Torchwood Children of Earth (and a little Francis Crawford, too!)
Children of Earth was absolutely FANTASTIC! It's the best of the Torchwood series yet. I fucking LOVED it!
However, I have to say, I've listened to the hissy fits and whining from a certain group of US fans (folks from the UK seem to "get it"), and shake my head. What a bunch of crazies. RTD hates the fans! RTD is homophobic! RTD can't stand to let the gay couple be happy! Blah blah blah.
The people who are writing crap like that are smoking crack. They have no idea what the show is about. I'd bet 99% of them have never even watched all of RTD's Doctor Who, where Captian Jack made his debut. Most of the whiners probably started watching TW because they heard about John Barrowman and his omnisexual character, which feeds into their obsession with pretty gay men fucking. And they became fixated on "Janto," which was not some Great Love Story, or even a major storyline of the show. Jack and Ianto were into recreational fucking, until RTD played up the relationship for dramatic purposes in COE, with Ianto (annoyingly IMO) suddenly fixated on them being a couple, forcing Jack to think about their relationship, and finally, using Ianto's death as a key factor leading to Jack's complete emotional destruction at the end of the series.
In TW, death is part of the job. Every season has included the deaths of TW team members. The least dramatic was Suzie's death in series 1, which fans and critics agree is uneven and pretty bad at times. However, since it began, death has been a big part of the show, especially for the TW team. And not just for the current team - we've seen that historically, TW employees don't live long. And for more recent history, just look at Ianto himself. Before he even met Jack, he worked for Torchwood One, where of the 823 staff members, only 27 survived, Ianto one of them. Also, according to an interview Gareth David-Lloyd gave, Ianto was originally supposed to die in Series 2, in the "Reset" episode. Instead, the writers decided that having Owen die and do the zombie routine would be more effective. In the meantime, RTD let Jack and Ianto's relationship develop a little more, so Ianto's storyline and death in COE were even more powerful, with an even greater impact on the story, on Jack, and on the viewers.
So, I can't believe all the asshats making stupid comments about RTD ruining the series, hating fans, hating gays, etc. And the "fanatics" making threats against RTD and the other writers (one writer, James Moran, even stopped commenting on his blog because of the crazy fans) should get a grip. They're making fools of themselves.
I hope this isn't the end of TW, although if it is, I can deal with that, because it was a pretty spectacular ending. But if that is the case, I'm pretty sure Captain Jack will show up on Doctor Who.
I loved Gwen's quote about the doctor:
"There was one thing I always meant to ask Jack. Back in the old days, I wanted to know about that Doctor of his. The man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world, except sometimes he doesn't. All those times in history when there was no sign of him I wanted to know, why not? But I don't need to ask anymore, I know the answer now. Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame . . ."
There are definitely parallels with the Doctor - Jack is still learning, as the doctor has learned, that loving humans will break his heart, because they will not be with him forever. And in the cases of Suzie, Owen, Tosh, and especially Ianto, he feels directly and personally responsible for their deaths. Ianto's death, and then making the unbearable decision to kill his own grandson in order to save all the children of the world, are the last straws. Jack can't bear it any longer, and he turns off emotionally. Runs away. Leaves the world and everyone he knows in order to avoid being reminded of the loss and pain he has experienced. And hopefully, time will allow him to come to terms with what and who he is, so he can return. He'll never be the same man he was before, but he will put himself back together and move on.
Some of you have listened to me raving lately about the most incredible series of novels - the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. For several reasons (that I won't explain since some of you are reading, or may read, these wonderful books), Captain Jack's journey in TW, and particularly COE, reminds me of the journey on which she takes her hero, the beautiful, brilliant, talented, prescient, charismatic, and incredibly sexy Francis Crawford of Lymond. I'm not quite through with the books (one more to go), but in discussions about the series, one reader wrote:
"Indeed, as his journey progresses, he loses more and more bits of
himself and becomes alienated from everything -- family, friends,
country and self. The end of his journey is reconciliation with all of
them, including recovering some of those bits of himself he'd jettisoned
for survival along the way. Reintegration of his personality, if we want
to talk in psycho-speak."
I think that's exactly what RTD has done with Jack. I hope we get to see the "reintegrated" Jack, preferably on Series 4 of TW, but if not, as one of the Doctor's travel companions. I think what Jack went through has inevitably strengthened the bonds between the Doctor and Jack, and has started Jack's long, slow, billions-of-years-into-the-future evolution into the wise and wonderful Face of Boe.
So bravo to RTD for giving us the fascinating character of Captain Jack Harkness and his journey in Torchwood!
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