point stopping in Texas. There, he meets a prostitute who tells him that he is due to be classified as "Category Zero" - criminals who, in the absence of natural death, will be incinerated. Danes flees to Wales, where he arrives at the home of Torchwood agent Gwen Cooper. 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, Gwen's husband and father of their daughter, may kill Danes, she and Jack take him to Shanghai.

Jack 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, the leader of the families, before detonating the explosives and killing them both. With his last words, he states that he will again pursue "bad little girls" in hell.