My speculation FWIW: It could appear on SyFy, but probably won’t. Airing this miniseries would just draw attention to the fact that SyFy hasn’t had the nerve to air the main series. “Children of Earth” actually could air on basic cable, with the cursing bleeped and Jack’s backside pixellated–unless the finale (which I haven’t seen yet) gets really lively. But by Torchwood standards this miniseries (so far) is actually a bit tame–no autopsies, only intermittent cussing, and no one has gotten laid yet.
I can’t speak for PBS, since individual stations have different policies (my local stations haven’t even picked up Doctor Who). Does anyone know of a PBS station that has aired Torchwood?
I’m going to stay with this till the end, and I really hope there’s a good finale, but Day 4 (after 3 good predecessors) was annoying in the worst Russell T. Davies way. Preachy, implausible well beyond the point of absurdity, and far too talky.
Humans are really messed up, as we all know, but all this crap about the 456 wanting 10% of the world’s children is too far out even for us. We would readily die first. Yes, I know the children are just stand-ins for Jews, Armenians, and everybody else who’s being ethnically cleansed. I don’t care. It’s nuts. And who are they kidding with the ruse about an innoculation? The whole big wide world’s going to fall for this because England and the US say so (and don’t get me started on the UN)? Iran? Myanmar? And where are they gonna get all those buses, anyway. Gaaaaah!!! This is just boneheaded writing.
I gotta say, though, I’m right behind Russ in killing off Ianto. What an annoying little girl.
Well, when the kids started saying numbers, they said that each country’s kids were saying a number that amounted to 10% of the children of that specific country. And I can only assume, human nature being what it is, that the conversations in each country’s power centers mirrored those of the one taking place in London.
Is Hub 2 in London or Cardiff? It seems to me that, considering how fast Jack and Ianto got to Thames House, it’s in London but I’m not sure.
I’m pretty sure HUB 2 is in London. When phone tracer guy was tracing the map that showed where the signal from Gwens phone, at the end when she was in HUB 2, was coming from it was right next to a river which I assumed was The Thames.
I can’t don’t know about Iraq or Somalia, but as for China, they’d probably just hand over all the unwanted girls instead of putting them up for overseas adoption. Sad, but that’s how I think they’d react.
I’m thinking, just who the fuck do these aliens think they are, threatening the Doctor’s favorite planet like that? He might not be around now, but next time he shows up, they’d have all sorts of hell to pay if they actually tried to make good on their threats.
Gwen comments on this at the start of episode 5. She’s right, too… Having said that, one would hope that if the Doctor ever comes across the 456, he will end them and what they are doing. It’s always been a problem for the Torchwood strand though, enormous disaster unfolding for the Earth “where’s The Doctor?” A crisis like this would surely have him rending time and space in to help, or if not him voluntarily then the Tardis. And there is no way that Martha would be sidelined by being on her honeymoon - she’d have locked and loaded and headed home
I am a big Doctor Who fan, but I’ve found Torchwood almost unwatchable in the past (with the exception of a few episodes that were pretty good). I stuck with it through season 1 and stopped watching sometime during season 2 because it just wasn’t worth it. Bad writing and bad acting. Everything is just SO DRAMATIC! It’s cheap sci fi without the fun. Sure, *Doctor Who *dives into the melodrama often, but it doesn’t live there like *Torchwood *does.
That said, I watched Children of Earth based on some positive reviews I read online, and I will admit that I enjoyed it. Although, I think they could easily have told the same story much more economically–in maybe 2 or 3 episodes instead of 5. I liked Jack’s dilemma at the end and that they didn’t cop out on the resolution.
Sounds like the future of the show is uncertain. I’d only be interested in watching future episodes if Freema Agyeman was back in it, but I’d rather she show up in something better.
Did anyone else snigger at Ianto’s line to 456 about having them check their data files about Cap’n Jack so they know what they are dealing with? And the quick proof that Cap’n Jack aint no Doctor.
What was Cap’n Jack thinking in his “standing up to” 456 anyway? That was his plan? Tell them “No. Not this time”, spout some Doctorisms, and they’d just say “Oh. Sorry then. We’ll be off.”
Very good for Torchwood. Good variety of characters with some real complexity and growth. Some humor too. (I liked the typo of “moth”, for example and the smelling that Ianto is “queer” … “OI!”) Still, don’t think about it much, it doesn’t bear up to any thinking. Just enjoy the character studies and the feel of the thing and it’s okay. Great for being Torchwood.
Where do they go from here? Anybody know if it is coming back for more eps or was this a finale of sorts?
In case anyone doesn’t want to hear the answer, I’ll use a spoiler box.
According to the Wikipedia article, the decision about the fourth series depends on how well this one does. And Russell T Davies said much the same thing during the fifteen-minute “making of” documentary that followed the final episode. He even said that he’s got the fourth series sketched out in his head.
It also does kind of set up Cap’n Jack to appear again in a Doctor Who ep, the way they ended it. I am almost expecting him in the first ep of the newest Doctor’s run … (although I hope not.)
I think the thing that got me about this show was the fact that, after we’ve spent so much time building up the government as bad and evil, Jack was faced with essentially the same dilemma - to sacrifice a small number to save a larger number. And Jack, of course, made the same decision. The difference was that whereas the government chose to make others sacrifice to save their own children, Jack had to sacrifice his own grandson to save everyone else’s. Interesting how that made him good (or at least noble) rather than evil.
Remember Spock’s quote from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” By that principle, sacrificing either ten percent of the world’s children or just Jack’s grandson is the right thing to do. In one case, however, you antagonize the parents of those millions of children, and probably destroy any faith people have in their government. In the other case, Jack’s daughter will never forgive him but those other parents still have their children. (Although the parents are still going to wonder why their children were collected by armed soldiers. And if the government had brought Torchwood in earlier, they might have avoided a lot of grief.)
Spoiler tag moved slightly by me, just so there’s some clue as to what is spoilered.
Well, I hadn’t see part 5 at the time, but more importantly, “So who (in the US) is still watching this show? What do you think?” It was just what I happened to be thinking. I fully realize that as a show, Torchwood wouldn’t make for good stories if every threat got solved by someone else. Pretty much any alien invasion in this universe causes me to think “what stupid aliens, don’t they know who hangs out on this planet from time to time?”
I was thinking about this, and it came to me how there’re some parallels there that could be drawn to Christianity. God sacrificing His own Son to save everyone. Not anything super-allegoryish, and possibly not even intentional, just after thinking about it for a while it kinda gave a different perspective to Jack’s actions.
It was hard enough for him to sit there and listen to the government’s plan for resolution (remember, he said flat-out to the PM that he would take no part in deciding how to meet the demands of the 456). To actually be the public face to show that the government also was affected by the 456’s demands, even though the children were saved at the last minute, would be enough to destroy him as a human being in his own eyes.
