Torchwood: Children of Earth

[Rutabaga]

I'm just wondering if anyone else here watched the Torchwood: Children of Earth miniseries on BBC America this week (or on the regular Beeb in the UK). I finally watched my recording of the final episode, and I'm basically speechless. Blown away.

Torchwood has always been a fun and entertaining show, but this miniseries was so audacious, so much better than 99% of the crap produced for American television. Just about the best comparison I can give is that it was Battlestar Galactica quality. Thoughtful, frightening, scary, heartbreaking, and just so overwhelming at the end with the moral conundrum that is presented during the climax.

If you didn't see it, there are ways to check it out, including the fact that the miniseries is being released on DVD on Tuesday. It helps to have seen the first 2 seasons of the series, but I think you can get along okay without having seen them.

[Miranda Tarkin]

MY friend tapped it for me :mischief going to be watching it soon

[Mitch]

I watched it a few weeks back. Bar far the best season of Torchwood, and I was so glad to see that Martha Jones and Mickey smith were not made members of the team.

Though, I felt the ending was a major cop-out and quite frankly, really lame, and unbefitting to the character of Jack.

[Hugo Montegue]

Which part of the ending? I thought that saccrificing his grandson was extremely in keeping with his character: it shows the extreme lengths of personal saccrifice he's willing to go to. That's what makes Jack special: he's willing to make all of the decisions that we all know are "right", but are too distasteful for anyone else to do.

If you're referring to him leaving, I have my suspicions that they're pulling a Season 2, and he's gonna cross over to Doctor Who for one of the specials, potentially to help introduce the new guy. When Eccleston regenerated, they had Rose Tyler on hand to provide some consistancy of character... since Donna is out of the picture though, bringing back Jack - the only "main" character they have left whose associated with Tennant - makes a certain amount of sense.

Speaking of Doctor Who, did anyone hear via Comic Con that John Simm is going to be back in the Christmas special this year as the Master ??!!

[Rutabaga]

As it became clear that Jack was going to sacrifice his grandson (a definite needs-of-the-many-outweighing-the-needs-of-the-few moment if there ever was one), I wondered if they would show that Steven had inherited any of his grandfather's regenerative abilities. Once it was over, I was glad they hadn't...that would have been the ultimate cop-out and would have blunted the meaning of cost of the sacrifice Jack made.

Jack Harkness is a broken, sad man. He lost 2 of the people most near and dear to him, Steven and Ianto. He will no doubt be spending a hell of a lot of time dealing with that and trying to come to terms with the role he played in both their deaths. Plus he has completely and utterly destroyed his relationship with his daughter, which definitely doesn't make things any easier.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that a 3rd full season of Torchwood is not assured yet. If so, the ending of Children of Earth would give us some closure...but the door is still left cracked open if the BBC does give them another season.

If there is another season, I think it's time for Rhys to become a full-fledged member of the team although Gwen and Rhys becoming parents does complicate things. And I think they should consider Lois Habiba for the team, because she did such a great job helping them out.

[Captain Untouchable]

I can see Rhys having the same role that Ianto had during Season 1: just hanging around, making the coffee, and maybe getting to drive around in the Torchwoodmobile.

Question is, though, What are they going to do, now the Hub is exploderized? We kinda got the impression from Torchwood that, now that Torchwood 1 / Canary Wharf is gone, Captain Jack and the TW3 people in Cardiff are the only ones left in the entire organisation. Will they have the resources to build a new Hub, or will they be forced to go elsewhere? Make do with a makeshift facility? Work more closely with Unit, or with the Civil Service, maybe?

[jjwr]

I've got it on my DVR. I hadn't heard of the show before but saw the ads for this and it looked pretty interesting. I'm hoping to start watching it this week.

[stevenvdb]

I have the 1st season of TW on BR and have this miniseries and Series 2 ordered on BR, which hopefully will arrive in the mail soonish. Apart from a couple of episodes off of BBC A, however, I haven't had time to watch it...backlogged on other stuff, including DW Season 4.... I did enjoy what I've seen. :p

I did tune in for the last 20 minutes or so of the last episode of COE by chance, though....oh my word.

Gutted. :(

Looks like I've got some evenings of viewing ahead of me. ;)

I have a hunch a certain long-coated immortal may be visiting an old friend in a Blue Box in the very near future..

[Darth Turbogeek]

Oh yeah, this shit that blights the ABC here - how unfortunate that I have been had my intelligence insulted by this now multiple times. I really should learn the the previews != the show. BBC needs to cancel it and get some more budget into something that isnt a bucket of crap - say Top Gear. Or anything David Attinbough does, Worlds greatest feeding events was bloody brilliant.

The BBC never did serialised drama very well. Documentaries, news, variety, a bunch of boofheads having a fun time yes. Torchwood, hell no. Doctor Who is another EXTREMELY overrated crapfest that deserves to be cancelled.

[Miranda Tarkin]

How did I know that your comment wasn't going to be kind about this show :p

[Rutabaga]

How did I know that your comment wasn't going to be kind about this show :p

Ditto :).

3 days later, and I'm still haunted by how it ended. Wow.

[stevenvdb]

From what I've heard, RTD's original script draft had a happier ending, but his fellow script editors/producers pushed him to make that faithful decision. It does, in a sense, from a cynical point of view, make it look like certain characters were added to meet certain contrived plot elements, but it wasn't initially intended that way - it's just the way it finally wound up to best fit the script.

And well...

TW and DW are for all intents and purposes soaps and not really meant to be a match for the best dramas television has to offer, true, but since when did they have the obligation to or even pretended to be? And it's true that frenetic action and tension doesn't negate the need for characterization or equal an element of plot sophistication. In my cynical moments I see all the manipulations, daft plot holes, etc, Actually I could point out a great deal of the things that bothered me about this mini, some of the problems I see, but they aren't all that important. ;)

DW was always a bug-eyed monster, rubber-suit (In the 70's a bit of skirt) kinda show, that at it's best had good moments of suspense, intelligent, interesting, characters - even if it often had rather daft moments, shoddy scripts or cheap effects that sometimes bordered on hysterical.

But I always liked it despite these things, loved its audaciousness, even if I groan at its contrivances. I mean time-travel is one of the biggest potential cop-outs there is, isn't there? I find the mishmash of concepts, the big ideas intriguing , even if they often don't pan out or pay off...but when they do... *g* I admit I like a bit of froth every now and then..and for me, there is an emotional attachment element.

See, DW was one of my mothers favorite programs I remember that I used to watch with her (one of the few programs we did watch, actually.. telly was off most of the time, but everyone has their indulgence) and I absolutely adored her to bits...so I'm very forgiving of it's shortcomings. It's not really a rational thing, but there you have it.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I have such a love-hate relationship with the BBC. I think they are obligated to produce content in certain amounts, due to being funded by the tax-payer. Every now and then they come out with an excellent drama like Gormenghast, I Claudius, Brideshead Revisited, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Bleak House (can you see a trend forming here? :lol), Spooks/Mi-5, and most recently Psychoville - but then you have Eastenders and Holby City *yawn*

[stevenvdb]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is it too obvious my English grammar is a bit funky/lazy? ;) Sorry about the mess. :P
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ooooh, I do loves me a nice costume drama.. :D

Yup, that's basically correct, though they still have a good many hours of "dead air" on their channels. I think the acting talent is still contracted in the old theater tradition, with a fairly good union representation, so they, i think, have to renegotiate for any re-airings of programs , allowing for a limited number of repeats per season. It's easier and more economical in many ways to just produce filler or live talking head shows, chat, etc than to rebroadcast a stellar top-notch program from a fortnight earlier.... They obviously make some exceptions for some of their high-viewer flagship proggies where they'll fork over the dough to show it a few times. ;)

Music negotiations are the real bugger though... DVD releases outside of that little set of islands often have different music because of how contracts are handled and the need to not spend a fortune renegotiating for every region...uggghh. Region-1-land being a relatively small market for Who, for example often gets a big shafting. I mean An Unearthly Child (the pilot) without music from the Who (I think that was what was on Susan's portable radio* ... maybe it was another band..now that i think about it..yeah...well, anyways..we only hear generic beach music stuff...*sniff*...and no Beatles music as used in other episodes....come on, now, that hurts.. :'(

Can't even rebroadcast funky 70's era 'Top of the Pops' without a big fusss...pbbbt.

*Ah, I think it was Fleetwood Mac before they became a big hit.

OK, enough crazy-talk for now. :D

[Jedieb]

I was very impressed by the mini-series and thought the ending was damn gutsy. Certainly gutsier than what we typically get on this side of the Atlantic.

Jack is now one tortured SOB.

[stevenvdb]

::::holds out his recently delivered, freshly de-shrink-wrapped copy of COE with a big grin:::

[Dasquian Belargic]

Don't say COE.. it makes me think "Church of England" :lol

[stevenvdb]

My pardon.

Fast-tracked this over the last couple of nights.

Gee-whizard.

Russell T. Davies (head producer) certainly likes to throw the whole bathtub in, doesn't he? Audacious, oftentimes trespassing into disbelief, but what a big wallop of an ending. Oomph. ;)

From the rumor-mill, actually with supporting comments from John Barrowmen, it does appear that TorchWood may return, complete with Jack. How they are going to work that out...

[Captain Untouchable]

My pardon.

Fast-tracked this over the last couple of nights.

Gee-whizard.

Russell T. Davies (head producer) certainly likes to throw the whole bathtub in, doesn't he? Audacious, oftentimes trespassing into disbelief, but what a big wallop of an ending. Oomph. ;)

From the rumor-mill, actually with supporting comments from John Barrowmen, it does appear that TorchWood may return, complete with Jack. How they are going to work that out...

They may just pull a Doctor Who, and aim to film another Children of Earth esque "special" (or a handful of specials scattered throughout the year), like they did when David Tennant was doing his stage stuff, rather than trying to work for a full season. Would make it easier to slot around JB being a Desperate Housewife if they do.