Torchwood: Children of Earth Review

[gertymac]

I never update this but every other social networking outlet is full of people who haven't yet seen Torchwood and don't want to be spoiled.

Comments

[jenny_b79]

Great review. I absolutely think Ianto had to die for Jack to be able to kill Steven - and I think his response to Ianto's death confirms that he was in love with him, and that his promise to remember Ianto says even more than just saying he loved him would have.

I think it was interesting that as well as the hub and SUV a number of Torchwood myths were destroyed - for example the idea that they had all this exclusive super-technology, given that Johnson has the ability to put that bomb inside Jack's stomach and Decker has hacked into Torchwood years ago. I'm not sure how canon the idea that Jack and Ianto are having constant kinky sex is, and how much it's fandom's assumption, but I think the Gwen/Rhys/Ianto exchange over the contact lenses calls that into serious question as well.

I don't see how a series 4 could possibly work after the end of CofE.

[jenny_b79]

Hello again, I got distracted by my baby waking up, but I actually originally meant to say that Ianto doesn't just blindly follow Jack - it's at least partly his idea with his "You should have stood up to them". It seems to me that Ianto's motives have always been very pure and his death means he isn't tainted by Jack's moral relativism. It also emphasises Jack's curse - in a hopeless situation, Ianto can storm in, all guns blazing, and know that if it goes wrong, he dies a hero, while Jack can't die and has to live with the aftermath.

[gertymac]

I don't think it's necessarily a blind following. Ianto knows what the risks are, and surely knows he's going to die young, and chooses to follow Jack anyway.

I think it's interesting that we consider Jack moral relativism to be negative. It was that relativism that saved the world this time, and probably has in the past. I guess that's the big thing that separates Jack from the Doctor. The Doctor is the man who never would, but he has the resources to be that man while Jack does not.

[jenny_b79]

That's a good point about the Doctor, or at least how the Doctor would like to think he is. But in fact the Doctor must have committed some morally dubious actions during the time war, and even though he has the resources to be the man who never would, there must be a point where he'd have to kill or whatever. He only got out of it in the finale of S4 by losing control of the other Doctor, who ended up doing his dirty work for him - there's no way that Dalek fleet could have been just left there. I wonder how far he'll be pushed during the regeneration episodes.

I think it was the horrific decisions which had to be made which made CofE so compelling, and the way it becomes a numbers game. Is it acceptable to sacrifice 12 to save millions, 10% of the children to save the earth, one child to save the 10%? Is it more acceptable because it's his grandson, and not just some random kid?