Children of Earth: Day Five

Seriously now...... I have been following the first 2 series of Torchwood and thought they deserved 6 - 7 / 10 depending on the episodes.

This series Children of Earth was in a league of its own.......truly! I am shocked by how good this was. It was full of suspense, series and i mean series character losses, unpredictable and eventually shocking! I rate this 10 out of 10, the acting was superb and its actually one of the best things i have watched on TV this year so far (along with dollhouse but thats another story!) Now all of this said, this is MY opinion so i know some people will say this was a let down, but in my eyes i thought it was fantastic and highly recommended even if you are not a sci fi fan......... its more drama then monsters !!!

It is now time for Captain Jack to visit the Doctor and get re-energized. He will find his purpose and return to earth and reorganize Torchwood with Gwen. What a great series!!! It is no wonder why 6 million viewers in the UK watched it. It is now time for the US to get on board the Torchwood train!

The challenge with the series is that we fall in love with the characters who are killed too quickly. I hope the BBC pays attention to the viewer-ship and rewards Captain Jack with another series. We do need more 13 episode seasons and have the mini-series as a reward for continued support of the series.

This 5 hour epic is a very difficult production to judge impartially.

I can truthfully say I sat on the edge of my seat throughout - unable to second-guess much of what was to come and that is a strange admission from a mature adult. Perhaps I could have guessed if I hadn't been quite so immersed in the story.

Of course everyone could pick holes in a fantasy drama. Why would the Secret Service employ a temporary secretary? Why wasn't the MI5 actions explained in complete detail? Would the Prime Minister really treat his senior staff in such a manner? The sheer scale of the production and the phenomenal acting and brilliant direction made any such niggles totally trivial.

So for those people who have never seen Torchwood - this can be taken as an unconditional recommendation.

However for those who have followed Series 1 and 2 - there is a big problem.

Torchwood has always been high on humour. The last episode of Series 2 and the whole of Series 3 is harrowing in the extreme. Few, if any lines, could raise a chuckle. Most of the narrative was far from funny while a grim despair pervaded the story.

It is hard to believe the BBC has any intention of continuing Torchwood after this - which might account for some of John Barrowman's comments in interviews. I hope I am wrong because it has gone from strength to strength - both in terms of writing and acting - but I fear it might be following "Firefly" into oblivion.

All credit must go to the writer/producer Russell T Davies, the fantastic main cast, the brilliant supporting actors and everybody associated with the show. This was a production to be proud of.

It is a normal morning in the UK when every child in the world suddenly freezes. It happens again later but they time they all chant in unison "we are coming". There is no obvious reason for this happening but of course it seems like a case for Torchwood. Problem is that, just as the world needs them most, someone appears to be targeting them with lethal force. Meanwhile, at the Home Office, new PA Lois Habiba cannot help but pick up on the dark tone to the work of her boss John Frobisher and tries to work out which side she should really be on.

Torchwood has always been a weird creation – with characters from what is essentially a Saturday evening family show it seems like it should be for children but yet season 1 contained endless sexual trysts and violence which seemed aimed at adults despite having content (characters, plots) that adults would see as silly. It was, to all intents and purposes, a mess. Season 2 made some key improvements and became a show that I actually enjoyed and appreciated, despite it not being brilliant. So it took this third (and probably final) "season" to be the moment where the show finally hits upon the grownup sci-fi that it had been promising us from the very start. Gone totally are the pointless moments of sexual and violent excess, as are the soapy sub-plots and what is left is a story that owes a debt to the more cerebral sci-fi of Quatermass and the BBC.

Of course, before I upset Theo Robertson by evoking that name as a comparison (as opposed to a contrast), it must be pointed out that Children of Earth does have plenty of action and movement but for my money it puts that on top of a plot that has less to do with monsters flying round all over the place and more to do with the "monsters" inside humanity and the decisions that must be made "in the greater good". It doesn't really work the moral questions but it makes them a very strong base to what is a very urgent and engaging story. The decision to screen it over five consecutive nights pays off because it does hook and, although I more or less watched it in one sitting, I always wanted to watch the next episode and I know from press coverage that the viewing figures were very good.

The children being central is a bit derivative of other things but we all know children are creepy at the best of times and it uses that well. The darkness and the morality is played out much better than it has been in the previous seasons and it builds really well giving me genuine chills throughout. The "Britishness" of the whole thing is still there in the accents, unglamorous characters, flabby bodies, small estates and, at times, a limit in scale to front rooms and such. However it does not feel like a limiting factor here but rather just part of it. This is down to the material because it prevents it feeling quaint and "oh look at the Brits trying to do a big sci-fi thing". This is also seen in some of the casting – for example I didn't think that Capaldi would be able to shake off Malcolm Tucker but he did and after the first few scenes I had put it out of my mind completely. Speaking of the cast, everyone does well with the material. Barrowman may have started as a pantomime character but he gets it right here – a tragic figure who himself has resided over unpalatable decisions and it works. Myles is a lot less annoying than before, mainly because her material has less of the soap-opera about it. David-Lloyd is good, although I wasn't overly taken by Owen's increased screen time as her husband. Cush Jumbo plays the innocent insider really well although I'll be honest and say that her sheer cuteness made me remember her among the many other very good supporting cast – particularly those shifting and debating at the table of power.

Children of Earth has its faults and I'm sure that my enjoyment of it was enhanced by how low my expectations were following what had gone before from it, however it is a very strong, engaging and dark sci-fi miniseries. It is what the show always should have been and it has the darkness and sci-fi content that the strongest episodes of the new Who have had. Although there is some stuff it would be better to know, skip seasons 1&2 and watch this – it is surprisingly good.

...can't decide on my vote yet... I never give 10, maybe I should reconsider... I terms of emotional response: I only had similarly strong responses to bab-5 and Buffy (sorry, if you hate this comparison...) without giving away too much: Russel T. Davis does what needs to be done to serve the story, the characters and the drama. Therefor I would like to put him in one line along with Joss Whedon and J. Michael Straczynski. This time he did not make the same, IMHO, mistake he did with the doctor. He did not just re-arrange his favorite motives and concepts and characters; with this season he wrote a nice story, that caught, at least me, perfectly. In one flow...