Torchwood Children of Earth Review
My two cents on the whole thing. I waited until the end to give an accurate picture of it all.
Here there be spoilers.
ETA: Also, oddly enough, spoilers for Diary of the Dead, the season four finale of Supernatural and various Whedon shit. Oh and apparently Sunday from SGA. Yeah whatever, I got crazy here.
Let me first start by saying that I love the story/concept.
This whole what would society do in the worst case scenario is a fairly brilliant path to take. The government, making plans and deciding which children were selected and using the whole we'll chose the children in the lower income areas thing, that was completely something that would happen. Everyone would use justifications and loose control of what was really important in these types of situations.
It really reminded me of Diary of the Dead. I mean Gwen's whole spiel to the camera was so Diary of the Dead, trying to record what the fuck was wrong with humanity for the rest of the people out there.
Jack killing his grandson... kind of like the end of Diary of the Dead where people were shooting the zombies for sport.
Well, not exactly, but the point is that humanity sometimes isn't exactly good when faced with dire circumstances and that kind of thing is compelling. I mean my favorite episode of Torchwood is Countrycide and my favorite episode of Supernatural is the one where they have to deal with the crazy country folk trying to hunt Sam. It's something the a lot of shows touch on, but Children of Earth totally just fucking took and ran with.
I mean JOHN FROBISHER! I completely identified with him by the end. And even though it turned out that he killed them for nothing, he really thought that his daughters would be used in such a torturous way. And to know that he did it to them basically through no fault of his own. His life would've been ruined if they had actually let the children go. This was all put upon him by a completely nefarious man. He was a coward and a realistic man and I ended up loving him the most out of everyone in this fucked up series.
It'll probably be an unpopular fannish opinion to say that Jack killing his grandson worked for the plot of the miniseries. Because I really think it did. In the story that they set up for us, it worked.
This does not mean I liked it.
But I guess that's what makes it a good move. It's icky and unbearable and so much torture and I can see the Jack I fell in love with just VANISH before my eyes. Because I loved Jack in season one of Doctor Who. That was the Jack I fell in love with. That Jack did bad things and sort of felt bad about them and tried to just keep a smile on his face and be a cocky son of a bitch. Jack's past in the 51st century is still so unclear, but what I saw of him on DW was what I loved.
And when I moved to Torchwood, and boy I can't believe I moved to Torchwood when I didn't even stay loyal to DW and I fucking LOVE David Tennant, like love him in the way that means he's on my list of celebrities I would want to have sex with... anyway, when I moved to Torchwood, I was intrigued by Jack. And Torchwood Jack was a dick and still had some moments where I saw his old DW self emerge. I fell in love with him a lot more slowly then before, but still loved him. His history was rich and no one ever said that Jack was anything but an anti-hero.
Which was totally fucking highlighted by his move tonight.
Jack fucking does these kinds of things. He sends of 12 kids to probably be murdered by aliens for the good of the population. I mean just look at the reason he joined Torchwood. If he could, he'd be the one to die a thousand deaths to save the Earth as is apparent by the season one finale. But that wasn't what was needed. The world was willing to sacrifice 35 million kids to save the rest of them. Or well, a few government officials were willing to sacrifice 35 million kids to save the rest of the world.
What was needed was one death.
Do I like this, no. But kids were involved and that just made everything even more squicky.
So the story... was fucking brilliant.
BUT!!!
Okay, here's the thing, and my good friend princessbananas said, when you have a veritable world with any number of spin-offs, you cannot just have something happen, something so fucking big as this and not at least like have someone step in.
This type of event. This massive the world is going to end only not quite really but sort of because humanity will just take the hugest fucking blow if 35 million children were just taken away like that for what amounted to drug trade... this kind of thing is the Doctor's territory.
Gwen's little five second speech about the Doctor looking at humanity and being like fuck this I'm going to the 60s... well I supposed to Gwen it makes sense. But to even the most casual Doctor Who fan... yeah, no, not buying that shit.
And UNIT's fucking inaction and they're acting with the government was irky even though I don't really know them that well.
And what about Sarah Jane Smith. Granted I don't know that much about her and I guess that show got cancelled, but season four Doctor Who? The last two episodes... see that was the way things should've gone down.
You can blame it on the budget and you can blame it on the shortness of the season and you can blame in on BBC1 and RTD's need to make Torchwood more mainstreamed, but like whatever you want to blame it on like there should be some blame about this.
Now, RTD and his staff have sort of been plot hole-y all the time, but I was a expecting a few less ones considering this was five episodes and they had FOREVER to write them and film them. I mean the obvious one with Dekker... I mean do you think that telling us that Ianto could have perhaps survived without actually saying it would make us feel better? And they totally did that just so his slippery slimey ass could be there at the end.
And what the fuck, Jack? Your plan was to yell at the aliens that planet Earth was strong and hear us Roar!? That was your fucking plan? That was a pretty shitty plan, man.
And here's where my Ianto loyalty comes through.
Because you know what, all throughout that last episode, I was like um, why is Ianto dead? What purpose is it serving to the plot? Jack didn't go renegade solider after Ianto died. The mention of him was so brief it was like what? I mean I think Owen and Tosh got more mentions in this series post mortem then Ianto.
I guess I'm just super fucking pissed that Ianto's death seemed to just be another extension of the fact that he's a crier emo 'gayboy'. Like he died saying he loved Jack. Like that was his big contribution? Like what the actual flying fuck.
If they wanted to get to the point where Jack would leave, then the fact that he had to kill his grandson in the end would suffice.
The way I see it, they could've done it this way. Ianto lives and he's there with Jack at the end. I think the people would've had caught him before he entered Thames House, you know the chick and her black ops folk and they took him to the warehouse with Jack's family, but don't kill him. It's not exactly well thought out, but I think Ianto being there at the end, watching the guy he's in love with just kill his grandson after realizing that he just doesn't know anything about Jack... I think that would've been hard hitting. Ianto could've been there begging Jack to think of some other way and Jack saying that they don't have time. So much character development for Ianto and for Jack. Because Ianto wouldn't know how to be with Jack after that and Jack would know for sure that he just did not deserve Ianto and the angst could ensue and you wouldn't have to throw away a great character.
It's just a thought that I'm not sure I'm going to develop, but like what the fuck.
People have talked about RTD's weird homosexual issue and I sort of love him for giving us homosexuals on the screen, but if the jabs at Ianto's character being gay is any indication then like I would really rather he hadn't.
And anyone else think Day Five was really forced? All that build up and then you have ten minutes left and they figure out the answer? I mean that's a classic in the scifi genre, but not something Torchwood would regularly pull out of it's ass.
And I get that it's because of the limited episodes, but I'm really starting to think that's a bunch of horse shit.
I think I need to be officially done with this show. I can't imagine where they would go in season four and I really don't want to. I don't exactly like Gwen, though I love Rhys and the Jack now could be interesting, but can anyone really subject themselves to a series involved with his issues? This series was emotionally draining enough.
I hear RTD is leaving. I mean I thought he was supposed to be leaving before now, but I hear he's leaving if there's a season four it's going to have James Moran as the head writer. This would maybe make me happy. RTD, Whedon you are not. Whedon always killed his characters for a reason. You're not even fucking Kripke because at least Kripke knows not to kill his main characters for good and his heroes, while anti-heroes like Jack, are massive in the humanity that they can convince an Angel of the Lord to love humanity- completely with angel's pushing said hero against the wall.
I want to love Children of the Earth. It's completely like Sunday where I love the richness of the story and the character development, but like the unnecessary, stupid killing of a character for some bastard ass edgy plot shit is ridiculous.
I just can't.
And I can't love what they've done to Jack. I sort of like Gwen, but she's still the same Gwen, convincing Jack to stay because of her. That last scene sort of undid any sort of hope I had for Gwen's character.
I think it's a beautiful piece of story telling, too big for Torchwood as they were when the entered it (I would have loved to see this plot play out with Tosh and Owen still around because I think we could've gotten a totally different outcome. I mean Tosh would've figured this shit out and could you imagine Owen's response to all this. His cynical nature having to deal with giving up children.) I just think this was an end. Not the end I was hoping for, but an end and I would just like to leave it like that.
We're done. Not in the Dean way where he's done with Castiel, but SO NOT done with him because wall!sex, but in the way that really means done.
I will safely be in denial of this all.
I open for discussion. I really feel there's more I'm missing that I had wanted to write, but can't think of this close to the end.
The whole thing was just too fucking depressing.
Here there be spoilers.
ETA: Also, oddly enough, spoilers for Diary of the Dead, the season four finale of Supernatural and various Whedon shit. Oh and apparently Sunday from SGA. Yeah whatever, I got crazy here.
Let me first start by saying that I love the story/concept.
This whole what would society do in the worst case scenario is a fairly brilliant path to take. The government, making plans and deciding which children were selected and using the whole we'll chose the children in the lower income areas thing, that was completely something that would happen. Everyone would use justifications and loose control of what was really important in these types of situations.
It really reminded me of Diary of the Dead. I mean Gwen's whole spiel to the camera was so Diary of the Dead, trying to record what the fuck was wrong with humanity for the rest of the people out there.
Jack killing his grandson... kind of like the end of Diary of the Dead where people were shooting the zombies for sport.
Well, not exactly, but the point is that humanity sometimes isn't exactly good when faced with dire circumstances and that kind of thing is compelling. I mean my favorite episode of Torchwood is Countrycide and my favorite episode of Supernatural is the one where they have to deal with the crazy country folk trying to hunt Sam. It's something the a lot of shows touch on, but Children of Earth totally just fucking took and ran with.
I mean JOHN FROBISHER! I completely identified with him by the end. And even though it turned out that he killed them for nothing, he really thought that his daughters would be used in such a torturous way. And to know that he did it to them basically through no fault of his own. His life would've been ruined if they had actually let the children go. This was all put upon him by a completely nefarious man. He was a coward and a realistic man and I ended up loving him the most out of everyone in this fucked up series.
It'll probably be an unpopular fannish opinion to say that Jack killing his grandson worked for the plot of the miniseries. Because I really think it did. In the story that they set up for us, it worked.
This does not mean I liked it.
But I guess that's what makes it a good move. It's icky and unbearable and so much torture and I can see the Jack I fell in love with just VANISH before my eyes. Because I loved Jack in season one of Doctor Who. That was the Jack I fell in love with. That Jack did bad things and sort of felt bad about them and tried to just keep a smile on his face and be a cocky son of a bitch. Jack's past in the 51st century is still so unclear, but what I saw of him on DW was what I loved.
And when I moved to Torchwood, and boy I can't believe I moved to Torchwood when I didn't even stay loyal to DW and I fucking LOVE David Tennant, like love him in the way that means he's on my list of celebrities I would want to have sex with... anyway, when I moved to Torchwood, I was intrigued by Jack. And Torchwood Jack was a dick and still had some moments where I saw his old DW self emerge. I fell in love with him a lot more slowly then before, but still loved him. His history was rich and no one ever said that Jack was anything but an anti-hero.
Which was totally fucking highlighted by his move tonight.
Jack fucking does these kinds of things. He sends of 12 kids to probably be murdered by aliens for the good of the population. I mean just look at the reason he joined Torchwood. If he could, he'd be the one to die a thousand deaths to save the Earth as is apparent by the season one finale. But that wasn't what was needed. The world was willing to sacrifice 35 million kids to save the rest of them. Or well, a few government officials were willing to sacrifice 35 million kids to save the rest of the world.
What was needed was one death.
Do I like this, no. But kids were involved and that just made everything even more squicky.
So the story... was fucking brilliant.
BUT!!!
Okay, here's the thing, and my good friend princessbananas said, when you have a veritable world with any number of spin-offs, you cannot just have something happen, something so fucking big as this and not at least like have someone step in.
This type of event. This massive the world is going to end only not quite really but sort of because humanity will just take the hugest fucking blow if 35 million children were just taken away like that for what amounted to drug trade... this kind of thing is the Doctor's territory.
Gwen's little five second speech about the Doctor looking at humanity and being like fuck this I'm going to the 60s... well I supposed to Gwen it makes sense. But to even the most casual Doctor Who fan... yeah, no, not buying that shit.
And UNIT's fucking inaction and they're acting with the government was irky even though I don't really know them that well.
And what about Sarah Jane Smith. Granted I don't know that much about her and I guess that show got cancelled, but season four Doctor Who? The last two episodes... see that was the way things should've gone down.
You can blame it on the budget and you can blame it on the shortness of the season and you can blame in on BBC1 and RTD's need to make Torchwood more mainstreamed, but like whatever you want to blame it on like there should be some blame about this.
Now, RTD and his staff have sort of been plot hole-y all the time, but I was a expecting a few less ones considering this was five episodes and they had FOREVER to write them and film them. I mean the obvious one with Dekker... I mean do you think that telling us that Ianto could have perhaps survived without actually saying it would make us feel better? And they totally did that just so his slippery slimey ass could be there at the end.
And what the fuck, Jack? Your plan was to yell at the aliens that planet Earth was strong and hear us Roar!? That was your fucking plan? That was a pretty shitty plan, man.
And here's where my Ianto loyalty comes through.
Because you know what, all throughout that last episode, I was like um, why is Ianto dead? What purpose is it serving to the plot? Jack didn't go renegade solider after Ianto died. The mention of him was so brief it was like what? I mean I think Owen and Tosh got more mentions in this series post mortem then Ianto.
I guess I'm just super fucking pissed that Ianto's death seemed to just be another extension of the fact that he's a crier emo 'gayboy'. Like he died saying he loved Jack. Like that was his big contribution? Like what the actual flying fuck.
If they wanted to get to the point where Jack would leave, then the fact that he had to kill his grandson in the end would suffice.
The way I see it, they could've done it this way. Ianto lives and he's there with Jack at the end. I think the people would've had caught him before he entered Thames House, you know the chick and her black ops folk and they took him to the warehouse with Jack's family, but don't kill him. It's not exactly well thought out, but I think Ianto being there at the end, watching the guy he's in love with just kill his grandson after realizing that he just doesn't know anything about Jack... I think that would've been hard hitting. Ianto could've been there begging Jack to think of some other way and Jack saying that they don't have time. So much character development for Ianto and for Jack. Because Ianto wouldn't know how to be with Jack after that and Jack would know for sure that he just did not deserve Ianto and the angst could ensue and you wouldn't have to throw away a great character.
It's just a thought that I'm not sure I'm going to develop, but like what the fuck.
People have talked about RTD's weird homosexual issue and I sort of love him for giving us homosexuals on the screen, but if the jabs at Ianto's character being gay is any indication then like I would really rather he hadn't.
And anyone else think Day Five was really forced? All that build up and then you have ten minutes left and they figure out the answer? I mean that's a classic in the scifi genre, but not something Torchwood would regularly pull out of it's ass.
And I get that it's because of the limited episodes, but I'm really starting to think that's a bunch of horse shit.
I think I need to be officially done with this show. I can't imagine where they would go in season four and I really don't want to. I don't exactly like Gwen, though I love Rhys and the Jack now could be interesting, but can anyone really subject themselves to a series involved with his issues? This series was emotionally draining enough.
I hear RTD is leaving. I mean I thought he was supposed to be leaving before now, but I hear he's leaving if there's a season four it's going to have James Moran as the head writer. This would maybe make me happy. RTD, Whedon you are not. Whedon always killed his characters for a reason. You're not even fucking Kripke because at least Kripke knows not to kill his main characters for good and his heroes, while anti-heroes like Jack, are massive in the humanity that they can convince an Angel of the Lord to love humanity- completely with angel's pushing said hero against the wall.
I want to love Children of the Earth. It's completely like Sunday where I love the richness of the story and the character development, but like the unnecessary, stupid killing of a character for some bastard ass edgy plot shit is ridiculous.
I just can't.
And I can't love what they've done to Jack. I sort of like Gwen, but she's still the same Gwen, convincing Jack to stay because of her. That last scene sort of undid any sort of hope I had for Gwen's character.
I think it's a beautiful piece of story telling, too big for Torchwood as they were when the entered it (I would have loved to see this plot play out with Tosh and Owen still around because I think we could've gotten a totally different outcome. I mean Tosh would've figured this shit out and could you imagine Owen's response to all this. His cynical nature having to deal with giving up children.) I just think this was an end. Not the end I was hoping for, but an end and I would just like to leave it like that.
We're done. Not in the Dean way where he's done with Castiel, but SO NOT done with him because wall!sex, but in the way that really means done.
I will safely be in denial of this all.
I open for discussion. I really feel there's more I'm missing that I had wanted to write, but can't think of this close to the end.
The whole thing was just too fucking depressing.