Torchwood (TV Series) Children of Earth: Day Five (2009) User Reviews

what a series!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wlowe280375 · 10/10 · 11 July 2009]

Seriously now...... I have been following the first 2 series of Torchwood and thought they deserved 6 - 7 / 10 depending on the episodes.

This series Children of Earth was in a league of its own.......truly! I am shocked by how good this was. It was full of suspense, series and i mean series character losses, unpredictable and eventually shocking! I rate this 10 out of 10, the acting was superb and its actually one of the best things i have watched on TV this year so far (along with dollhouse but thats another story!) Now all of this said, this is MY opinion so i know some people will say this was a let down, but in my eyes i thought it was fantastic and highly recommended even if you are not a sci fi fan......... its more drama then monsters !!!

Torchwood: Children Of The Earth Is Fantastic!

[urdivine · 10/10 · 20 July 2009]

After 58 years of watching television. 13+ years on the internet. This is my first comment for any TV show.

A previous commenter is right. This was really good. Great drama and not too many special effects which we Americans are obsessed with. Plus our imagination is all that is needed for some parts of the show. If you know what I mean for those that have seen it.

Five episodes was perfect for this story also. I cannot imagine this being as good if is was only a typical 12o minute movie or the ridiculous 24 episode seasons that we have.

I just thank God for the internet, otherwise I would never be able to see this, Hope Springs, The Office - UK version, Hotel Babylon and others.

Is this the Swan Song? I certainly hope not.

[ChrisQ · 9/10 · 13 July 2009]

This 5 hour epic is a very difficult production to judge impartially.

I can truthfully say I sat on the edge of my seat throughout - unable to second-guess much of what was to come and that is a strange admission from a mature adult. Perhaps I could have guessed if I hadn't been quite so immersed in the story.

Of course everyone could pick holes in a fantasy drama. Why would the Secret Service employ a temporary secretary? Why wasn't the MI5 actions explained in complete detail? Would the Prime Minister really treat his senior staff in such a manner? The sheer scale of the production and the phenomenal acting and brilliant direction made any such niggles totally trivial.

So for those people who have never seen Torchwood - this can be taken as an unconditional recommendation.

However for those who have followed Series 1 and 2 - there is a big problem.

Torchwood has always been high on humour. The last episode of Series 2 and the whole of Series 3 is harrowing in the extreme. Few, if any lines, could raise a chuckle. Most of the narrative was far from funny while a grim despair pervaded the story.

It is hard to believe the BBC has any intention of continuing Torchwood after this - which might account for some of John Barrowman's comments in interviews. I hope I am wrong because it has gone from strength to strength - both in terms of writing and acting - but I fear it might be following "Firefly" into oblivion.

All credit must go to the writer/producer Russell T Davies, the fantastic main cast, the brilliant supporting actors and everybody associated with the show. This was a production to be proud of.

Utterly horrifying in the best possible way

[db-72205 · 10/10 · 1 May 2021]

One of the darkest most hopeless pieces of television I have ever watched also happens to be one of the best written, acted, directed and produced things I have seen in a long time. This rips your heart out and stamps on it as you see just how cruel humanity can really be. Stunningly good sci-fi and saying more about our society than a great deal many other wanna be deep programmes ever could.

wow! (first emotional response)

[Kosinus · 9/10 · 11 July 2009]

...can't decide on my vote yet... I never give 10, maybe I should reconsider... I terms of emotional response: I only had similarly strong responses to bab-5 and Buffy (sorry, if you hate this comparison...) without giving away too much: Russel T. Davis does what needs to be done to serve the story, the characters and the drama. Therefor I would like to put him in one line along with Joss Whedon and J. Michael Straczynski. This time he did not make the same, IMHO, mistake he did with the doctor. He did not just re-arrange his favorite motives and concepts and characters; with this season he wrote a nice story, that caught, at least me, perfectly. In one flow...

Oh my goodness

[jeremytongpao-67212 · 10/10 · 2 November 2020]

This season of Torchwood is simply one of the bests seasons of television I've seen. The story is amazing. The aliens are terrifying. The writing is brilliant. The fact that the aliens want the children purely to get high is devastating, and one of the most interesting concepts in Torchwood ever.

Torchwood, squared

[LaFeeChartreuse · 9/10 · 5 September 2009]

This review is of Children of Earth as a whole than Day Five in particular, because the mini-season was basically one continuous story, so it's hard to judge the individual episodes separately.

Having just finished watching it, I'm feeling really shell-shocked - it's easily on a par with some of the most harrowing and emotionally intense episodes Torchwood's ever had, and probably some of the most intense and gripping television ever made. Many of the performances, both from Torchwood regulars and from newcomers, were brilliant, and it never shied away from dealing with disturbing issues and impossible moral quandaries.

If this ends up being the final season of Torchwood, it will certainly have gone out with a bang. Though the latest news pieces I've seen have said that a season four is in the works, so who knows...

And yet, while in many respects it epitomized some of the best things about Torchwood, it also really showcased some of the series's flaws. As much as I dearly love Torchwood, it's not perfect, and Children of Earth is, in many ways, like Torchwood squared: both the good and bad aspects of the series are magnified.

The biggest weakness, on the whole, is that logic too often takes a back seat to emotion. Maybe this is to be expected in a science fiction series that's fundamentally more character-driven than science-driven, but it would be really nice if things made a LITTLE bit more sense sometimes... SF always requires some suspension of disbelief, but in Torchwood's case the plot holes and fractured logic require more of it than the alien technology.

Listing everything that made me think "Wait... WHAT?" would be too long, and would also detract from the fact that otherwise I thought it was extremely well done (which is why I can put up with Torchwood's flaws in general). But a few of the standouts: Jack's actions in episode 4 - saying no to aliens who have already shown that they can concoct viruses deadly to humans, without no backup plan and apparently no expectation of consequences - was completely insane. What exactly did he think was going to happen? And the government's means of implementing their plan was equally nonsensical: convince people it's a perfectly safe inoculation program, and then send truckloads of heavily armed soldiers into the schools? Yeah, that's going to go over well...

Another problem is that, while I understand that Torchwood's been positioned as darker than Doctor Who, it seems like they've painted themselves into a corner by setting such a high level of intensity that they have to constantly find new horrible things to do to central characters just to keep up the standard. Killing two main characters at the end of season two was a hard act to follow, and killing yet another in the SECOND-last episode of this season made me wonder just how they were going to manage to top that in the finale, short of actually wiping out earth or something. Well, they managed it - but it came across as almost gratuitous. You could almost hear the writers in the background going "Oh god, now what? We can't kill ALL the main characters... Oh, I know! How about a kid? THAT'll do it!" I've got nothing against emotional intensity or disturbing subject matter - far from it! I thought Frobisher's final actions were perfect. Horrifically disturbing and tragic, yes, but completely real and believable for that character. Jack's "sacrifice", not so much. Yes, it was framed as the only way of saving millions of children, and maybe if it had been handled differently it would have worked better. If he'd had to talk to Steven and tell him what was going to have to happen, and Steven actually said yes, it would have if anything been MORE emotional, and it would have fit the characters better. As it was, he didn't even seem to think about it very hard, and the whole thing just felt contrived.

Maybe that's also partly John Barrowman's limitations as an actor. He's very good at playing a particular sort of role - the original Doctor Who Jack epitomized that. But the character has grown beyond Barrowman's strengths, because he really doesn't do intense emotion very well. In some ways that almost works, because Torchwood's Jack is 250 years older than Doctor Who's Jack was, and has seen enough loved ones die that it's understandable he'd be a bit emotionally hardened, but it really lessens the impact of scenes like that one, and even Ianto's death, although that was handled better than Steven's.

However, overall I'd still give the season a 9 out of 10, and there were many elements to it that I absolutely loved. Eve Myles and Gareth David-Lloyd were both phenomenal, as were many of the actors who only came in for this season, such as Peter Capaldi, Lucy Cohu, and, in the final episode, Liz May Brice and Susan Brown, who both showed their characters to be much more complex and interesting than they first appeared. And one of the things I most loved was that it showed ordinary people as capable of doing heroic things: Lois, Rhys, Alice, Ianto's family, PC Andy and others showed themselves capable of unexpected courage and conscience. That's one of the things that most distinguishes Torchwood from Doctor Who - that it's mostly about relatively ordinary people. Not a 900-year-old alien swooping in to save humanity, but about ordinary people coping with the extraordinary. That's part of what makes it so inspiring.

In closing, I do hope Torchwood continues for another season (though if so I really hope they can break the "OK, what can we do that's even more horrifying than everything we did last time?" pattern), but if it doesn't, this season will have been a very fitting end to it, epitomizing all that's both good and bad about Torchwood.

Captain Jack Come Back Rested!!!

[forrestmac · 9/10 · 25 July 2009]

It is now time for Captain Jack to visit the Doctor and get re-energized. He will find his purpose and return to earth and reorganize Torchwood with Gwen. What a great series!!! It is no wonder why 6 million viewers in the UK watched it. It is now time for the US to get on board the Torchwood train!

The challenge with the series is that we fall in love with the characters who are killed too quickly. I hope the BBC pays attention to the viewer-ship and rewards Captain Jack with another series. We do need more 13 episode seasons and have the mini-series as a reward for continued support of the series.

Wow is this the End of Torchwood...

[glenstff · 10/10 · 15 July 2009]

This Torchwood Mini series, was very interesting and exciting. Well worth the time of watching. It does wrap the series so much, I feel the series as we know it is over for good. I guess Mr Burrowman, did not wish to continue with working on Torchwood. I don't want to give anything away, it was so good. If you are a Torchwoood fan you will love it and hate it. LOL. This is great Sci Fi for Television and the SyFy (Sci Fi) channel should take note of Good Science Fiction for once. Undoubtablely the best Sci Fi out there, Torchwood, never fails to entertain and uses great imagination and creativity. I give good props to the writers and the whole look of the series, is awesome. Children of the World, is a great work and will stand the test of time. I do give it a 10. Enjoy....

I'm genuinely surprised by how good it was – took three seasons but Torchwood delivered on the promises

[bob the moo · 19 October 2009]

It is a normal morning in the UK when every child in the world suddenly freezes. It happens again later but they time they all chant in unison "we are coming". There is no obvious reason for this happening but of course it seems like a case for Torchwood. Problem is that, just as the world needs them most, someone appears to be targeting them with lethal force. Meanwhile, at the Home Office, new PA Lois Habiba cannot help but pick up on the dark tone to the work of her boss John Frobisher and tries to work out which side she should really be on.

Torchwood has always been a weird creation – with characters from what is essentially a Saturday evening family show it seems like it should be for children but yet season 1 contained endless sexual trysts and violence which seemed aimed at adults despite having content (characters, plots) that adults would see as silly. It was, to all intents and purposes, a mess. Season 2 made some key improvements and became a show that I actually enjoyed and appreciated, despite it not being brilliant. So it took this third (and probably final) "season" to be the moment where the show finally hits upon the grownup sci-fi that it had been promising us from the very start. Gone totally are the pointless moments of sexual and violent excess, as are the soapy sub-plots and what is left is a story that owes a debt to the more cerebral sci-fi of Quatermass and the BBC.

Of course, before I upset Theo Robertson by evoking that name as a comparison (as opposed to a contrast), it must be pointed out that Children of Earth does have plenty of action and movement but for my money it puts that on top of a plot that has less to do with monsters flying round all over the place and more to do with the "monsters" inside humanity and the decisions that must be made "in the greater good". It doesn't really work the moral questions but it makes them a very strong base to what is a very urgent and engaging story. The decision to screen it over five consecutive nights pays off because it does hook and, although I more or less watched it in one sitting, I always wanted to watch the next episode and I know from press coverage that the viewing figures were very good.

The children being central is a bit derivative of other things but we all know children are creepy at the best of times and it uses that well. The darkness and the morality is played out much better than it has been in the previous seasons and it builds really well giving me genuine chills throughout. The "Britishness" of the whole thing is still there in the accents, unglamorous characters, flabby bodies, small estates and, at times, a limit in scale to front rooms and such. However it does not feel like a limiting factor here but rather just part of it. This is down to the material because it prevents it feeling quaint and "oh look at the Brits trying to do a big sci-fi thing". This is also seen in some of the casting – for example I didn't think that Capaldi would be able to shake off Malcolm Tucker but he did and after the first few scenes I had put it out of my mind completely. Speaking of the cast, everyone does well with the material. Barrowman may have started as a pantomime character but he gets it right here – a tragic figure who himself has resided over unpalatable decisions and it works. Myles is a lot less annoying than before, mainly because her material has less of the soap-opera about it. David-Lloyd is good, although I wasn't overly taken by Owen's increased screen time as her husband. Cush Jumbo plays the innocent insider really well although I'll be honest and say that her sheer cuteness made me remember her among the many other very good supporting cast – particularly those shifting and debating at the table of power.

Children of Earth has its faults and I'm sure that my enjoyment of it was enhanced by how low my expectations were following what had gone before from it, however it is a very strong, engaging and dark sci-fi miniseries. It is what the show always should have been and it has the darkness and sci-fi content that the strongest episodes of the new Who have had. Although there is some stuff it would be better to know, skip seasons 1&2 and watch this – it is surprisingly good.

Ultimate sacrifice.

[maslettnet · 10/10 · 13 July 2009]

Disclaimer - this is my mother's idea !(Allie Burgess / nee Alveena Reid)

I was discussing the latest episode of Torchwood with my mum (as you do) and she came up with these comments - I thought I'd share them with you as no one else has seemed to have picked up on this possible analogy...

Is this a modern day version of the ultimate sacrifice? Are there are similarities between Torchwood sacrificing his grandson to save humanity and God sacrificing his son, Jesus to save humanity (as in the Bible)? Also, Torchwood is infinite (and can't die) as is (supposedly) God. Was this intended to be a modern parallel of God saving his only son to save the world?

Phew - that was heavy! Was a great episode.

Enjoyable but highly flawed

[r-a-johnston · 7/10 · 25 July 2009]

I saved up all these episodes and watched them one lazy day. It was an enjoyable interlude but the writing has become very slapdash. Torchwood intends to be an adult drama and needs to written that way. Naturally, in this sort of drama we need to suspend disbelief to make it work. However, for me there was too much asked of the viewer.

1. OK, Martha -and their direct line to UNIT - is on honeymoon, but she takes her mobile phone with her, and when this sort of thing is happening all around the world she would answer it.

2. Torchwood really has no contingency plans at all? Come one. No safe houses, no spare identities, no credit cards, no bank accounts? Just too far fetched. Ianto can't even acquire some clean clothes? Let's wander around looking conspicuous when everyone is looking for us.

3. I cannot really understand why Gwen's husband does not broadcast the tapes rather than just come in when she calls. Given they were busy calling Ianto's relatives to warn them about not sending the children to school, why not warn everyone? The selective warning surely made them as bad as the cabinet office? Also, why would they allow Jack to be taken into custody at this stage?

4. Having selected particular schools to ship the children off to the aliens it does not make sense to choose 'exactly' the correct number. You would give yourself a margin of error. Indeed, even if the target schools do not yield the required numbers then you choose additional schools - you don't send armed troops into housing estates. It would take too long to achieve, aside from all the other logistical problems. If this was simply a plot device for the fight on the welsh estate with the soldiers then it was a poor one. Those scenes felt so weak and under produced.

5. The cabinet office conversation about which children to send was convincing, but was unwilling to go the final stage. As morally objectionable as it would (and should) be, where was the conversation about sending dying children, children with mental disabilities, children with multiple criminal convictions? This would have been a more disturbing plot element given that such an approach is equally reprehensible but may seem easier to swallow than sending ordinary children and so should disturb our sense of propriety even more. (Of course, the required numbers mean more than just these categories of children, but even so..)

6. In addition to above point, why no talk of a carbon offsetting style of approach? With all the talk about buying up poorer countries' carbon production allowances then why would we not propose buying their children too? How is that for disturbing and topical?

7. (Very minor point.) Shooting Mr Dekker in the leg just seemed spiteful. Amongst a cast of highly objectionable people he was only a minor unpleasant character.

Other issues; a lot of different themes are brought into play, the danger of negotiating with de facto terrorists, trafficking in drugs, value placed on children versus child mortality rates. All good ideas to introduce, but never really developed properly. Often felt a bit like a sixth form debating class approach.

One idea that Davies seems to like (used in Dr Who also) is this notion of USA taking over the British government because we have transgressed some secret international agreement. It never feels believable to me. It was hard enough to take control of Iraq it's not going to be easy here. If his real meaning is that we connive with the Americans to do things which are questionable then he could be correct. However, let's at least take full responsibility for our contribution to those enterprises. We might be too easily persuaded by 'a bigger boy' but let's not pretend they have a gun to our head.

Overall: If you like "dr who' style shows then you will probably enjoy this, I did. However, it so easily could have been much better.

Beyond the pale

[sarastro7 · 2/10 · 12 July 2009]

No, no, no.

This five-parter started out with some promise, but as it progressed it just went down the drain. Let me explain.

1) First, Torchwood is destroyed and they try to kill Jack. Why, exactly? No explanation. I wait and wait through five episodes for an explanation, gradually realizing that they're not gonna give one! Apparently, they think that the thing with the blank page is explanation enough. How does the blank page even work? Why did they implement a protocol to wipe out Torchwood when Torchwood were the experts needed for this exact kind of emergency? No explanation. And who exactly was the task force that took them out? They weren't UNIT. No explanation. Oh, but there is one explanation: Contrived Plot Point. Meant to throw a spanner in the works so the resolution wouldn't come as easily. This is called bad writing.

2) Second, the aliens are not believable. Their technology, I mean. If they want the children, why don't they just take them? If they can control every child on Earth, surely they have the technology to circumvent and supersede any action the earthlings might be capable of. It's silly. Add to that, no Earth government would sign over hundreds of thousands of children without the aliens having given them a far, FAR greater show of force, like devastating half a continent or something similarly severe. To just cooperate with insane demands like this is ridiculous. No one would do that. Not even slimy, evil, self-serving, scum-sucking politicians. Again, Contrived Plot Point.

3) Third, why do the aliens particularly need children? What can they get from children that they can't get from adults? Never any explanation. Yes, it's Yet Another Contrived Plot Point.

4) Fourth, extreme emotional pornography. The British tend to be very good at having high-level emotional content in their TV shows. It has worked well in the new Doctor Who series on many occasions. But by the fifth episode of Torchwood season three, it's just gone way, way beyond the pale. It's not enough to have children possessed, and aliens demanding ten percent of the world's children. Oh no, they also have to make urban war over the rounding up of the children, AND make the aliens use the kids as drugs - which is just so off-the-scale outlandish that it can only be comical - AND have Mr. Frobisher kill his entire family in vain (since, of course, the ten percent were saved in the end). This alone would be going way to far, but even this is not enough, oh no, we ALSO have to have Jack forcing himself to sacrifice his own grand-son on top of everything else. If the story doesn't work; if the plot is as contrived a it is here, then it is IMPOSSIBLE for any critical member of the audience to be as emotionally engaged in these events as the writers obviously intended. Impossible. It just is Too Far Out.

So I rate this entire storyline a 2 out of 10. It is offensively bad but does have bits of entertainment value here and there. What a pity for the actors, who're doing the same good job that we have come to expect from serious British TV shows.

I will eventually buy Season 1 and 2 on DVD, but this final five-parter? You can forget it.

Although I think the shows have had a distinct above-average standard of quality and generally been very enjoyable sci-fi, I find myself happy that this is the last of Mr. Davies' work on the Doctor Who-related franchise.

Nigel Kneale Did It Better 30 years Ago

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 18 July 2009]

I wasn't holding out much hope for TORCHWOOD:CHILDREN OF EARTH . Series one involved some of the worst car crash TV it was possible to produce and while series two was an improvement it's only an improvement in the same way Joe Stalin is an improvement over Adolph Hitler . COE does try to continue the improvement . It works well but there are reservations

First of all the basic premise has been stolen from Nigel Kneale's 1979 QUATERMASS serial in that aliens who have previously visited the Earth have returned again to harvest the planet's youth . Neale is an infinitely superior writer to RTD and unfortunately if you like Kneale's slow burn philosophical type of high concept writing you won't like the comic book high concept writing of Rusty and vice versa

There's other flaws with the writing and that is that it's still a TORCHWOOD series . Certainly a different and much improved TORCHWOOD but still fundamentally TORCHWOOD . This means lots of running around and more action you can shake a stick at , so much so that most of the first two episodes could be trimmed down to 25 minutes and there'd be no sensation that there's any plot missing .

There's also a problem with having the regular cast in a darker series and that is they're probably not up to it . John Barrowman is unfortunately John Barrowman and no matter how well he's written he's always going to be camp and cheesy Captain Jack in whatever he does , while Eve Myles is easy on the eye and murder on the ears as she screeches in her overdone Welsh brogue . Hardly surprising they're acted off screen by the guest cast with a great performance by Peter Capaldi as John Frobisher

The aliens called " 456 " owe more to DOCTOR WHO rather Nigel Kneale in that they're able to communicate with the human race . Personally I would have preferred it if they were more enigmatic . There's also a lack of internal logic to them in that they can take over the world's population of children but need the governments' of the world to round up 10% of the children in order to use them as drugs . As you might expect from RTD the aliens are a bit too easily defeated

All in all COE is an attempt to improve a show that is beyond improving . I guess RTD deserves some credit for doing so . My own problem is that too many people have praised as a masterwork of telefansatasy where as my own opinion without being prejudiced by others would have been " Hmmm an okay SF drama that is a massive improvement within its own reality but not on a par with the classics of its genre "

Better than before - but that's not saying much...

[sunnysammy · 2/10 · 26 July 2009]

Well I finally got round to watching "Torchwood: Children of Earth" after having read in so many places what a vast improvement it was on the abortions that were the first two series.

And OK, it was better, but to be honest, that really wasn't very hard considering what it was like before.

What was really clear was that Russell T Davies was obviously far more interested in writing for Peter Capaldi than he was in any of the Torchwood crew. Also astonishing how sidelined John Barrowman was for most of it: either "dead" or locked up for whole episodes. Never mind him complaining that Torchwood has been punished by being cut down from 13 to 5 eps, I'm surprised the ego on legs wasn't whinging about the fact that he was hardly in it! Talk about a tacit admission from Davies that his star isn't up to it...

It did amuse me how fat John Barrowman and Gareth David Lloyd look though - about six chins between them - and all the stuff about his daughter looking older than him. What?! He looks exactly like what he is: an over-botoxed, overweight forty year old with dyed hair.

Capaldi on the other hand was brilliant, but I'm very tired of Davies' standard "all politicians are corrupt" schlock. It's so basic and crude. Sure some of them are, but it's become very tedious how none of them have apparently ANY morals at all. Some very clunky dialogue really hammered home the less than subtle points he was trying to make.

A lot of the repetitious stuff from "Who" was on display, including Murray Gold on autopilot with that sub-operatic wailing on the soundtrack playing over slo-mo footage to try and convince us that the drama was moving and horrifying.

So it was an improvement, I guess, but if you can only manage that by sidelining your lead character, it kind of tells me that the show is fundamentally flawed. And there was an awful lot of padding. The story was stretched so thin to cover 5 hours. It seemed to go on forever: and that scene with the contact lenses was (as in "Midnight") an another example of mistaking saying everything twice for dramatic tension.

And I still loathe the fact that Doctor Who is tainted by a show that feels so sleazy, and cringed when Gwen had that speech about him (which they had the nerve to show twice.) Nevertheless, it seems to have conned a lot of people into thinking it was fabulous, thought-provoking drama. Just seemed to be an awful lot more of the same Davies smugness to me though.

Oh, I did laugh when Jack's grandson was being shaken till his nose bled. That bit was funny.

The more I think about, the less sense it makes.

[hijosderoddaria · 4/10 · 5 May 2011]

Some people already addressed the biggest problems (I find Sarastro's critic to be very accurate), but after suffering the last two episodes I had to add something, if only to release my conscience of having said to my wife: "I saw the first chapter and it's much better than what came before... it actually seems to be amazing!".

That opening was really strong, I have to give them that, but the rollercoster of nonsense that came after made me think I was watching "Smallville on crack".

There is no justification whatsoever to what the governments do. I'm all for anti-government stories, specially if they involve the US, but we have two of the most powerful guys on the planet sending millions of children to death because of a ROOM.FULL.OF.SMOKE. We are talking about the same "Universe" that saw the Earth being teletransported to another dimension, the skies completely flooded with Daleks, the end of the world every weekend! Why are we suddenly so afraid of that alien that couldn't even abduct their own 12 children in 1965??? C'mon! The little gray guys with big eyes have been doing it for the last 50 years with every farmer and cow in town, and you couldn't handle 12 little children? They don't sound so scary, do they? But wait, we also have our specialist, Captain Jack Harness, he saved us countless times before. He defeated that enormous devil that walked around Cardiff once, remember? Two hundred thousand people got him on their cellphone cameras. He will surely do something to save our children.... well, no. They want him dead! the guy that's been around kicking aliens butts since the XIX century, the one that traveled to the end of the Universe and back. Yes, they want to kill the f**king immortal guy. Reason? Ehm... maybe he'll talk, because he's obviously incapable of keeping a secret!

And what about that guy, the one that killed all his family? Did he never heard of a bus station? a wig? a "my wife, my girls and I are going to have a walk, we need some time alone before we... RUN!" No. Slow-motion walking with a gun to the room of death, for nothing. Was this Russel T. Davies idea of a Dolce Vita homage? Good easter egg, Russel!

Don't get me started on the reason why Lucy got into that room, the Most! Top Secret! Room! Ever! It's not that hard to make it more believable... c'mon guys! Maybe he actually fancied her! What about showing some scenes where she earns his respect and admiration, you know, the way you connect with some stranger on the street in a moment of anxiety? No, nothing, the easiest to confirm lie ever and... she's in!

And what was the Captain hoping to achieve as he went all cocky in front of the alien? What was that about???? Rory could have handled that better! But, hey, at least they made some jokes in the face of danger! Haha. Right.

Plus, a dead kid! Watch him die in suffering! Watch the mother burst in tears and ask for help with his cold body on her hands! Enjoy science-fiction entertainment!

Ah well, some ranting I did there. I really can't believe how lazy it became in the end, after such a strong beginning! I hope the new series retcons forever this mess.

High Points: The acting, not of Borrowman and Gwen of course, but of the guest stars, Peter Capaldi and Paul Copley. And Lucy Cohu is beautiful.

Shallow, lame, vulgar, ugly

[goldberri · 1/10 · 16 December 2010]

SPOILERS If force-ably and bloodily sacrificing a child in order to save the world (a world in which kids are being dragged screaming from their parents by armed soldiers) is what passes for "entertaining drama" among the Torchwood writers, then they deserve to live in a world of their own repulsive making. Sick.

Anyone who is "entertained" or feels they enjoyed the "roller coaster" or "moving drama" aspect of this kind of writing must evaluate their own morals. It is a cheap gimmick to falsely project depth and honesty, when really all they're doing is scrambling for shock ratings.

This is extremely fake art.

Awwww let's feel so bad for Captain Jack as he stupidly charges in with no plan other than an empty bluff and gets his lover as well as tens of others killed; contrived. Oh, so sad, poor Cpt. Jack had to force his grandson into a bloody, convulsive death to bring about contrived resolution. Look, Cpt. Jack's daughter is screaming as she watches her father deliberately cause the horrific death of her child, guess that family relations are going to be strained at Christmas this year; let me cry a river for poor, contrived, useless Capt. Jack.

Yeah, my only shock is that there are so many who think of this as moving and intelligent writing instead of a cheap grab for ratings and sympathy using a thinly disguised snuff film. Epic writing FAIL.

I'm done with anything these writers and producers touch.