Rating: 10 Duckies out of 10
Torchwood, for those of you who aren’t into Sci-Fi like I am, is a spin-off series of the wildly popular British show Dr. Who. Doctor Who has always been a show known for its light-heartedness, campiness (in a fun way), and generally being a fun ride while still managing to touch you deeply along the way. It’s not geared towards adult audiences.
Torchwood, however is. In its first two seasons, the show often felt like they were trying to say “Hey! I’m an adult Dr. Who, I’m going to use excessive profanity!” It also retained Dr. Who’s campiness to a lesser degree. All that is gone in its Third series, an epic five-part story called, you guessed it, children of earth.
Torchwood is an organization outside of the government lead by Captain Jack Harkness, who has the distinction of being unable to die (the cause being the focus in several Dr. Who episodes). They operate to protect humanity from alien threats, as Cardiff sits atop a rift in time and space blah blah. The point is, Torchwood’s first two seasons were good, but nothing astounding.
Children of Earth is a masterful work of art that left me emotionally shattered and drained by it’s end. It makes full use of TV’s biggest advantage (that almost universally gets ignored), which is the ability to tell longer stories then you can in Movies. Children of earth is essentially a five-hour movie, an excellent one at that. If you’ve never seen Torchwood or Dr. Who, you should still watch Children of Earth – it still stands powerfully poignant even without the backstory.
It’s a grim tale, a serious tale. The Aliens are no longer Daleks (who are totally awesome by the way), instead something which is genuinely frightening to behold as both the Torchwood team and the Government grapple with unthinkable choices. Nobody is as one-dimensional as they first appear to be. The good guys hold dark, horrible secrets, the bad guys secrets and motivations of their own.
The characters suffer incredibly, and there is some astounding acting as the world falls apart around them. All of them sacrifice greatly, some with their lives, others with their very humanity. I won’t spoil the plot, but needless to say its good. Really good. I was left in a state of emotional shell-shock afterwards that only Battlestar Galactica and Apocalypse Now has left me in within recent memory. Absolutely heart-breaking, but good. As a friend of mine texted me…. “Ok, this is getting really messed up, even for Torchwood”.
I don’t know how coherent this has been (I’m trying not to spoil anything). All I can say is, watch it. It’s no Battlestar Galactica, but it is a shining example of the art of Television and Film in general. I don’t think you will be dissapointed. You can pirate it if you like, or it will air on BBC America starting July 20 (every night for 5 nights in a row).
Now if you’ll excuse me, its been one ride I’ll need months to recover from…..and that’s a good thing.
