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

[quill-lumos.livejournal.com]

Completely agree with you on the ending, I thought the rest of the story was horrifying but brilliant too. The politicians deserved far more than they got, there needed to be some closure for the audience, but the interesting thing for me was how well the programme held up as a scathing attack on the UK's current government. There have been lots of revelations in the UK recently about cover-ups and dirty dealings etc. The programme works best if it's viewed against that backdrop

In this story, the 456 could have been dealt with differently if the government had not tried to hide what had happened back in 1965, that would have bought them more time. Jack solved the 'problem' of how to deal with the 456 fairly easily, how much easier would it have been for the world's techies to work on this. The clues were there, the whole thing about wavelengths, the children being used for amplification etc. with more time, things might have been very different. The Prime Minister is even called 'Green', surely a nod to our deeply, deeply unpopular Prime Minister.

Good Sci-Fi works best when it is used as a lens to view our own society, this is what I think they were doing with Torchwood. It was flawed, it was deeply distressing and I can't see how the show could continue, it shouldn't continue after that, at least not in this form.

Lucie

[starcrossedgirl.livejournal.com]

Totally with you on the politicians and the six months later thing. I had a serious moment of WTF? when the female cabinet minister implied that soon, she'd be the one in the Prime Minister's seat. Like... really? After her impassioned caught-on-camera speech about how we should pick out the poor of the population? What on earth is that scene meant to say to me? "The world sucks, and it will never stop sucking!"? In which case, gee thanks, I got plenty of that in RL already.

[ariadneelda.livejournal.com]

dropping the ball on the resolution.

Is this why I feel... I'm not sure what I feel. Some kind of unrest. I thought the whole series was amazing, and dark, wow was it dark, but I feel like... I needed something more? I hadn't realised it, but you're right, I wanted to see more of the fallout, it ended kind of abruptly.

About the politicians, I'll be cynical and say that IRL politicians would probably have found a way to save their asses. But yes, stories should follow story rules and give some kind of closure. My need to see some justice wasn't exactly satisfied.

Still, wow. And phew, that was freaking intense. God, I can't even go back to sleep now. (I woke up just to see the last episode because I couldn't wait till tomorrow - how crazy am I?)

[tbranch.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything ya just said. Its really too bad that with S2 ending on a downer and now this....it would have been nice to show a potential continuance with Torchwood, a twist to remind the viewer that Gwen still has access to the TW databases, there were 2 potential replacements.

But hey...I'm not the writers, right? I would have been happy with a Doctor guest appearance at the end to talk about the consequences of what had happened....After-school special like.

And I guess thats why they didn't....cuz they be still awesome. Heh.

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

Chaos and anarchy, guys. Riots in the streets. Not "Six months later."

THIS. Yes. The government would have fucking collapsed, and that would have been pretty interesting. They had way too much to cram into the last episode, so they cut corners where it needed to count the most. And the technobabbly solution - WTF, that was it? Just Jack typing a few things on a computer? Really?

[glorafin.livejournal.com]

I think that the political fallout of the whole thing was not torchwood related so were left off-screen. I'm pretty sure there would be a political fallout, and a severe one, after Day 5 but it was not the point of this series. In my opinion, there would be massive resignation, new elections and a completely public and transparent investigation about the whole thing... and people would have realized with time that governments were faced with an impossible situation and that the only thing they could be blamed for really was the way the children were chosen.

And the Minister who suggested they be chosen according to social standing would probably be more blamed than most in the end, even though she might think she'd get away with it at the end of Day 5.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I was thinking about this all last night, and I think Jack leaving would have been even more poignant if they had skipped the "Six Months Later" and done it at the end of Day 5 or "A few days later". If he ditched out on Gwen and Rhys while the country was in the middle of riots and political upheaval, and Gwen was sobbing and begging him to stay and help them explain and help them fix things? Whew, now THAT would have been a betrayal.

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean - I hadn't realised that it was one of my problems with it but it really is. The ending seemed very ... pat. Sudden attack of technobable and crazy angst and then we're at six months later with no idea what actually ahppened. Which is kind of annying so say the least especially after such a huge, huge build-up to it all. It wasn't ... I don't know. It just didn't feel right in some ways to me. Not enough pay-off for all the horrible angst.

[drgaellon]

This has been an ongoing problem with Doctor Who in general for years and years, and under RTD's stewardship in particular. They never quite manage to figure out how to END their damned stories... Edited for typing fail

[tattercoats.livejournal.com]

Wandered here via AuntyMarion... With you generally on the 'six months later'.

However, the whole thread of the politicians was, I found, utterly compelling, the scene where the 10% are chosen, chilling and horribly credible.

And at the end of Ep 5, when we'd got our breath back, we had a very in-depth talk with my teenage son about David Kelly. Remember him.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

"An injury to one is an injury to all"

I never really believed that Jack believed that. He's never struck me as a natural trade unionist.