I probably should have blogged about Torchwood: Children of Earth yesterday, when it started its five consecutive nights run, but BBC America (and the newly launched BBC America HD channel) is airing the previous night’s show before the new episode starts each night (and there are plenty of other ways to catch up obviously).

For those of you who agreed with me about how much I hated the new Harry Potter movie, believe me again when I tell you that the new Torchwood season three mini-series is one of the finest, most action-packed, unpredictable, FREAKY and most deeply moving sci-fi tales I’ve ever seen. Totally raises the bar for the genre in so many, many ways.

Torchwood: Children of Earth boasts one of the most intelligent and sophisticated long form scripts in the history of the genre. I don’t want to give anything away to American viewers who still have four shows left to go, but my god when you find out what the aliens really want with the kids, WHOA, it is fucking dark! The lead actors John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Gareth David-Lloyd are terrific and guest star Peter Capaldi proves once again that he’s one of Britain’s finest acting talents. It’s truly a milestone.

It’s also a new high water mark for the already illustrious career of creator, lead writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies (“Queer as Folk,” “Doctor Who”) who had this to say about his multi-layered tale: ?¢‚Ǩ?ìI wanted to tell a story in which civilization snaps, in which we turn on ourselves, in which nothing is safe.  Plenty of people live like that, on this planet. In this story, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Britain?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s turn.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

Here’s a plot summary from the BBC America website (Don’t worry, it gives nothing away):

An ordinary day becomes a world of terror, as every child in the world stops.  Stops playing. Stops laughing. Stops everything. Then, as one, they begin to speak with the same voice, announcing to the governments of Earth: ?¢‚Ǩ?ìWe are coming.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

Imagine that!

This is event television, people. It’s a motherfucker!

Over here by way of Boing Boing.

Having seen all five eps (no spoilers here, I promise) I felt it could have been tighter; there was on the one hand a lot of extraneous scenes and messages and characters, and on the other hand not enough attention got paid to things like, say, resolving the ending.

That said, I’m still pondering the end and wondering if that’s not as dark as TV has *ever* gotten, and I’ve seen “Threads.”

Enjoyed it big time

Don’t wish to rain on the Torchwood parade, as I think there are good points, but there are some glaring problems with the plotting/scripting of key moments towards the end of the series. At these moments a perfectly serviceable story looks laughably amateurish just at the wrong time.

There is a cabinet meeting (you’ll know which one) which shows absolutely zero finesse, painting with a cartoonist’s black and white, when shades of grey would have been much more effective. Our protagonists are shockingly poor at their jobs and the ending is gobs of emotion painted over the most insulting and macgyver/deus ex machina plotting.
This does not deserve the excessive praise it has been receiving and it’s really not a high-water mark, in my opinion.

That said, on a TV budget the creative team have done a great job in providing several fine almost big-screen moments. The direction, and most of the performances are great (apart from a certain cliche american general, though I don’t know whether to blame the actor or the material..) and they really know how to wring emotion from the story, including some lighter pitched relationship based moments.

Sadly, it’s the basic machinery that lets it down, script and plotting goes awry at key junctures and the whole thing suffers. Watch by all means, and you’ll prob enjoy for the most part, but telling you your minds are going to be blown is perhaps a disservice.

I disagree strongly with Minesh as do a great many critics and (it would seem) most of the viewers (who, in the UK at least, rated it extremely highly). Speculative fiction is one of those areas, I think, where what seems plausible and powerful to one viewer can seem absurd to another (and that absurdity can’t jolt them out of the story).

I tend to agree though, its well worth watching - but too much expectation can sometimes ruin things. Just go into it expecting a reasonably worthwhile watch and you may well be blown away. After the first episode, you’ll want to know what happens anyway.

By the way, as well as doing cut down repeats of the previous day’s episodes, BBC America has them available on its On Demand service. Plus there’s a marathon of all five parts on Sunday July 26th starting at 1pm EDT and the DVD and Blu-Ray release are due on Tuesday July 28th. So there are still plenty of ways to catch this if you’ve missed any of it.

@Minesh - if you haven’t come to exepect a little Deus Ex from Davies, then you haven’t been watching his stuff.  Look at any of the big Doctor Who’s that he wrote.

CoE’s was incredibly tame by comparison.

Same goes with government incompetence in his shows.  Although the PM was particularly daft in this case.

The series certainly had its moments of darkness though, and on the whole was better than most Torchwood offerings.

Torchwood? Intelligent?

Well, that’s made it easy to discount anything you ever say about anything else. I guess I can see Harry Potter without fear then.

PS: The reason the aliens want the kids is probably the most ridiculous part of these shows, and it’s literally filled with ridiculous parts.

@Mysterious Stranger

I didn’t like the previous Torchwood but this one was REALLY worth watching.

I agree that there were a couple of logic leaps along the way, but the overall feel of it and the story was excellent.

Best bit of scifi since BSG series 3.

My problem with Dr Who has always been around the way they try to cram everything into one episode.

Hopefully they’ll start doing some Dr. Whos inthis format. That would make me happy.

There were a few aspects worthy of Torchwood…  the revelation of just how much torture Cap’n Jack can take (I mean, complete disintegration? Wow!) and truly fine acting by guest star, Peter Capaldi as John Frobisher (previously Caecilius in Fires of Pompeii).

Beyond that? Sorry. Script sucked big time. Inexplicable actions by government, UNIT, Martha Jones (“on her honeymoon” - the world’s coming to an end, and she doesn’t come running back?).  Llanto’s character development was nice…. Gwen and Reese on the run… blah, we’ve done that so many times….

But perhaps the biggest character failure?  The team works so hard to get Jack in front of the beastie, and he… tries to talk it to death?  Humans will rise up?  THAT’S the plan? 

Drug-addicted aliens. Huh. What did the big Dr. Who finale use up all of the serious sci-fi neurons in Davies’ brain?

I’m a big fan of Torchwood. I expect a flat episode once in awhile. But a flat Series?  Ow, that hurts….

Parts 1-4 were good ( part 1 especially), with each episode revealing less and becoming more disappointing. However it seemed parts 2-4 kept rehashing things revealed in part 1. At a point I thought there would be a good explanation about why Jack gave the original aliens the kids (after all wasn’t he reformed by the doctor?), but in the end…nothing.And what a crappy ending. I love how it took 4 1/2 episodes to figure out something so simple. It’s as if RTD wrote the body of the story, forgot he had to turn the scripts tin the next day and rushed out an ending. And what Jack did at the end, was that necessary?  RTD has taken everything likeable about Jack and pissed all over it. I will not be watching Torchwood from now on just as a matter of principle.

Watched the series on your recommendation, thanks for nothing.  Typical British crap TV, lame-ass dialogue, lame-ass effects, lame-ass acting, lame-ass plot.  In a word, garbage.

I wasn’t greatly impressed with the last series, although Ezra’s comments may be somewhat harsh!