How the world ended
Jul. 11th, 2009 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwaevalarinJust to make one thing clear first: I thought Children of Earth was brilliant. Because when a tv-shows leaves you screaming at the tv and sobing and wanting to slap everyone involved because you can't fucking believe they did this... well, then the show did work... somehow, didn't it? Even if it was an extremely dark and disturbing way. Something I didn't expect from Russel T. Davies show, not even Torchwood. The again, when you really think about it, Doctor Who can be really dark in its own way just not that obvious. So maybe it was to be expected.
The week started off with a great show that made me long for more. The plot was intriguing, the characters where interesting and it just promised to be a fun rollercoaster ride with quite some twists and turns. And then it got darker, and darker, and darker. To a degree where it was hard to take.
And in the end, well... they kind of won. The aliens are gone and mankind is saved (for now) but then you turn around and realise that everything is in ruin.
Humankind lost faith. In its leaders, in itself.
Jack, the supposed hero of the show, rushes in, guns blazing with no real plan. And gets Ianto killed along with almost everyone else in the building. I don't blame Jack for Ianto's death but just what kind of plan was that to just walk in there and try to threaten the aliens?
And then he sacrificed his grandson. To save millions of children, that's true. But it still makes you wonder: In what way was his action morally more aceptable than the 10% of the children against the world's entire population deal? It was basically the same thing just on a smaller scale. Yes, I realise he didn't take his own family out of harms way and then sacrifice everyone elses which probably does put it a little bit more into the grey area. But what do you think, had he had the choice between his grandson and any other child...?
Jack is not infallible. I think that became clear not just in Children of Earth but in quite some other situations before. He might be immortal but he is still human. I don't know about everyone else but I tend to forget that sometimes. He makes mistakes. And he made some big ones this time. Just like many other people.
To be honest, I don't even really know where I'm trying to go with this. But I guess one reason why Children of Earth was so disturbing and gets such an intense reaction from viewers - whether they loved or hated it - is because everyone in it acted human, some of them in the worst sense of the word.
And all through the last episode I was longing for the Doctor to show up like I never did before in an Torchwood episode. Just the TARDIS materialising at the very end of the episode would have sufficed. Because I didn't necessarily wait for him to save the day. What I longed for was rather a glimmer of hope that, after all that happened, after all he human race did, this small planet and its inhabitants are still worth bothering about. Because Gwen was right in one respect: Sometimes you do wonder why the Doctor doesn't just turn away. Why he still cares.
I hope Jack gets his... I don't know, "salvation" at the end of the year.
As for the show: I don't know if they're still planing for a series 4 but I hope that we've just seen the last episode of Torchwood. Because going on with it like nothing happened just sounds wrong. Not to mention that I don't want Torchwood without Ianto and it doesn't make much sense without Jack.
The week started off with a great show that made me long for more. The plot was intriguing, the characters where interesting and it just promised to be a fun rollercoaster ride with quite some twists and turns. And then it got darker, and darker, and darker. To a degree where it was hard to take.
And in the end, well... they kind of won. The aliens are gone and mankind is saved (for now) but then you turn around and realise that everything is in ruin.
Humankind lost faith. In its leaders, in itself.
Jack, the supposed hero of the show, rushes in, guns blazing with no real plan. And gets Ianto killed along with almost everyone else in the building. I don't blame Jack for Ianto's death but just what kind of plan was that to just walk in there and try to threaten the aliens?
And then he sacrificed his grandson. To save millions of children, that's true. But it still makes you wonder: In what way was his action morally more aceptable than the 10% of the children against the world's entire population deal? It was basically the same thing just on a smaller scale. Yes, I realise he didn't take his own family out of harms way and then sacrifice everyone elses which probably does put it a little bit more into the grey area. But what do you think, had he had the choice between his grandson and any other child...?
Jack is not infallible. I think that became clear not just in Children of Earth but in quite some other situations before. He might be immortal but he is still human. I don't know about everyone else but I tend to forget that sometimes. He makes mistakes. And he made some big ones this time. Just like many other people.
To be honest, I don't even really know where I'm trying to go with this. But I guess one reason why Children of Earth was so disturbing and gets such an intense reaction from viewers - whether they loved or hated it - is because everyone in it acted human, some of them in the worst sense of the word.
And all through the last episode I was longing for the Doctor to show up like I never did before in an Torchwood episode. Just the TARDIS materialising at the very end of the episode would have sufficed. Because I didn't necessarily wait for him to save the day. What I longed for was rather a glimmer of hope that, after all that happened, after all he human race did, this small planet and its inhabitants are still worth bothering about. Because Gwen was right in one respect: Sometimes you do wonder why the Doctor doesn't just turn away. Why he still cares.
I hope Jack gets his... I don't know, "salvation" at the end of the year.
As for the show: I don't know if they're still planing for a series 4 but I hope that we've just seen the last episode of Torchwood. Because going on with it like nothing happened just sounds wrong. Not to mention that I don't want Torchwood without Ianto and it doesn't make much sense without Jack.
