Customer Reviews

Torchwood: Children of Earth [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(53)

 

 

For the first two series Torchwood was your standard solve the horrible situation of the week series but that all changed with series three. First and foremost, the bigggest difference is that there are only five episodes instead of the usual 12 but that is because all five episodes comprise one mini-series mega event where the BBC showed one episode each weeknight during a single week as opposed to one show a week. Those are the minor technical differences and here are the stylistic differences.

Previous incarnations of Torchwood were a mix of frivolity, political thriller, and science fiction while series three puts the political thriller aspect front and center with the jokes and scifi taking supporting roles. The tone is emotionally taut, psychologically upsetting, and decidedly dark--all perfect motifs for a show designed only for adults. If you are wanting a Dr. Who style trip into the imagination where you get a bit scared but return with a smile on your face this is not going to be to your liking at all because this time Torchwood takes us into a nightmare realm where many of the humans in charge seem more alien and threatening than the actual aliens, who are definitely scary themselves, and that insures you won't return from this journey with a smile unless you're a sadistic freak. Does the darkness overwhelm the show? Not at all! As I said the political thriller aspect is front and center and its pacing almost feels like this is Torchwood 24, especially seeing how each episode represents one day of time so that by the end of this series only five days have passed for the Torchwood crew.

Should you buy Torchwood series 3? Well if you are more of a fan of Dr. Who and only watch Torchwood because it is a Who spin-off I'd wait and watch it as it airs to make sure it isn't too realistic to be enjoyable for you. If you prefer Torchwood over Dr. Who then definitely put your order in as you're not likely to be disappointed with the direction RTD has taken the show this time. Personally, this has been the best science fiction on the small or large screen this year (I haven't seen Moon yet so that could change) and keep in mind I am a huge Trekkie and adored the new Star Trek movie! That's right, a die hard Trekkie said Torchwood series 3 was better than Star Trek the Reboot. Granted, Trek had better blockbuster visuals and space battles but Torchwood, by far, told the better story. I also think the acting was better in Torchwood than Trek although there isn't as big as a distance between the two as there was in plot quality.

Russell T. Davies, freed from the restraints of the family-friendly brief of DOCTOR WHO, takes full control of TORCHWOOD and fulfills the spin-off series' more adult, tragic and even political agenda.

This is Davies creating a show with the safety wheels off. Where the previous two seasons often promised the characters would be pushed to their limits, this season really means it this time. A mysterious, seemingly unbeatable alien race makes contact with Earth by controlling and manipulating every child in the world, their demands as unfathomable as their threat to the human race, and the politicians are driven to both cover their own skins while committing a monstrous act in the name of the greater good. The question is whether Captain Jack Harkness and Torchwood are up to the challenge of averting a worldwide tragedy without losing their lives and their souls, and how much they're willing to sacrifice. Davies uses the medium of Science Fiction to explore issues of government corruption and cravenness, complicity and moral failure. This is adult Science Fiction drama, not the silly, adolescent teases of previous series of TORCHWOOD.


As some reviews have already noted, this 5-part miniseries changes all the rules of the show, raises the stakes and suspense to an almost unbearable degree, and by the end, nothing will ever be the same again. The changes to the show are tragic, permanent, and leaves the continuation of the series in doubt. However, it is also the angriest political drama the BBC has produced in years, the story openly states that governments are corrupt and untrustworthy, and practically encourages class warfare. This is on par with classic Old School British Leftist series such as EDGE OF DARKNESS, BOYS FROM THE BLACKSTUFF and STATE OF PLAY. It's attitude towards the government is consistent with what the British public currently feels about their government, and proves that Russell T. Davies has his finger firmly on the pulse of the nation.

This is the best political Science Fiction miniseries of recent years. No US drama would dare push things this far. It takes its influences from QUATERMASS, CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED, Lovecraft, and creates an angry indictment of government that took me by surprise.

I've noticed that most of the "It was brilliant" and "Best thing I've ever seen" reviews have been written by people who had never watched Torchwood. If you were a Torchwood fan, if you liked the quirky little, character-driven drama we were gifted with during its first two seasons, Children of Earth is not for you. It is plot-driven, remorseless, angst-filled, nihilistic and, in the end, utterly hopeless. Unable to get his original stand alone drama produced by the BBC, Russell T Davies poorly retooled CoE to wedge the Torchwood team into the middle of his original story. Stripping them of all the elements that make Torchwood unique, Davies then reduces the team to a supporting role in a political drama whose man protagonists - John Frobisher, Lois Habiba, Bridget Spears - are all civil servants. If they had been called Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane, the "resistance fighters" in CoE would have worked as effective characters; as Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Rhys William and Gwen Cooper, they fail miserably.

Without the unnecessarily added Torchwood element, Children of Earth would have been another in an endless series of science fiction dramas that that appear thrilling and exciting on the first go round, but fade quickly with each subsequent viewing. The plot holes, inconsistencies, poor writing and dubious special effects (not the flat bed scanner used as "alien" technology on Day One) just don't hold up to scrutiny.

If you want to see the elements of Children of Earth done better, watch the original sources Russell T Davies "borrowed" his story line from: Quartermass, Contact, The Fog and 24.

If you like good science fiction, avoid Children of Earth. If you like Torchwood, pretend CoE ever existed. It's your only hope, because with CoE, Torchwood is dead.

This is not Torchwood. Torchwood 3 is a team captained by Jack Harkness who protect Cardiff from a rift in time and space. It is a science fiction show filled with neat gadgets and aliens and great relationships.

Children of Earth is a political drama with none of the above. TPTB took away the Hub and all their toys so they couldn't save themselves. They decided that the show was suddenly "Jack's tragedy". Poor Jack can't catch a break; they want to make him into the Doctor (who?). They destroyed his home, his life and his character in the name of adult drama. They took an established show with an established plot and established characters and changed the name of the game.

Of course people are upset. We liked our show, we liked our characters. We finally see Ianto step up and become Jack's equal, found out a bit about his background and then have it yanked out from under our feet. Then we are patted on the heads and told that we don't get to have an opinion. It feels like now that Russell T Davies is done with Dr. Who, he decided to redo Torchwood after he practically admitted he ignored it for two years.

I can't believe I waited so long for such disappointment.

If you are a fan of Torchwood, Children of Earth may come as a shock. It's strength is that it is an interesting, action packed political/science fiction thriller. The ending is visually powerful .... and extraordinarily depressing. Unfortunately, the contrivances and leaps in logic that move the plot to the finish just do not hold up in repeating viewing.

I've seen this plotline before in the last series of Quatermass, and while the premise was reworked, it also seemed throughout as though the characters and Torchwood itself had been hammered to fit the plotline, resulting in a miniseries that would have been better as a stand-alone, without Torchwood. Unfortunately, the quirkiness and fun that was Torchwood has been sacrificed to make it more of a generic 'Spooks' type thriller, leaving it far, far darker and grimmer than the first two series.

And, it's time Russell T. Davies moved beyond the same old one-trick pony shock where the team is concerned. There are things that series writers can pull off once. After that these plot devices become not only redundant, but downright tiresome. I was engrossed in the story right up to the surprising cliffhanger of Day Three. After that, the inconsistencies and plot devices that were needed for the big finish became too strained for credibility, particularly for a longtime viewer who was familiar with the characters pre-Children of Earth.

I gave it two stars, and I wish I could have given it more for the acting which was excellent, particularly John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Nicholas Farrell and Peter Capaldi. In truth, it was Frobisher's (Capaldi) story and the story of the government's response to an alien threat, more than it was Torchwood's, except for the last hour which anguishing and bleak.

A few weeks before this season aired, I recommended this series to some co-workers of mine. I said it was a bit campy and not exactly note-perfect with regard to plot, dialogue, or acting, but tons of fun, with great characters and a romantic relationship between two lead characters that was as endearing as it was unique among sci-fi programming.

Then I saw Children of Earth and I revoked my recommendation.

This wasn't Torchwood; this was an overwrought mess of a social/political commentary, with cameos by the stars of Torchwood. What passes for plot in this story is entirely dependent on the utter stupidity of every single character in the story, not to mention requiring long-term fans to ignore the canon of both this series and the Who franchise as a whole, as well as actions by the Torchwood team that seem completely inconsistent with their characters as developed in the first two seasons.

I can only assume that the creators of this show felt that the series had deviated from its original purpose, and so they decided to dismantle the old show piece by piece. Hub? Gone. Rift? Not a mention. "Torchwood is ready"? Hardly. Characters? Disposable.

The funny thing is (and by funny, I mean "sad"), the only things they seemed to have kept from the previous series were all the weaknesses I mentioned before. The plot had all the structural integrity of Swiss cheese, the dialogue was all but painful at times, and the acting was as hit-or-miss as ever.

It's always sad to lose a favorite show, but my campy, quirky, immensely entertaining Torchwood died with season 2, and this new show is nothing I want any part of.

I couldn't wait to get my copy of Children of Earth because I no longer get BBC-America. I was so disappointed when I didn't receive it on the day of its release (amazon sent it to me 2 days later) that I almost called to complain. When I got it, it was joyously my day off. I hurriedly unwrapped it and popped it in the player. 4 and a half hours later (give or take a few minutes) I was saying WTF?? Yup kids, to say I was disappointed is a MAJOR understatement.

The powers that be took my beloved Torchwood and turned it into BBC News story of the minute, with a horribly stupid alien, plot holes that you could fly a Boeing 747 through, an invincible and immune-to-harm Gwen and a bunch of government bully-boys (and girls) each trying to be more horrible than the last. Then to add insult to injury, they topped that all off with the character assassination of Captain Jack Harkness...the reason I came to the show in the first place.

To be honest, I wanted to wrap the whole thing back up and send it back to amazon.com. But I didn't. It will now sit on my shelf collecting dust for all time. So yeah...If you know nothing about Torchwood and you like political dramas with an alien kind of meshed in with baling wire and duct tape, go ahead and watch CoE. If you're a Torchwood fan and you haven't yet seen it, please, take a pass and live in the land of season 1 and 2. Trust me, you'll be much happier.

I've been a big fan of Dr. Who and Torchwood for years now, pushing them on friends and family alike. Watching this, however, turned me off so hard and fast that I honestly have to say I will never watch another episode of Torchwood again.

Torchwood: Children of Earth is nothing more than a series of one horribly-depressing situation after another. Torchwood has always been dark, but there has always been light at the end of the tunnel. In this one, they jump off the deep end and never look back. If you want something less depressing, go visit a hospital suicide ward. Seriously.

Another very serious problem I have with TW:CoE is the series of breaks from character that disrupted the suspension of disbelief. There is one, in particular, where Jack makes a radical 180 in what he's doing, in a way that only a person who's never experienced war first-hand would. Jack, having been through several major wars, would never have responded in the way they had him, making it (at least to me) glaringly obvious that the writers on this episode couldn't truly relate to the perspective of this character that had been developed over the prior several years. The worst part is that they tied this in with the "overwhelmingly-depressing" theme; it almost looks like they stiltedly inserted these breaks with character purely so that they could shove the mood off the deep end.

Then there is the case of a rule that most of both the video game industry and the TV/movie industry have been aware of for a couple of decades now: The entertainment comes first, not realism. People usually engage in entertainment to get away from what they have to deal with every day in their lives. Most people in our culture expect there to be some sort of uplifting / relief ending - not because it's realistic, but because it helps them to feel better. You even see this in most movies that you would normally expect to be horribly depressing, like horror flicks and thrillers. But nothing kills entertainment faster than an overload of realism, and TW:CoE is wallowing in realism up to its eyeballs.

The only redeeming point I found was the acting. There were a number of phenomenal performances in this; it's just too bad TW:CoE itself wasn't put together well enough to support the actors in their roles.

Plot Concept: 5 stars
Plot Implementation: -5 stars

The third season of Torchwood was nothing what I expected. And I don't mean that in any way positive. Not only was it even more brutal and violent than any season before, it was also majorly depressing to see everything we cared for in the show was carelessly and unnecessarily killed off. The spoilers had promised a ,new level` in the relationship of the two main characters Ianto Jones and Jack Harkness, but it never was. The story of the long-term-couple everyone adored was written as uninspired and distant as it could be. Well, that in fact WAS the new level. All that made me so angry with a show I used to love and waited for almost a year. The screenwriters did a poor job with this. And I won't even tell what I think of the producers job.

When you liked Torchwood and ist characters in the first two seasons I can assure you: there is no need to watch this third season of the show. It was boring, badly written and not worth anyones while.

"Torchwood" has, through two series, been a show that never lived up to its enormous potential. They had a lot of great ideas, some fascinating characters and cool plots, but ultimately almost every episode came crashing down under its own weight. The series always felt like it was only "Doctor Who" with extra swears added in. It never felt like its own show and it never amounted to anything.

Then along came "Children of Earth".

This series of episodes tells the story of a group of aliens, known only as the 456, who show up and make a rather unpleasant demand of humanity. They communicate by making every child freeze in place and simultaneously recite "We are coming. We are coming." It's an unnerving effect. Torchwood in general, and Capt Jack in particular, are being hunted down by the government, which is itself scrambling to figure out how to deal with this situation. By the end of the story many things have changed, and no matter what happens henceforth, the series will never be the same again.

What a stunning accomplishment this is, especially since it was written by Russel T Davies, a man whose output on "Doctor Who" has been somewhat uneven, to put it mildly. He managed a couple really stunning episodes there (notably "Midnight" from the show's fourth series), but most of his stories were dragged down by a lack of focus, stupid sex and fart jokes and characters acting like idiots. He carried that over to "Torchwood" initially but has really managed to get past that here. He's someone whose writing I generally dislike, and while I really loved the writing with "Children of Earth", it also annoyed me greatly, because it shows what RTD is capable of when he tries.

Everything about this story works completely from start to finish. At no point did anything feel forced or done simply for effect. The characters are firing on all cylinders, the supporting cast (notably Peter Capaldi, in one of the best, most layered TV performances I've ever seen), are perfect with characters who are well-written and three dimensional, and, almost surprisingly, the series manages to convey a real sense of fear and dread as it goes on. I can only imagine how much it must've sucked to watch this over a course of three nights and have to wait 23 hours each night to find out what happened next. It makes waiting three months to see what happened to Picard at the end of "The Best of Both Worlds" seem like a walk in the park.

There is one minor problem, and that's not with the show, but with the Blu-ray release of it. There's no real extra features other than a bit of "Torchwood: Declassified", which is essentially the same as "Doctor Who: Confidential". It's a behind-the-scenes show and quite interesting, and I'm glad it's here. But I miss having things like commentaries, deleted scenes and the like. For a series that's been so good about packing DVDs and Blu-rays full of everything and the kitchen sink, that's a bit of a letdown.

It's also a very minor complaint. This is an amazing piece of work, and even if you've never seen "Torchwood" or "Doctor Who" I recommend picking it up. You likely won't be lost and you'll likely want to watch it with your eyes closed.