Torchwood: Children of Earth

Wow. For those who have yet to see Torchwood: Children of Earth, broadcast on BBC1 and BBC HD over the last five consecutive nights at prime-time, I won’t spoil it for you by revealing all the storylines and outcome but some mention of key happenings is, when discussing the show, somewhat unavoidable. Just get it watched, soon as you can, alright?

You still might want to skip this article before you join the ranks of six million plus people who were hooked from Day One.

Torchwood: Children of Earth was, simply put, the best British science-fiction/horror TV drama ever made. It has raised the bar considerably. Last night’s finale was so relentlessly exciting and tense, I had to pause it halfway through to take a break for fear of my heart bursting out of my chest.

The show has presented us with the most brilliant well-rounded gay relationship ever committed to camera, with one character being bisexual—or polysexual, as has been said before of Captain Jack–and the other, Ianto Jones, clearly defined as heterosexual until he met Jack and fell in love. The fluidity in both characters’ histories served to confound all those who see sexuality as either/or, and love their labels. And we’ve come a long way since the days of Larry Grayson and John Inman when it comes to presenting gays on TV. Oh, how I wish I’d had role models like Ianto and Jack when I was a kid!

But what have the writers done to Captain Jack? Without detailing the circumstances into which he was placed, or the decisions he made, it can be said that the character has been utterly devastated, his life comparable to that of Job’s in the Bible—plague after plague of personal horrors, with Jack cursed not by God, unlike Job, but by immortality, for which if anyone is to blame it is The Doctor. But Job’s faith was being tested; Jack had no faith, other than in humanity itself, and he only sought to do the right thing by as many people as possible. It was his constant seeing of the bigger picture that, it seems, in the end cost him his soul. Will he regain it? Well, series 4 is apparently written and awaiting the go-ahead from the BBC. So we’ll see. But after what Jack did, it’s hard to imagine ever seeing the character in quite the same light as we did before. For many, myself included, the resolution to Torchwood: Children of Earth was a step too far on the part of the writers, despite the fact that we know it was an act of perverse brilliance, perfectly undesirable from the viewer’s perspective. I was not the only one to cry out at more than one juncture during the final two episodes. You could almost hear the howls of anguish on Twitter, which has been alive with Torchwood buzz all week.

The motivation of the aliens, when revealed, was sick genius. The image of one of the stolen children inside the tank will stay with me for a very long time. But where next for Torchwood? And will we have to wait another two years to see what happens next? Torchwood: Children of Earth was produced well over a year ago, more like two years. It was promised for January, meaning we’d gone well over a year without new episodes, only to be put back to the height of summer and still, with that notoriously stupid time to put out a new series of anything, it became the talk of Britain.

We all had doubts about the switch to just five episodes, down from 13, and all of them aired in one week, but the change worked because the show has matured in order to pull in audiences more used to Spooks than Doctor Who. I’m not sure it would work a second time but series 3 being a new format for the show allowed it to change emphasis and approach. I didn’t miss the voiceover intro of series 1 and 2 but appreciated just a hint of the old theme music remaining.

I thought series 1, all those involved in its making so desperate for the show to be seen as adult and distinct from Doctor Who, came across as puerile with gratuitous violence and sex; series 2 retreated from all that, and the original premise that this was not a show for children was reversed, with child-friendly cut episodes being broadcast in the early evenings; series 3, however, got things just right. It was not for children, sex was handled without sensation, and it featured no gore with violence used in ways that furthered the narrative, and not very often. We hardly ever saw the aliens, and when we did we didn’t see them clearly. This worked. The drama was the thing, not the monsters—though monsters they were, hell yes.

In series 1 mention of The Doctor was taboo but by the time we got to Torchwood: Children of Earth fans would all no doubt have been delighted to hear the Time Lord name-checked on more than one occasion; indeed, Gwen’s speech for posterity on Day Five was almost entirely preoccupied with the questions, ‘why was the Doctor nowhere to be seen?’ and, ‘what must the Doctor think of us?’.

Strangely, mentioning the Doctor did not weaken the show’s ability to stand on its own two feet; rather, it provided justification for its existence not as a side-dish, but a main meal in its own right.

If Torchwood were to end, I’d argue for Gwen as a companion for the new 11th Doctor: she’s gutsy, confident, powerful—and would be the perfect foil for a perceptually very young Doctor. But her being with child rather precludes that coming to pass, doesn’t it?

The BBC has allowed for something very interesting in allowing Russell T Davies to take many of the core qualities of Doctor Who and make something as powerfully adult as Torchwood. It reminds me in its tone and content of the Virgin series of books released in the 1990s, The New Adventures, in which writers sought to bring us Doctor Who for grown-ups with, at the time, the Time Lord’s fan base not shrinking but definitely, for the most part, ageing. Of course that trend was reversed as soon as Christopher Eccleston burst onto our screens in the role in 2005. But the need to provide something extra, something more sophisticated and adult, for fans of the classic series remained. RTD answered the call.

We can but hope to see more of Captain Jack, Gwen and… Who knows? Will the apparently amoral (until Day Five) assassin join the team? She’d be a perfect foil for Jack, always unpredictable, edgy and aggressive. Will the courageous PR assistant return? She’d be an ally for the gentler but still steely Gwen, perhaps more vulnerable in series 4 with a child to raise? We can only hope there is another series, and that it airs in 2010–not two years from now, or later. But we can say with conviction that Torchwood: Children of Earth was near-perfect, certainly pitch-perfect in tone and presentation save for the last five minutes which were something of an anti-climax. That said, any coda at all would have appeared a little lame following on from the epic end-of-world scenario we were presented with over the past week. It would be quibbling to spend too much time dissing those five minutes when all that came before brought us so much entertainment and horror, so many surprises, and a lot of shocks.

This show broke new ground. It was unmissable TV for anyone, even those who don’t normally like science-fiction. Like I said, just get it watched.

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