Children of Earth
Although an obsessive fan of Doctor Who, I have never really entirely fallen in love with its first spin-off, Torchwood. Set in the same universe as Doctor Who, but more serious and "adult", Torchwood has always felt to me to be a show that tries to take itself too seriously. The first season, though it had some shining points towards the end, was--at best--lackluster. Too much emphasis seemed to be laid on trying to be "edgy" and "adult" and not enough was laid on interesting stories or characters. Captain Jack Harkness seemed detached and separate, not at all his fun, carefree self from his days as a companion of the Ninth Doctor. Rampant sexuality, grotesque violence, and often muddlesome plots were the center of the day. Though at the end, I was able to derive the point of the season and draw together several themes, it still didn't impress me near as much as I hoped that it would.
The second season of Torchwood was a vast improvement on the first. The characters were more tightly defined and nailed down, the stories interesting and complex examinations of humanity through a science fiction lens. Characters I loathed in the first season--mainly, Owen Harper and Gwen Cooper--became some of my favorites by the season's end. Ianto Jones was given a personality and made hilarious with his dry sense of humor. Captain Jack lost some of his appeal to me as he became more human--though he was more the Captain Jack Harkness I knew, he was also a flawed man and some of that heroic charm became tarnished. Toshiko Sato, who felt largely superfluous in Season 1, became vitally important and her eventual fate was heartbreaking. Hilarious episodes like Gwen's wedding episode lightened the tone from the serious adult fare of the first season, while Gwen's fiancee/husband, Rhys, became more incorporated into the main team, much to my delight. Guest appearances by Martha Jones, another beloved companion of the Doctor, as well as appearances by Captain Jack, Gwen, and Ianto on the finale episodes of Doctor Who later in the year tied the show closer to the parent show and established how they fit into the Whoniverse. I quite liked Season 2 when it was finished--but still, it wasn't amazing.
So, overall, I was glad when I heard that Torchwood would be coming back for a third season of stories this year, though I still wished for more Doctor tales in this "year off" from a complete season of Doctor Who. However, just as we were only getting five Doctor Who specials scattered throughout the year, the BBC authorities had trimmed down Torchwood as well. This season, there would only be five episodes. But those five, apparently, would all be connected, as one complete miniseries-like story. And one more thing--they would all be shown, one-after-another, on consecutive nights, for one entire week.
I was skeptical of this. One entire story? Some of Torchwood's past tales had even seemed too short to entirely sustain one episode, let alone five. and only five episodes? Were they robbing us of a good season? What if those five episodes sucked? What if the story was bad? Would we then be left with five episodes of a story we didn't even care about?
Still, as the trailers were released, one by one, I got more and more interested. The story actually looked good--and genuinely creepy. It seemed there was some sort of conspiracy involved? Some kind of dark secrets? The Torchwood team seemed in genuine danger. And everywhere, all around, were children, chanting in unison, together.
Piquing my interest even more were the reviews, from TV critics whose opinions I respected, who had been sent screeners of the season and whose praise was glowing. One of them noted that Torchwood: Children of Earth was "the TV event of the summer." Another noted that on viewing the episodes, she was venturing to claim that this event was "the best British television has had to offer since the original incarnation of The Office." Those were some pretty solid words.
So this week, when the show started airing, I was curious. I downloaded the first episode as soon as I got home on Monday, intending to watch it--but I was exhausted, and put it off till the next day. Tuesday, I did the same thing--too tired, I figured I'd watch them today, knowing full well that now I had three hours of the show to watch. Today after downloading the episode that had aired, I figured I'd sit down to watch the first one--maybe the second, too, but that was it.
How wrong I was.
From the very beginning of Torchwood: Children of Earth, I was hooked. The show was, quite simply, brilliant. All the flaws I'd noted about the first two seasons seemed to evaporate--the characters were top-notch, the acting was spectacular, and intricate attention was spent on the details of plot and story. Something was up with the children of Earth--why did they all stop moving at the same time? Why did they all start chanting the same words at the same time, all over the world, all in English? Why was the slightly nebbish government official so terrified of what this meant? Why was the Prime Minister authorizing him to do "whatever needed to be done"? Why was an old man in an insane asylum able to accurately "sniff" that Gwen was telling the truth, and to pick out her pregnancy before she even knew herself, and why was he the only adult in the country also periodically chanting the same words? Who was out to get Team Torchwood--and why?? By the end of the episode, events had transpired that shook the entire universe of Torchwood--people were dead, places destroyed, and a tense, ticking sense of doom and dread had fallen over the entire story.
I had to know what happened next.
The next episode followed, a taut, suspenseful thriller of an episode that had me on the edge of my seat for the entire hour. The children's chanting became more specific. The Torchwood team was on the run. A mysterious woman was doing things that shouldn't be allowed. A low level secretary was taking risks with her position that she wasn't even sure she should be doing. It was crazy, it was intense, and by the end of the episode I was sure I was going to gnaw off my fingers from all the nail-biting I'd been doing.
Of course I moved right into the third.
Oh goodness, the story kept up. The third one was more of a mystery, a creepy abstract horror set in the chambers of the familiar. Desperation soaked through all levels--from innocent families, to main characters, to government officials whose hands were drenched in blood. Secrets of the past were revealed; requests were made... and gifts were demanded. When the episode ended, I wanted to move immediately into the fourth episode. I wanted to know what happened next. God, did I want to know what happened next.
But of course, the fourth episode hasn't aired yet. That's coming tomorrow.
This season of Torchwood is a tour de force for the show. It is amazing, incredible, and one of the best pieces of television I have seen in a long, long time. For long time fans of the show, it plays on emotion and characters you've come to grow to know and care about, while new viewers are given all the basic information they need to know about the Torchwood universe right off the bat, and are set free to enjoy an amazing, suspenseful tale without having to know pretty much anything about the previous two years' worth of stories. Though Doctor Who will always remain my favorite show set in the Whoniverse, Torchwood: Children of Earth has already earned a fierce and devoted fire in my heart. When it comes out on DVD, I will snatch it up immediately. I love it. Bravo, Torchwood; congratulations on graduating to the Big Leagues.
God, I need to know what happens next!
The second season of Torchwood was a vast improvement on the first. The characters were more tightly defined and nailed down, the stories interesting and complex examinations of humanity through a science fiction lens. Characters I loathed in the first season--mainly, Owen Harper and Gwen Cooper--became some of my favorites by the season's end. Ianto Jones was given a personality and made hilarious with his dry sense of humor. Captain Jack lost some of his appeal to me as he became more human--though he was more the Captain Jack Harkness I knew, he was also a flawed man and some of that heroic charm became tarnished. Toshiko Sato, who felt largely superfluous in Season 1, became vitally important and her eventual fate was heartbreaking. Hilarious episodes like Gwen's wedding episode lightened the tone from the serious adult fare of the first season, while Gwen's fiancee/husband, Rhys, became more incorporated into the main team, much to my delight. Guest appearances by Martha Jones, another beloved companion of the Doctor, as well as appearances by Captain Jack, Gwen, and Ianto on the finale episodes of Doctor Who later in the year tied the show closer to the parent show and established how they fit into the Whoniverse. I quite liked Season 2 when it was finished--but still, it wasn't amazing.
So, overall, I was glad when I heard that Torchwood would be coming back for a third season of stories this year, though I still wished for more Doctor tales in this "year off" from a complete season of Doctor Who. However, just as we were only getting five Doctor Who specials scattered throughout the year, the BBC authorities had trimmed down Torchwood as well. This season, there would only be five episodes. But those five, apparently, would all be connected, as one complete miniseries-like story. And one more thing--they would all be shown, one-after-another, on consecutive nights, for one entire week.
I was skeptical of this. One entire story? Some of Torchwood's past tales had even seemed too short to entirely sustain one episode, let alone five. and only five episodes? Were they robbing us of a good season? What if those five episodes sucked? What if the story was bad? Would we then be left with five episodes of a story we didn't even care about?
Still, as the trailers were released, one by one, I got more and more interested. The story actually looked good--and genuinely creepy. It seemed there was some sort of conspiracy involved? Some kind of dark secrets? The Torchwood team seemed in genuine danger. And everywhere, all around, were children, chanting in unison, together.
Piquing my interest even more were the reviews, from TV critics whose opinions I respected, who had been sent screeners of the season and whose praise was glowing. One of them noted that Torchwood: Children of Earth was "the TV event of the summer." Another noted that on viewing the episodes, she was venturing to claim that this event was "the best British television has had to offer since the original incarnation of The Office." Those were some pretty solid words.
So this week, when the show started airing, I was curious. I downloaded the first episode as soon as I got home on Monday, intending to watch it--but I was exhausted, and put it off till the next day. Tuesday, I did the same thing--too tired, I figured I'd watch them today, knowing full well that now I had three hours of the show to watch. Today after downloading the episode that had aired, I figured I'd sit down to watch the first one--maybe the second, too, but that was it.
How wrong I was.
From the very beginning of Torchwood: Children of Earth, I was hooked. The show was, quite simply, brilliant. All the flaws I'd noted about the first two seasons seemed to evaporate--the characters were top-notch, the acting was spectacular, and intricate attention was spent on the details of plot and story. Something was up with the children of Earth--why did they all stop moving at the same time? Why did they all start chanting the same words at the same time, all over the world, all in English? Why was the slightly nebbish government official so terrified of what this meant? Why was the Prime Minister authorizing him to do "whatever needed to be done"? Why was an old man in an insane asylum able to accurately "sniff" that Gwen was telling the truth, and to pick out her pregnancy before she even knew herself, and why was he the only adult in the country also periodically chanting the same words? Who was out to get Team Torchwood--and why?? By the end of the episode, events had transpired that shook the entire universe of Torchwood--people were dead, places destroyed, and a tense, ticking sense of doom and dread had fallen over the entire story.
I had to know what happened next.
The next episode followed, a taut, suspenseful thriller of an episode that had me on the edge of my seat for the entire hour. The children's chanting became more specific. The Torchwood team was on the run. A mysterious woman was doing things that shouldn't be allowed. A low level secretary was taking risks with her position that she wasn't even sure she should be doing. It was crazy, it was intense, and by the end of the episode I was sure I was going to gnaw off my fingers from all the nail-biting I'd been doing.
Of course I moved right into the third.
Oh goodness, the story kept up. The third one was more of a mystery, a creepy abstract horror set in the chambers of the familiar. Desperation soaked through all levels--from innocent families, to main characters, to government officials whose hands were drenched in blood. Secrets of the past were revealed; requests were made... and gifts were demanded. When the episode ended, I wanted to move immediately into the fourth episode. I wanted to know what happened next. God, did I want to know what happened next.
But of course, the fourth episode hasn't aired yet. That's coming tomorrow.
This season of Torchwood is a tour de force for the show. It is amazing, incredible, and one of the best pieces of television I have seen in a long, long time. For long time fans of the show, it plays on emotion and characters you've come to grow to know and care about, while new viewers are given all the basic information they need to know about the Torchwood universe right off the bat, and are set free to enjoy an amazing, suspenseful tale without having to know pretty much anything about the previous two years' worth of stories. Though Doctor Who will always remain my favorite show set in the Whoniverse, Torchwood: Children of Earth has already earned a fierce and devoted fire in my heart. When it comes out on DVD, I will snatch it up immediately. I love it. Bravo, Torchwood; congratulations on graduating to the Big Leagues.
God, I need to know what happens next!
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