Torchwood: Children of Earth DAY FIVE FINALE grading thread

[RevdKathy]

Just read through this whole thread... a few thoughts.

This was what I expected back when they flagged Torchwood as 'adult drama'. Instead we got Doctor Who with smut, gratuitous sex and rude words. I gave up half way through season one, and this was my first real venture back. This was adult drama - big themes, unanswerable decisions, impossible outcomes. This was Doctor Who does greek tragedy. It was brilliant. And about as cheerful as Oedipus.

Whoever said 'we are the monsters' summed it up beautifully. The 'deus ex machina' was the 456, which presented us with a physical tragedy for our kids, rather than the daily 'death' we condemn them to with crap education, poor prospects, drugs, alcohol and knife culture... I could go on. And that's without mentioning the kids who live with AIDS, genocide, violence...

The impossible decision where there is no 'good' thing left to choose and you're faced with finding the 'less bad' one is faced by ordinary courageous people every day. Like Jack, they do 'the best they can' and live with the consequences. In an odd way, this was incredibly 'optimistic' about human beings.

Where was the Doctor? I think this was RTD showing his true colours. He's a self-proclaimed atheist, which has made some of the 'Jesus-Doctor' stuff seem a little odd. This was starkly humanist: when the chips are truly down, there is no TARDIS landing. Human beings are left to sort it out from themselves, for better or for worse. Prayers, or intergalactic phone calls go unanswered in RTD's theology. Within Who-thology? I'd suggest that the Doctor's tendency to be in the right place has largely been down to the work of the TARDIS herself. For some reason, she chose not to bring him here. Maybe SHE still has isues with Jack, since he was 'created' from her energy.

More Torchwood? If it could be this good, I'd be impressed. But realistically, they have backed themselves into a corner. A 'man who can't die' is all well and good. But a 'man who doesn't age' causes all sorts of problems. TNG had the same problem with Data. Whatever happens to the character, actors age. I was thinking that Barrowman was looking a good bit thicker and less boyish than on his first appearance in the TARDIS. By the time he reappeasr - be it Torchwood, Doctor Who or SJA, they need an explanation for that.

 

[captcalhoun]

this week's radio times said that a Torchwood spokeswoman said 'discussions are under way on the show's future'.

 

[Snick27]

They had so many other options, for Jack to have to kill his grandson to save millions of kids all because the goverment sold us out is really sad. If i was Jack i would really hate this planet cause we are the real evil in the universe.

What would of happened if some of the Muslems kids straped bombs to themselves and after they got beamed up, blew the shit out of the 456?

Just one if the many ways we could of fought back?

 

[David cgc]

Whatever happens to the character, actors age. I was thinking that Barrowman was looking a good bit thicker and less boyish than on his first appearance in the TARDIS. By the time he reappeasr - be it Torchwood, Doctor Who or SJA, they need an explanation for that.

He'll say that, thanks to his sight-seeing tour and various time-travel mishaps, he's two million years older in his next appearance. By the time he goes all giant-head on us, he'll probably be older than the actual universe, in a nod to H2G2.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

What would of happened if some of the Muslems kids straped bombs to themselves and after they got beamed up, blew the shit out of the 456?

I imagine that in some of the Arab countries, the children offered up to the Four-Five-Six were all male. If your culture is polygamist, why not cull the males to create conditions for more and better harems? In that case, I doubt seriously that, say, Saudi Arabia would have wanted to antagonize the Four-Five-Six by sending suicide bombers; the aliens were doing the kingdom a favor.

 

[Starkers]

They had so many other options, for Jack to have to kill his grandson to save millions of kids all because the goverment sold us out is really sad. If i was Jack i would really hate this planet cause we are the real evil in the universe.

What would of happened if some of the Muslems kids straped bombs to themselves and after they got beamed up, blew the shit out of the 456?

Just one if the many ways we could of fought back?

Biofilters on the 456 transporters would deactivate weapons mid-transport

Worth remembering that suicide bombing wasn't invented by Muslims and they're not all suicide bombers as well...

 

[cultcross]

What would of happened if some of the Muslems kids straped bombs to themselves and after they got beamed up, blew the shit out of the 456?

Why Muslems [sic] kids, exactly? Are good, Christian, white kids not capable of that? Given that we are talking about a show in which the governments of Christian, white nations decided to hand 10% of their kids to alien invaders at gunpoint and cover up their part in it, I'd be careful with the sweeping remarks.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Whatever happens to the character, actors age. I was thinking that Barrowman was looking a good bit thicker and less boyish than on his first appearance in the TARDIS. By the time he reappeasr - be it Torchwood, Doctor Who or SJA, they need an explanation for that.

He'll say that, thanks to his sight-seeing tour and various time-travel mishaps, he's two million years older in his next appearance. By the time he goes all giant-head on us, he'll probably be older than the actual universe, in a nod to H2G2.

Actually, that was my explanation as to how Jack would eventually evolve into The Face of Boe way back when people complained that 198,000 years wouldn't be enough time or whatever (because of The Face of Boe's appearance in "The Long Game" set in 200,000).

 

[Photoman15]

If the 456 did wipe out humanity where were they proposing to get more kids from? The whole thing seemed like a bit of a con job to me and in a way I found the utter spinelessness of everyone the most fantastical part of the show!

Maybe Earth isn't the first planet they've pulled this sort of extortion on. Maybe human children aren't the only ones who produce those chemicals.
Maybe there are dozens, even hundreds of worlds which regularly tithe 10% of their children to these monsters, and a planetary scale demonstration of their weapons would serve to keep the other worlds in line.

Great episodes.

But... why not just supply the 456 with the chemicals they need from the children? I'm sure any chemical produced by a (human) body can be made in a lab and would do the job.

 

[Jim Steele]

But... why not just supply the 456 with the chemicals they need from the children? I'm sure any chemical produced by a (human) body can be made in a lab and would do the job.

Why pick a hole like that when we don't even know which chemicals they're taking from the children, if it's possible to synthesize them, or even if the 456 would accept a substitute? (I suspect not, considering how petulantly absolute they were in their demands)

Also, remember that the government didn't know what the children were for until the handover plans were well under way. Up until that point it was presumed to be some sort of symbiosis.

 

[RevdKathy]

Are you sure it was a chemical? Just because humans are inclined to addiction to chemicals... could have been an emotional kick. Maybe the emotional turmoil associated with puberty - would account for wanting children rather than adults. Pretty impossible to bottle that.

 

[Jim Steele]

Are you sure it was a chemical? Just because humans are inclined to addiction to chemicals... could have been an emotional kick. Maybe the emotional turmoil associated with puberty - would account for wanting children rather than adults. Pretty impossible to bottle that.

^

The 456 specifically cited "the chemicals".

 

[cultcross]

I'm sure any chemical produced by a (human) body can be made in a lab and would do the job.

This is not the case. The vast majority of chemicals, in fact, synthesised by the human body, would be impossible or ridiculously complex and circuitous to produce in a lab. Biological compounds tend to be very large and very highly ordered. Even the most simple enzymes are beyond us. To be something specifically produced in children, we are probably talking an enzyme - to my knowledge, no hormones (which are infinitely simpler in structure) are unique or particualrly high in children.

 

[roguephoenix]

not sure if it's been asked, but did they ever say how the aliens found out that children could be a source for their crack? only reason i ask is because is because the most likely reason is they've had access to a child before and that's how they found out. but if that's so, that negates the need for humans to "give" them children. they could simply take them. did they explain why they didn't just take what they wanted? better yet, synthesize the chemical from the children they already had?

Well given that they have at least rudimentary matter transportation, they could have snatched one child fairly easily and without too much suspicion, I would have thought. Then they needed more, so they spoke to the government (the 'dealer' of the analogy) to get what they wanted. Although they probably could have got it themselves, in the way you can grow weed yourself, they went to their new 'dealer'. Then when they needed huge numbers of children, more than they could pick out one by one via their matter transporter, they go back to the same source that provided before.

And as for synthesis, chemically speaking it is almost always cheaper and easier to extract a chemical if there is a ready source than to synthesise it from scratch. What if it was an enzyme? A highly complex protein 10s of thousands of atomic mass units in size, we can't even come close to synthesising them, perhaps the 456 couldn't either?

i just think there was no need for them to actually "ask" for the children since there was nothing we could do to stop them at the time. without them warning us what was going on we wouldn't have had a clue on how to stop them. i guess i just see it as us asking bees if we could take their honey.

yea true that easier to just hook up to the child than make it. i just wondered why it never even entered into discussion in the human meeting if they could offer alternative chemical. considering the age of the children being taken, it must have been hormones. but whatever it is, it never even occured to people making decisions to offer alternative even though it was a moot point.

 

[IcecreamLtDan]

I think the problem with the 456 just taking them forcefully is that it probably would've resulted in some sort of military response by us humans. Admittedly, they would probably wipe us out, but then there wouldn't be anymore children for them to have. The whole wipe us out thing could also have been just a rouse by them to make us give them the kids. Granted, they obviously have matter transporters, but what else? They may not have had the ability to wipe us out after all, at least not without great loss to themselves. Also, they obviously can not survive in our atmosphere which would make a military response against us more difficult, possibly more so that it would have been worth for them to attempt. The one alien present acted a lot like a junkie too, I mean, what was with the barfing on the glass, could that be due to it's drug addiction? That almost makes me wonder if the whole thing was just a threat, it kept repeating "you complied before" or whatever it was saying, almost as if it was surprised that we didn't just hand over the 10% right from the beginning. I mean, it killed everyone in the building, but again, wiping us out for refusing to hand over the kids would've been counterproductive to what they wanted, the kids.

 

[Kelthaz]

^ They took complete control over the bodies of every child on the world multiple times. I think they could live up to their threats.

 

[Starkers]

They took control of every child on earth yes, but they didn't seem to make them do a whole lot. They did definitely act like junkies, but as strung out and crazy as the guy vomitting on his shoes is...if he's holding a gun on you you've really no choice but to hand over your wallet.

 

[David cgc]

I'm pretty sure the 456 were bluffing. Okay, great, they can make children stand still, say things (apparently, with great effort, since it took them several tries to get out a whole sentence) and point, but that's just a parlor trick on a par with blood control. They could poison everyone in the building, but that was after the humans had been kind enough to build a chamber of 456 design in it, which doubtless had a poison gas mixer and releaser included. If they could poison everyone in any other building on Earth, then I'd be impressed.

It was ambiguous whether they were responsible for the flu mutation they provided the cure for, but its entirely possible they weren't, and just had an M.O. of going to planets, finding some potential crisis their (apparently sophisticated) chemistry could solve, and using it as payment to sample the local smack. Just our luck, then, that human children turned out to be the good shit. And even if they were capable of inflicting plagues at will, their low-intervention style suggests they didn't have the resources to infect everywhere at once.

The real bitch of it is, the fact that the 456 were so obviously impotent isn't actually a plot hole, since I could easily see a bunch of ass-covering politicos doing their damnedest just to make the problem go away without any fuss, without it ever even entering their mind to attempt resistance. Which probably also explains why the American general didn't shut down the Prime Minister immediately despite his predecessor having assassinated the President of the United States on live television.

 

[Sci]

Which probably also explains why the American general didn't shut down the Prime Minister immediately despite his predecessor having assassinated the President of the United States on live television.

Just some nit-picks...

1. Arthur Coleman Winters was President-elect of the United States, not President. Presumably after having won the election, he managed to wrangle the United Nations into designating him as humanity's representative to the Toclafane rather than the sitting President (presumably still George W. Bush) or Prime Minister Saxon.

2. I'm sure that UNIT explained to the American government and people that Saxon was actually the Master and that the Doctor had stopped him. Presumably, the assassination of the British Cabinet was sufficient evidence to convince the U.S. government and populace that Saxon had committed treason against the United Kingdom as well and that he had betrayed all of humanity for the Toclafane. I rather imagine that the fact that his own wife shot him probably would have been widely announced so as to solidify the case that the United Kingdom had not engaged in an act of aggression against the United States or the rest of humanity in Saxon's dealings with the Toclafane.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

1. Arthur Coleman Winters was President-elect of the United States, not President. Presumably after having won the election, he managed to wrangle the United Nations into designating him as humanity's representative to the Toclafane rather than the sitting President (presumably still George W. Bush) or Prime Minister Saxon.

Except that "The Sound of Drums" took place in either April or June. Also, the fact that Winters flew on Air Force One indicates that he was, in fact, the President of the United States, not the President-Elect, as only the President flies on Air Force One. Winters was the President, despite the dialogue.