The BBC have issued ‘Children of Earth’ as a DVD set with some extras.
In one of the extras, Russell T. Davies says In my first draft, I didn’t kill Jack’s grandson at the end. Then the BBC told me not to be a wuss* and I rewrote it.
*wuss : wimp, coward
However, I think that at least ONE nation would have said “Fuck no!” and blown the whole story.
** Dewey Finn**: I agree, it was very reminiscent of the Wannsee Conference.
I thought it was pretty good.
Have to wonder though, did they really think there was any way to disappear 10% of the kids? 456 was doing things on Britain time. If they wanted all the kids at the same time, many countries would be rousting kids out of bed in the middle of the night. Wouldn’t go over well. Or, they do it time zone by time zone starting in Britain, but word would quickly get out the aliens were taking kids, not vaccinating. Wouldn’t go over well. I don’t see any way for them to round up and hand over that many kids on the aliens’ timetable. I always eye-roll a bit when the premise is humans as valuable drug. Surely if you can travel across space and teleport, you can synthesize your own drugs.
Really? What other book/television series/movie/etc used the concept of humans as valuable drug? (Not trying to be snarky. I just thought it was an original idea.)
I’m sure I’ve seen it multiple times, but the first movie that jumps to mind is I Come in Peace with Dolph Lundren.
More or less the same idea was in The Matrix.
Perhaps the aliens are organic drug traffickers. “These are 100% free range human children; none of that artificial vat grown stuff or pesticides.”
Hee hee! I like it!
“…and you go in pieces. BLAM!”
Ah, they don’t write 'em like that anymore.
The 456s strongly suggested the actual number of kids each country should supply. Though I don’t think they’d have actually objected to your suggestion.
Anyway, I thought it was pretty good. Some of the story was heavy handed, but it mostly worked well, and it had really scary/disgusting aliens and some great acting.
Actually, they were explicit about the number each country should provide. In the show, the newsreader said that the children in each country were chanting a different number, and that number corresponded to ten percent of the children in the country.
And it made sense that the aliens would insist on this. Totally depopulating some countries of their children while leaving others spared would probably be even more destabilizing than spreading the hurt evenly - this could increase the likelihood of violence or war, which would reduce the human breeding population. The aliens absolutely don’t want that, and they’re depicted as fairly savvy creatures - for example, they understand the Brits’ desire to cover up the 1965 deal, and are entirely willing to play along.
FYI, Torchwood: Miracle Day starts on Saturday night at 8pm on Starz.