Torchwood - Children Of Earth

Earlier in the week, I had a bit of a pop at Torchwood. You know, as a way of welcoming in the new series. Still, this has been a good week of television (well, for the five hours that Torchwood was on for, anyway). And many of the objections I’ve had in the past to the series evaporated this week.

The reason seems obvious to me. The increase in quality is linked to the decrease in the number of episodes. Plus RTD has a fraction of the usual number of Doctor Who episodes this year, so it feels like there has finally the focus on Torchwood it perhaps always deserved.

This focus allowed the creative team to decide on what the tone of the story should be. The more gleeful, immature sexual focus of the earlier seasons disappeared this time. Instead, the writers focussed on creating real relationships for the characters rather than just casual fucking for cheap jokes. The pinnacle of this was Captain Jack and Ianto’s relationship. It transformed from being a chance for John Barrowman to get his clothes off every other episode into a touching, clumsy fledgling relationship. Which made the ending to Day Four even more affecting.

And they also decided on the tone for the series – dark as pitch. There was much talk when Torchwood launched about it being a paranoid thriller and finally, it became so for the first time over the past few evenings. It has been hinted throughout the modern Doctor Who series that the government isn’t to be trusted (particularly not when run by Harold Saxon). However, in this story that feeling went into overdrive. The civil service was perfectly happy to kill and kill again to hide a secret for the past. Even more dispiriting, in an odd sort of a way, were the leaders, personified by the oily, self-centred Gordon Brown. Sorry, sorry, Brian Green. He wasn’t directly evil, just a coward more focussed on himself than anything else. And as a result he was just as dangerous as the Master. He was willing to sell 10% of the Children of Earth to violent aliens at the bat of an eyelid. In power, making decisions that affect millions – and his most pressing concern was his own longevity in power. It was great when Green got his comeuppance – although it was slightly disappointing that he didn’t die in hideous pain.

Also, characters went through full story arcs and developed across the five nights of the story. The most noticeable example was Captain Jack – by the end of the programme, after the death of his lover and his grandson – finally seemed to have lost a lot of the occasionally grating bravado that has been central to his character. He was broken by compromises and choices he’d made in the past. We finally had a contrite Captain Jack Harkness – something I thought we would never see.

And other characters went through a transformation to. Perhaps one of the most emotionally involved storylines was around John Frobisher. He went from middle-of-the-road civil servant to ordering deaths by the end of the first episode. But rather than being a heartless government drone, he developed further. He became an ambassador to the stars (literally) and tried to find a solution to the 456 problem. And then, finally, he was broken by the cowardly Green ordering him to give his children to the 456. And he took drastic, heart-breaking action. The only action he could take. Yet at the same time, the deaths of his family and his own suicide where the result of his own actions across the whole story. It is a measure of how good Peter Capaldi’s performance was that by the end of Day One I’d stopped seeing him as Malcolm Tucker. And therefore stopped wondering when he was going to start swearing.

It was also exceptionally well directed. Euros Lyn was able to get moments of almost excruciating tension from what were scenes of a civil servant talking to a fish tank, and gave the whole series a cinematic, gripping feel.

Yet there were flaws. It's fair to say the 456 themselves were well realised. The tank, the smoke, the booming voice. However the responses of the world leaders to them weren’t totally convincing. The 456 had made the children speak in unison. They made the humans build something in Thames House. Then they killed the people in Thames House. And that is it. Sure, it is pretty unsettling. But is it enough to warrant giving up 10% of the world’s children? After all, within the continuity of the Doctor Who series, this is a human race who, just months before, had faced the Daleks dragging the whole Earth across the universe and then setting to work on invading that planet. Maybe the human race is now paranoid, and prepared to surrender to any alien threat at the slightest sign of force. I guess what I would have liked to have seen would be more of what the 456 were capable of. As if was, the occupant of the fish tank came across as the Slightly Tetchy Chunder Monster.

Furthermore, the story still felt very padded out, despite the number of episodes in the series being reduced by half. The cliff-hanger to Day One took fifteen minutes to set up – to the point where I just wanted Captain Jack to explode so the story could move on. Likewise, as atmospheric as it was, the first half of Day Five was pure padding before Captain Jack was released from his cell. And pretty much the whole of Day Two was padding that could have been condensed into 10 minutes. We didn’t need 60 minutes of the Torchwood team trying to find Captain Jack. In fact, it reminds me of one of those Doctor-lite episodes of Doctor Who. Which are ok when you have a thirteen episode season. If you have just five episodes, it seems a little contrary to write out your lead character for the best part of one of those episodes.

And finally, the ending to the story. The solution to the 456 problem. It was a little… well, simple. Yes, it cost Captain Jack personally. But turning a signal back on the 456 was too easy. And not epic enough to justify the four and a half hours that went before.

Nevertheless, the sum total was much more than its weakest parts, and the Children of Earth worked. It worked far better than any other Torchwood. The series has found its way. Although quite where they take it now I don’t know. After all, Ianto is dead, Captain Jack is back in the stars and Gwen is racing towards to maternity leave. Torchwood’s finest hour (well, five hours) could also be the end of the programme.