Torchwood: Children of Earth

As part of my ongoing Who Catch Up project I've been watched Torchwood's epic third series, Children of Earth. I ended up writing a quick piece about each episode and here they all are.

Day One

Day One feels like fairly normal Torchwood fare for most of the episode albeit with a bigger budget. Creepy children & lots of banter.

The big oddity is the civil service subplot with John Frobisher, who looks suspiciously like the Twelfth Doctor. At this point it means very little & feels a bit out of place.

We get some new character stuff here: Jack has a secret daughter & grandson, Ianto has a sister & Gwen is pregnant. It’s nice that they kept doing the character stuff in a big event, and of course all of these things become more relevant later on.

The last part is surprising though. Suddenly Captain Jack is going to be blown to pieces, along with the Torchwood hub. That’s much bigger than your normal Torchwood episode! And much of what’s going on is still a mystery! It’s a promising start & a surprisingly slow one too.

Day Two

Day Two is a superb episode, despite the fact that not much actually happens. The Torchwood team are split up & Jack has been blown to pieces. Gwen and Ianto are on the run & it quickly transpires that there’s a massive government conspiracy to kill them. It’s proper thriller stuff, only mostly set in Cardiff.

What I think works really well here is the lack of sci-fi elements. The main plot with the children & approaching aliens isn’t that important for this episode. The only other element is Captain Jack’s ‘Lazurus ability’ and that too is treated more matter of factly than it often is. When I think about it Torchwood has often been at it’s best when the sci-fi stuff doesn’t go too far. It’s the human enemies who are truly scary

Day Three

After all the excitement of the previous episode, this one is a bit dull. The Torchwood team mostly sit around in an empty warehouse simply watching what’s going on. The 456 arrive in dramatic fashion and eventually demand 10% of our children. It turns out we gave them 12 children back in 1965, & Jack was involved. This episode is all about filling in the plot.

It’s a great moral dilemma. The choice is to give them some children or face extinction. You kind of have to give up the kids, it’s instinctive to do anything to survive. But how do you live with that, especially if you are immortal like Jack.

Suddenly the human villains are less scary, especially now we know Jack was one of them. They just had an impossible choice.

Day Four

Day Four really is a rollercoaster- a disturbing rollercoaster. It begins with Jack having to explain the horrible dilemma of giving away Children to save lives. Then we see politicians discussing the practicalities of giving children to the 456, in a way that feels horribly realistic. You can really imagine those conversations would actually take place.

Hope emerges when Lois (who is a superb character, a reluctant Torchwood helper) speaks up & Jack faces the 456. But then it is taken away from us as Ianto & a whole building full of people are killed. It’s emotional and is a rare time in the Whoniverse where it genuinely feels like there is no hope. The best episode of Torchwood ever?

Day Five

Day Four may have been Torchwood’s best episode but this is the most horrific. We find out the 456 use children as drugs and then watch as the government and the army round up 10% of the children. Gwen has to tell Ianto’s sister of his death & tries to rescue all the local children. Frobisher kills himself & his family too. It’s disturbing & because of the sci-fi elements of the story being downplayed horribly realistic.

Then at the last minute Jack finds a solution but it involves killing his own grandson. It’s well acted by all involved as we are forced to watch Steven die. I remember how people complained at this ending at the time & whilst I agree it’s disturbing it is an effective end to the story.