Torchwood Children of Earth (Spoilers for the whole series)

[amanuensis1]

Some discussion regarding Torchwood C of E and some cold facts regarding narrative structure/resolution:



1. If you're going to end Torchwood (the organization as well as the series), killing three-fifths of the team and making the leader leave Earth works.

2. Jack reneging on "An injury to one is an injury to all" is bitterly, bitterly unpopular. Unfortunately, Jack has had moments when he didn't exactly stick to this credo, so it's not completely out of character. It's damned unfair, and it really couldn't be crueler to have put him in the situation to make that particular sacrifice, but at least the writers recognized that that's really it for Jack. He can't stay here any longer after a decision like that. He's no longer our hero. He can't die, so at the least he has to leave Earth.

(Mind, I don't like that choice. It was a very mean thing to do, to take away the Jack-as-hero perception. I can't argue the structure of it, but I will argue that it sours the audience. An audience might grieve and that is the way of sad events in a story, but souring the audience is a risky choice.)

3. Watching the politicians of Earth turn into genocidal maniacs was brilliant, but I'm sorry, that demands an ending far more devastating for the majority of them. Not all of them could/would/should get Frobisher's ending, but we really needed to see more death/imprisonment/suicide/abject public stoning of these characters.

4. Similarly, when the world has gone stark staring genocidal you can't gloss over that with a "Six months later." I think the descent into hell that this miniseries depicted was fabulous but the world would be irreparably scarred if it could come back at all from a devastation like that. Children ripped from their parents' arms by their own government. Chaos and anarchy, guys. Riots in the streets. Not "Six months later."

You can hate the deaths, you can hate what they did to our Captain Jack Harkness, but as for me I'm vilifying them for dropping the ball on the resolution. Which is a serious pity, since most of it was tight and horrifying and brilliant. Bad writers, no denouement biscuit.

Comments

[busaikko]

They could have done it really simply and low-budget as well. Have the car in 'six months later' have all kinds of permit tags; insert a line about curfews. Have Gwen be obviously armed. In the grand panorama of the city, have there be areas of blackout and occasional flashing lights. All subtle signs that the nation is at unrest (I lived under military curfew for 2 years, it's quite eerie).

I would have preferred to have the grand reveal at the end be the putting-together of puzzle pieces from parts 1-4: I don't *get* the technobabble, and it cheapens the sacrifice. We live in a world where researchers have discovered how to extract vanilla flavouring from cow dung, where there are contact lens cameras, and *Jack Harkness* can't make a broadcast using alien-advanced audio technology that doesn't involve the wetware of a human voicebox? The show lost me there. Too much emotion used as whitewash for a plot that doesn't really stand on the legs it was given. *grumps*

[glorafin.livejournal.com]

To be fair, most TW-Dr Who arc resolutions are based on obscure techno-babble, usually taken from Grade 5 notions of what an electromagnetic wave is, so it's not surprising that they went with it again this time. You just have to forget about the technical way aliens are destroyed (who cares really?) and concentrate on the effects it all has on humans, which is the most important thing plot-wise.

[busaikko]

*g* Yes, that's generally how things go. It must be a lot harder doing SF than straight-up fantasy (looks at your HP icon) because people *will* start picking apart techno-stuff, whereas there's nothing to be said about a Killing Curse, really.... I'm afraid I always come across as rather hard of heart: no offence meant, ne.

[aunty_marion]

Absolutely. smallship1 is grumping about the '6 months later' crap too, and I'm inclined to agree. There is NO WAY something like that would just ... vanish.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I wanted to see the hangings. The literal hangings.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Shoot, I love your vision of the nation at unrest. Why didn't they put that in there, darnit?

[busaikko]

I think they wanted to give viewers some hope that life would return to normal. *insert bitter laughter here*