TV: Torchwood Children of Earth Day 5
(spoilers for Torchwood Day 5, Children of Earth)
I had heard that the final episode of the Torchwood Children of Earth miniseries was going to be the weakest one of the bunch. I feel that this is true because the execution of the plan fell apart.
The acting didn’t lapse. Really, cheers to the fabulous people who made Clem, super agent girl, Frobisher, Lois, PM Green, Frobisher’s senior PA, and so many others come to life. The acting was fantastic throughout.
The emotional resonance for the Torchwood team also stayed strong. I felt that Gwen, Rhys, and Captain Jack all excelled as characters over this five-episode arc.
I think the final chapter fell short because bringing any plan about is going to be problematic in a fictional storytelling medium like TV.
For example, when Gwen and Rhys boarded that helicopter, I thought for certain it was going to blow up. Why continue to obsess about the last remaining witness to 1965 when there are witnesses to the more destructive trade of today?
And really, what kind of government planning counts for the exact 10% of school children? Everyone knows you’ve got to have a buffer. If my government is going to be nefarious, I’d like them to at least be competent at it.
Most of the outcomes also seemed very predictable to me. I called Frobisher’s resolution and the use of the wavelength signal. This, however, isn’t as serious as Frobisher becoming less of a character and more of a symbol in this last act. He deserved better.
Two ongoing questions:
- None of the contact-lens recordings are gone. Why doesn’t this matter?
- That other government lady (the one in the tweed jacket) came off worse than PM Green did. Why does she get to exert power?
There is no way that the military would have been able to get that far into the plan. Parents with cell phones, cell phone cameras, and the internet would have mobilized the civilian resistance almost immediately. At least I would like to think so.
Ok, enough of the bad stuff. How about some positives?
I find it interesting that the government can still spin this to come out as the heroes. They can say that they discovered this way of fighting back, but they knew the parents would never stand for their children being used as weapons. So they had to trick everyone.
In a miniseries about choices, Jack’s sacrifice and Stephen’s death were significant. Decker and the super agent looked away, even though they helped push this decision. Jack didn’t.
He knew the consequences of his decision and accepted it all the way through. The government was willing to condemn others to save themselves. Jack knows that to be truly heroic, the sacrifice is to oneself—in order to spare others.
None of this, of course, is Stephen’s fault. He just got the wrong genetics in the wrong timeline.
But if we look at this from Jack’s main character point of view, we know that this is part of the hell of living practically forever. Everything weighs on you until you can’t tell what is your sin and what isn’t. Jack wasn’t responsible for 1965, but back then, he still knew the consequences of his choices.
Stephen didn’t deserve to die, but probably in Jack’s mind, Jack deserved to lose Stephen … as he was responsible for the loss of Ianto, Owen, Tosh, and Susie.
And so he’s off into the stars. Here’s to hoping he meets up with Tennant’s Doctor one more time. The Doctor’s always better at solving other people’s problems than he is in dealing with his own.
