[blockquote]the reason for the aliens’ “use” of the children threatening to undermine the credibility and seriousness of the whole thing[/blockquote]

I thought that was already done by the farcical stuff with the US general (who was pretty-much superfluous to the actual story). His bullishness made some sense when he originally appeared (even though the idea of the Americans sending a general - a soldier for goodness sakes - on a diplomatic mission when they’ve got a Secretary of State for that seemed silly) but when he started barking orders and the British cabinet let him take over despite him having no actual authority (what was he going to do if they refused exactly, declare war?) was beyond daft. It put a big dampener on what, up until them, had been some fairly believeable politics. Yes, the US have a great deal of influence over the UK but the idea that a jumped-up soldier could ever start issuing orders to the British cabinet on British soil in a world crisis situation where offending the Americans is (putting it mildly) a fairly minor issue, is stretching credibility beyond breaking point.

I also thought the thing with Frobisher’s kids was badly handled. What the Prime Minister was planning (and why) was perfectly believeable but he had no reason to tell Frobisher the truth - he could have just spun the “it’s for show” line that Frobisher originally thought it was and the poor man would be none the wiser until the dirty deed was done. Also, telling a man that you’re going to have his kids killed when you’re alone in a room with him is probably the most stupid thing ever.

The ending redeemed much of it, though, proper tragedy and proper moral drama that meant Jack’s fleeing back into space (in a nice little nod to “Hitchhikers”) made perfect sense.

Was put off Torchwood by the first two series, caught a radio play that seemed quite good so watched children of earth. So glad I did, best Torchwood ever, comes close to Who’s ‘don’t blink’. Dark, mean and desperate, and no happy ending, just the choice of least unhappy. If there is another series I will give it a fresh start.

Overall I liked it. The resolution using the kid as a transmitter made very little sense though. I.e. they obviously have the signal on machine. And they’ve communicated with the aliens by that before. So they use the machine to transmit to the kid and the kid transmits… to other kids? And that somehow destroys the alien ambassador? They’d need to at least record the kids squealing and transmit that too long distance right? The amount of redundancy is quite boggling.

And how did they transfer the signal to the lad in the first place? I understand the 456 (or whatever they’re called) have the technology (or powers, I’m not sure how it works) to transmit messages through kids but what about at our end going the other way? Are they saying the signal in itself, transmitted near a child, is enough to turn him into a, erm transmitter?

Also, the fact the ambassador was beamed up suggests there are still others out there living (unless it was automatically triggered on it’s death.) What stops them sending down a virus and wiping out the entire planet?

Maybe I’m just being thick.

In the end though, I understand that this is a character story. And as such I think it worked. It was very bleak, possibly too much so, but it was very interesting and thought provoking. The comparison between Jack’s sacrifice and the Frobisher’s is interesting. As is the fact that there were no clear cut good and bad guys. Except perhaps the kid popping aliens.

Overall a success, I think. I think the last episode was perhaps the weakest but 1 out of 5 isn’t bad (and it wasn’t bad, just confused. For me anyway. Durrrr.)

Jim Mortimore probably loved that.

I’ve never really bought the idea that the Doctor Who universe, everything should turn out basically OK. I don’t think that should necessarily apply to Doctor Who, let alone a post-watershed spin-off show. It feels fundamentally dramatically dishonest. You cannot have a show full of death but have everything turn out fine in the end every single time. Sometimes, you have to show that things don’t.

Loved the whole series. It’s great to see a programme have such enormous hairy balls. It’s obviously set up to be the end, if it isn’t re-commissioned… but I really hope we get something else. Although there’s no way it can go back to how it was.

Oh - one thing that did worry me slightly was the whole “government lying about inoculations” stuff. With the whole MMR issue, is it really the right message to be sending out that “actually, maybe the government isn’t telling the truth”?

Unintentional, I’m sure, and maybe I’m over-reacting, but it made me feel very uncomfortable.

Oh - one thing that did worry me slightly was the whole “government lying about inoculations” stuff. With the whole MMR issue, is it really the right message to be sending out that “actually, maybe the government isn’t telling the truth”?

That bothered me a little bit too but it wasn’t really the same situation (the government was being entirely dishonest in Torchwood whilst the anti-MMR line wasn’t that the jabs were a cover for something else but that they were trying to conceal a possible risk) and, besides, if we worry about every single aspect of TV drama not treading on our (or anyone elses) political toes then there’s the risk of ending up a bit oversensitive to the detriment of storytelling.

Talking of political toes (so to speak) what I really liked about “Children of Earth” was that the moral message of the series overall was that there’s not really any such thing as an easy “right” or “wrong” decision. The only villains were the 456, the “evil” acts that the British governments (and eventually Jack Harkness) carried out were merely the lesser evil of the two choices they faced and something they were forced into. It was a nice counterpoint to the often simplistic moralising of the Doctor.

>It was a nice counterpoint to the often simplistic moralising of the Doctor.

You say that, but who blew up his own planet and entire race of people for the greater good (twice, in fact, if you count the 8DAs)…?

Doctor: I don’t have any excuses to make. I fight evil. I win.
Bernice: That isn’t enough.

-Love and War, by Paul Cornell

I suppose we should have seen this coming. Day Four saw Jack’s actions in 1965 come back to haunt him once- if he hadn’t been part of the ‘deal’ cut with the 456 in the sixties, they might have been more willing to believe the ultimatum he delivered. He lost Ianto as a result, and with hindsight it was obvious that the punishment was going to keep on coming.

As Seb said, the conclusion of CoE leads us with more profound questions about Russell T Davies’ handling of the Whoniverse than any other story. That’s not a criticism, just an acknowledgement of the radical nature of the episode we’ve seen. Day Five is the most unremittingly grim piece of television the writer has produced in his entire career. He’s gone on record about how both the darker direction for Torchwood and much of the content of the story represented long-held intentions, but that underplays the significance of what happens here. I slightly disagree with Seb in his view that CoE is a mashup of New Who stories- I see it as the distillation of ideas that have been haunting the writer, no longer diluted by the demands of the multi-million parent franchise. We saw the mutilated children in Last of the Timelords, the military targeted the Doctor as far back as Aliens of London, and we’ve been through more unsatisfactory prime ministers than we can shake a stick at.

It’s really a question of which is the means and which is the end. Did the writer create a nightmare inducing vision of humanity at its worse to provide a setting that could finally break Jack Harkness, or is the destruction of the Captain included merely to underline the dark fears the the writer has confided in the audience? In many ways, Torchwood punches above its weight for much of CoE, with the field team designed to snatch weevils fighting and thwarting the machinery of the state and an alien with near-infinite power. In the end, Gwen isn’t making the grand stand the episode was trailed as, but vainly fighting armed troops to try to save a dozen kids. It’s the cold-blooded pragmatist of Johnson that saves the day, together with Alice’s conviction of her father as a man who wins, no matter the cost. I don’t think that she was failing to forgive Jack during their last meeting, but failing to condemn him. She new what he would do if it meant keeping humanity intact, and she let this demon out of his cell.

The question of whether Day Five is entertainment is an interesting one. The humour and changes of pace vanish completely from CoE with the death of Ianto. Once RTD passes the point where he has to lure the audience in for the next night’s viewing, there’s a shift in tone to bleakness which boarders on nihilism. As I said in the site’s review of Day Four, Torchwood completes the new Who universe, but there are some limits. Real-world horrors are beyond the pale, so the architect has introduced a fictional potential holocaust to weight the family of programmes’ integrity around. It’s the cold-bloodedness of the death of Jack’s grandson which separates Day Five. Where the Doctor’s mindwipe of melancholy left her with a life, albeit a lesser one, and Jack’s execution of Suzie was a last-ditch attempt to save Gwen, here the choice is a consciously decided one with total consequences. This story has given New Who the nightmares which were only hinted at before. And given that Jack will be back in time of the tenth Doctor’s final adventure, the desperate straights we’ve seen the world reduced to enrichen it enormously.

Would the ‘Six Months Later’ coda have worked better after the end credits?