Torchwood: Children of Earth

That's way too deep dingdong!

Jack deaths this week - so far.

Day One - bomb in stomach blows him into a million pieces.
Day Two - buried alive in concrete.
Day Three - ?
Day Four - shot in the chest & poisoned by alien virus.

I can't remember him snuffing it in Day Three, so that's four in four days: a pretty good hit rate by anyone's standards!

There's a thread at GB about how would one go about chosing the 10% of the nation's children. The idea frankly horrifies me.

It's what School League Tables are for Patrick.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:It's what School League Tables are for Patrick.

I nearly burst out laughing at that point. Whoever wrote that episode must love New Labour.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:That's way too deep dingdong!

Jack deaths this week - so far.

Day One - bomb in stomach blows him into a million pieces.
Day Two - buried alive in concrete.
Day Three - ?
Day Four - shot in the chest & poisoned by alien virus.

I can't remember him snuffing it in Day Three, so that's four in four days: a pretty good hit rate by anyone's standards!

You forgot being shot twice in Day One, once in the chest and again, when he came back to life, in the back.

Dingdongalistic wrote:
Also interesting is the fact that the bodies weren't quarantined. What's up with that?

No, it's not interesting. It's irrelevant. We assume that since the 456 want people to go back to Thames House and talk to it, enough time has elapsed for the virus to die off or be neutralised by the 456. We don't need to see it happen, because we can see the after effect.

*speechless*

Remember kids, conventional wisdom says RTD can't do dark.

Brilliant. Utterly fantastic conclusion as Gwen and Rhys do all they can to do something for Ianto's memory while Jack has to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the world. Not to forget everything else - Frobisher's decision, Spears' visit to Lois, Green feeling 'lucky' and everything else wrapping up what's been a fantastic week of television.

And I know everyone's going to be saying that's the end of Torchwood, but I think there are enough routes back from that ending for them to return next year.

I'm now very convinced that we'll see more Torchwood. If it can be that good then there's no way the BBC can cuck it!

I'm with you Lucy....

Blimey...

There ought to be BAFTA nods for this...

There has to be. It's the best written/acted/directed thing that TV has seen so far this year!

As I said in the Other Place, if (or more likely 'when') it comes back, I think it'll be as specials like this rather than an ongoing series. It's Quatermass for the 21st Century and works best on the epic, civilization-as-we-know-it is about to fall scale, rather than 'oh no, the weevil's escaped'. The question is whether they can come up with something that matches this without looking like a carbon copy.

One thought about RTD's clever way of framing debate about a story - Jack had to sacrifice his grandchild, and now everyone regards him as a monster. I'm wondering if that's his way of posing the question 'if Susan was on Gallifrey at the end of the Time War, isn't the Doctor a monster too?'

What I'm wondering is would the ratings be as high for TW:CoE if Doctor Who was still on air as a regular series and not off right now with just the specials.

Christ on a cracker. I feel drained. God Almighty.

BAFTAs are a must, and I really want to see more. Follow up series set a couple of years with Gwen and Rhys having rebuilt Torchie, anyone?

Just letting everyone know that there is now a "Rate" thread in this section.

Horizon Chaser wrote:What I'm wondering is would the ratings be as high for TW:CoE if Doctor Who was still on air as a regular series and not off right now with just the specials.

Probably, though it would have been on at a different time of year so it wasn't on at the same time as Who - I seriously doubt they'd have wanted kids to watch tonight's episode. Plus, given the reaction to it, the AI scores it's been getting and the rising ratings over the run, I think audiences liked it for what it was, not the rather tenuous Who connection. In fact, I'd suspect that most of the drop from Day One to Day Two could have been people realising that this wasn't the same as Doctor Who.

Cripes- Jack is taking quite a beating in public opinion over at GB. Can't wait to see this now!

Are those who wanted dark and gritty complaining?

Superb stuff. In some ways it was like a Shakesperian tragedy with poor, poor Frobisher (and his family) at the epicentre. Honest, dedicated and hard working at some stage he lost sight of the difference between good and bad. A flawed, but totally brilliant, character.

A marvellous week of television.

Another thought: Johnson's an attractive woman, clad in a catsuit and leather whose job appears to be to protect the state against extraordinary crimes.

She's Emma Peel...

Nick Barlow wrote:Another thought: Johnson's an attractive woman, clad in a catsuit and leather whose job appears to be to protect the state against extraordinary crimes.

She's Emma Peel...

I'd like to offer my complete and total surrender to Ms. Peel, effective immediately. I won't even object to Ms. Peel putting me in handcuffs. In fact, as dangerous a Fast Livin' Admin as I am, I insist on Ms. Peel handcuffing me. I demand it.

Is someone taking notes? Texting this? Tweeting? Cripes! I surrender to Emma Peel!! Anyone?! Ms. Peel?!! NO! HONESTLY! I SURRENDER! I WANT TO BE HER PRISONER! (And I think I've wanted that since puberty, actually)

Nick Barlow wrote:Another thought: Johnson's an attractive woman, clad in a catsuit and leather whose job appears to be to protect the state against extraordinary crimes.

She's Emma Peel...

I hadn't thought of that.

So there is an upside to CoE!

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Are those who wanted dark and gritty complaining?

Probably.

So...wow. Yep, wow. That'll do for now till I've had a chance to see it again.

Seen Day 5. I'm stunned. I'll post more when I've had a chance to digest this, mentally process it a bit. Cripes... so many thoughts about expendibility in/about people. Right down to grandchildren. Wow.

If there isn't a Series 4, BBC is shooting a goose proven capable of laying the golden egg.

In essence, what Children of Earth has done is show the BBC that they don't need Torchwood as a series. It can be the springboard for events like the past week.

If we go by facts and figures alone, Torchwood seems to have nailed the nation to their seats for five straight days.

If we look at the show as an exercise in modern storytelling - well, people are already talking about it in terms of Quatermass. I think they're right to do so.

I am blown away by RTD, Fay and Moran. Between them, they've produced the hard, uncompromising tale that the premise of the show wanted to deliver. This is Doctor Who without the Doctor, or the family viewing tag.

It could have been Doctor Who. If it was Doctor Who

Spoiler:

- the spoiler tags are there to preserve stuff for anyone who hasn't seen the entire story.

There's so much to this story that it's going to take a few days to settle in. One assumes Frank is drinking deeply of the Torchwood and the results will surface over on Cathode Ray Tube - and I too want to mull and kick around a few thoughts. But here. Everywhere else is too full of ZOMG! to be contemplated.

Well, that was relentlessly grim.

Surely a BAFTA nod for Capaldi there?

I was screaming at the telly when I realised Jack was going to off his grandkid. Bloody Hell! Dark and gritty.

The whole week was event television. A lot of people missed the first episode but still ended up watching the rest. My purveyor of wares was making his clients sit in silence after I got him hooked on Tuesday. My Mum's been texting me every night about it.

It was 10/10 awesome. And I loved the motivation of the 456. Our kids were their drugs. Loved it!