It's Torched, all right
I finished watching Torchwood: Children of Earth last night. I realize that most everybody else has seen it already. I also realize that I watched it somewhat oddly, since I watched episodes 2 and 3 in one night, then had to wait five days before I could watch 4 and 5 in the same night. And that's about as much as I can say without spoiling, so...
I was underwhelmed. I really liked Day 1, but it just seemed to go downhill from there. My suspension of disbelief shattered on Day 4, so I was pretty much "eh" from that point on.
Let's get the plot holes out of the way early and move on: If the 456 get high from snortin' kiddies, why can't we just synthesize whatever chemicals they want and give 'em those? For that matter, why can't the aliens do the same? And if the aliens can control kids' motor functions (enough to make them stop, speak, and point), why can't they just direct the kids to the collection points themselves? In fact, if they're thinking at all, they could probably snatch plenty of kids surreptitiously, over a longer period of time, without getting the planet in an uproar. But those are just Fridge Logic, which didn't really bug me at the time.
As I said, I very much enjoyed Day 1. I totally thought that Rupesh Patanjali and Lois Habiba were being set up as replacements for Owen and Tosh, and I enjoyed having the rug pulled out from under me that way. The children were suitable creepy, even if "aliens talking through kids" is pretty much bog-standard Doctor Who. I thought that the production values and the direction were a definite step up, quite obviously BBC1. "Torchwood the way it always wanted to be" was my impression.
Unfortunately, for the next couple of days after that, it was mostly "Torchwood the way it always is." Torchies run around without a plan. Torchies worry about their personal lives. Torchies watch video monitors. Torchies declare their eternal loyalty to Jack. Entombing Jack in concrete was interesting, in that somebody finally thought to do it...I've been waiting for someone to pull that trick. The escape scene, unfortunately, didn't live up to the setup. Once the "Hub 2" was set up, the whole episode seemed to focus on sitting around watching video through Lois's fancy contacts.
Day 4 was where it all fell apart for me. Reading reactions from around the web, it looks like I'm the one who's in the wrong here, but I simply couldn't believe that the British government, or any government, would even discuss the idea of turning over several hundred million children to a bunch of aliens, to be used as drugs. I can't imagine any response other than a resounding "Hell no! If you want our kids, you'll have to go through every last breathing human on this planet to get them." It was presented as a numbers game, and that's why the politicians could make that decision, but I can't believe that nobody in that room would stand up and say, "This isn't right; we can't even consider this." Suspension of disbelief, completely shattered. After that, I kept shrugging and throwing up my hands. UNIT's going along with this plan? OK. Every other country in the world is handing over their kids too? Fine. And all the soldiers are just rounding up kids with none of them questioning their orders? Cool. None of those teachers or parents is willing to lie down in front of a bus to save their kids from being carted off? All righty, then. So the episode that everybody thought was so gripping and intense, worthy of Battlestar Galactica, was completely flat for me.
But Word Geek, the aliens were going to wipe out the entire planet if we didn't hand over the kids! It's a horrible decision, but against the fate of the whole world, surely the politicians had no choice? Oh, sez who? What evidence did we have that these aliens were as amazingly deadly as they said they were? They killed a building full of people with a virus. Whoopee. A virus, for Pete's sake, that left plenty of time for people to run to the doors and bang on them, and for Mr. Dekker to get into a hazmat suit. Hell, if the building didn't have ultra-secure lockdown features, all those folks would've gotten out. I mean, virus? That's your big threat? We can handle viruses. And their ship is invisible...oooh, spooky. Heck, for all we know, the ship is the size of a pickup truck, and that one alien in the glass box is the only one here. These folks rolled over way too easy. Even setting aside what real-world governments would do, this is the Doctor Who version of Earth...these governments can handle aliens. You think Harriet Jones would have caved like that? She didn't bow down to the Sycorax; she's not about to give in to some vomiting alien in a box.
And that brings us to what Jack did on Friday. Again, not buying it. Not for a heartbeat. Yes, Jack has done things he's not proud of. Yes, Jack sacrificed children in 1965. Deliberately murdering his own grandson? Not a chance. Not even to save the world. Not because that's not something a hero would do; it's not something a human would do. I'll need time to be sure, but I think the character is irretrievably broken for me now. I can't see the Doctor forgiving him for that. Yes, the Doctor sacrificed his own planet to stop the Daleks, but it was a planet that had cast him out, a people he loved despite the fact that they no longer loved him. His family was gone by then. Put a gun to Susan's head in order to save the world? He couldn't do it. And hey, how about that time he had the choice to sacrifice the Earth to stop the Daleks, and he backed off? Gosh, if only Jack had been there to see that...oh, wait, he was! And he agreed with the Doctor at the time! So...not buying it.
Under the weight of all that, the series as a whole did pretty much nothing for me. Which was a shame, because it started out well, and could have been the best series of Torchwood ever. As it is, I just hope it's the final Torchwood, because I don't want to see Jack again after this.
I was underwhelmed. I really liked Day 1, but it just seemed to go downhill from there. My suspension of disbelief shattered on Day 4, so I was pretty much "eh" from that point on.
Let's get the plot holes out of the way early and move on: If the 456 get high from snortin' kiddies, why can't we just synthesize whatever chemicals they want and give 'em those? For that matter, why can't the aliens do the same? And if the aliens can control kids' motor functions (enough to make them stop, speak, and point), why can't they just direct the kids to the collection points themselves? In fact, if they're thinking at all, they could probably snatch plenty of kids surreptitiously, over a longer period of time, without getting the planet in an uproar. But those are just Fridge Logic, which didn't really bug me at the time.
As I said, I very much enjoyed Day 1. I totally thought that Rupesh Patanjali and Lois Habiba were being set up as replacements for Owen and Tosh, and I enjoyed having the rug pulled out from under me that way. The children were suitable creepy, even if "aliens talking through kids" is pretty much bog-standard Doctor Who. I thought that the production values and the direction were a definite step up, quite obviously BBC1. "Torchwood the way it always wanted to be" was my impression.
Unfortunately, for the next couple of days after that, it was mostly "Torchwood the way it always is." Torchies run around without a plan. Torchies worry about their personal lives. Torchies watch video monitors. Torchies declare their eternal loyalty to Jack. Entombing Jack in concrete was interesting, in that somebody finally thought to do it...I've been waiting for someone to pull that trick. The escape scene, unfortunately, didn't live up to the setup. Once the "Hub 2" was set up, the whole episode seemed to focus on sitting around watching video through Lois's fancy contacts.
Day 4 was where it all fell apart for me. Reading reactions from around the web, it looks like I'm the one who's in the wrong here, but I simply couldn't believe that the British government, or any government, would even discuss the idea of turning over several hundred million children to a bunch of aliens, to be used as drugs. I can't imagine any response other than a resounding "Hell no! If you want our kids, you'll have to go through every last breathing human on this planet to get them." It was presented as a numbers game, and that's why the politicians could make that decision, but I can't believe that nobody in that room would stand up and say, "This isn't right; we can't even consider this." Suspension of disbelief, completely shattered. After that, I kept shrugging and throwing up my hands. UNIT's going along with this plan? OK. Every other country in the world is handing over their kids too? Fine. And all the soldiers are just rounding up kids with none of them questioning their orders? Cool. None of those teachers or parents is willing to lie down in front of a bus to save their kids from being carted off? All righty, then. So the episode that everybody thought was so gripping and intense, worthy of Battlestar Galactica, was completely flat for me.
But Word Geek, the aliens were going to wipe out the entire planet if we didn't hand over the kids! It's a horrible decision, but against the fate of the whole world, surely the politicians had no choice? Oh, sez who? What evidence did we have that these aliens were as amazingly deadly as they said they were? They killed a building full of people with a virus. Whoopee. A virus, for Pete's sake, that left plenty of time for people to run to the doors and bang on them, and for Mr. Dekker to get into a hazmat suit. Hell, if the building didn't have ultra-secure lockdown features, all those folks would've gotten out. I mean, virus? That's your big threat? We can handle viruses. And their ship is invisible...oooh, spooky. Heck, for all we know, the ship is the size of a pickup truck, and that one alien in the glass box is the only one here. These folks rolled over way too easy. Even setting aside what real-world governments would do, this is the Doctor Who version of Earth...these governments can handle aliens. You think Harriet Jones would have caved like that? She didn't bow down to the Sycorax; she's not about to give in to some vomiting alien in a box.
And that brings us to what Jack did on Friday. Again, not buying it. Not for a heartbeat. Yes, Jack has done things he's not proud of. Yes, Jack sacrificed children in 1965. Deliberately murdering his own grandson? Not a chance. Not even to save the world. Not because that's not something a hero would do; it's not something a human would do. I'll need time to be sure, but I think the character is irretrievably broken for me now. I can't see the Doctor forgiving him for that. Yes, the Doctor sacrificed his own planet to stop the Daleks, but it was a planet that had cast him out, a people he loved despite the fact that they no longer loved him. His family was gone by then. Put a gun to Susan's head in order to save the world? He couldn't do it. And hey, how about that time he had the choice to sacrifice the Earth to stop the Daleks, and he backed off? Gosh, if only Jack had been there to see that...oh, wait, he was! And he agreed with the Doctor at the time! So...not buying it.
Under the weight of all that, the series as a whole did pretty much nothing for me. Which was a shame, because it started out well, and could have been the best series of Torchwood ever. As it is, I just hope it's the final Torchwood, because I don't want to see Jack again after this.