The Thirteen Best Things in Torchwood Children of Earth

[fajrdrako]

The Thirteen Best Things in Torchwood Children of Earth

Not to be read if you don't want spoilers.

1. Day One: Our introduction to Alice Carter

It was set up so carefully - with Jack's desire for a child to study, with his snarky refusal to tell Ianto where he was going - I was totally unprepared. Yes, I'd heard rumours that Jack's daughter was going to appear in the series, but caught up in the intensity of the action, I'd forgotten.

When Alice called him "Dad", my brain didn't process it. I didn't think, "Oh, this must be Jack's daughter." I thought, "Huh?" It was the reference to Steven as his grandson that made it fall into place. I'd have felt stupid about that, except that, when I watched it a second time with friends, they did exactly the same thing.

The whole scene was perfect: the implication of broken love after a lifetime (her lifetime) of complications, Jack's desire for her acceptance, which falls apart when she sees he wants to study Steven.

2. Our insight into Ianto.

From the beginning of series 1, I've been curious about what makes Ianto tick. His character was fascinating; the way he kept his thoughts and feelings to himself; the way his love for Jack was obviously deep, but kept hidden and unspoken; his past traumas, his growing confidence, his ride in himself as the man who can get (almost) anything for Jack and who knows all there is to know about Torchwood - but not about Jack.

And here, with Ianto's scenes with his sister, we get a lot of the gaps filled in. Ianto's confusion about his own sexuality, his avoidance of his sister and her family, his lies about his father, his resentment towards his father. His courage. His desire to be what Jack needed. His frustration at being shut out of Jack's confidence - his desire to break through the wall of Jack's secrets. And his love of sex with Jack. The bottom line: Jack and Torchwood are what Ianto valued most.

3. Day One: Gwen learning about her pregnancy.

Gwen didn't know she was preganant. She had no idea. They'd already set up the thought with Rhys's remark, and her mixed feelings - mostly of confusion and joy - were so clear.

Then, the coda: the machine at the Hub confirms the pregnancy. Jack is happy. Ianto is happy. They're going to have kids. Then... the unexpected climax: the bomb in Jack. Signs of life and death come together.

4. Ianto and Johnny

It's the juxtaposition that was great - Ianto's extreme reticence, his hesitance in telling Rhiannon anything, his explanation of how closeted he is, and her half-horrified promise to say nothing - contrasted with Johnny's bsrash "Gay boy!" And done with such an absence of malice. Beautiful moment. And then - to Ianto's horror - the lost SUV.

5. Day Two: Gwen in the ambulance.

Our action-hero girl. I love the way she handled it - realizing that when they said "no surivors" they meant her, fighting back, taking a gun, trying to sort out what was happening and who was behind it.

6. Jack's moments

1. When Jack rises from the dead, dusty and naked, in the quarry, alive and reunited with the team.
   
2. When Jack appears in the greatcoat and shoes that Ianto found for him, himself again.
   
3. This one is more subtle: when the column of flame disappears from over Thames House and we know the 456 have left. Jack's triumph - lost in the tragedy of Steven's death, but a triumph in any case. The other children of the world are safe.

7. Lois comes through

Twice: when she intercepts Frobisher's call, and when she put on the contact lenses. I liked Lois. I liked trying to guess what she was thinking and feelings. I hoped, really hoped, she'd help Torchwood. And she did.

8. The death of the Frobisher family.

We knew that Green had pushed Frobisher further, and further, and further, and that Frobisher had - in willing collaboration - sealed his own fate. And we see his recognition of this, and his understanding, and his absolutely certain knowledge that he couldn't send his daughters to that fate, and there was only one tragic escape possible. A parallel to Jack's tragedy, who also collaborated with the enemy (in 1965), also with good intentions.

9. Johnny Davies and the boys do their thing.

We hardly got to know him, and our first impression was that Johnny was both funny and an insensitive lout. Add to that (ten pounds a kid) an opportunist. But consistently his heart returns to the right place, and he attacks the government surveillance team so Rhiannon can meet Ianto, and he fights to save the kids.

10. Gwen and Rhys.

The whole relationship. They love each other. They have a flash of hope for the future. They're brave, resourceful, and they support each other. He carries her bag so her trigger finger will be free. Rhys supports her till the end - even in a secret midnight meeting with Jack.

11. Bridget Spears.

She keeps her opinions to herself. But thanks to Susan Brown's excellent acting, we knew what she felt about everything - her eventual respect for Lois, her affection for Frobisher, her contempt for Green, her perception of what was happening. A plot point, a character point - and she acts in the end. I wanted to cheer her.

12. Prime Minister Green and the men in the green silk room.

Yes, I know the room didn't really have any green silk. The reference is to a line in Lois McMaster Bujold's wonderful novel, Shards of Honor:

The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future.

In this case, the emergency was immediate, but the decision-makers were so out of their depth that all they could do was to throw sacrifices into the fire, while hoping to save themselves from public blame. The more the aliens raised the stakes, the more they calmly accepted it. Chilling. Scarier than the aliens, who were simply evil and greedy.

13. The 456.

We've seen evil aliens before. Lots of 'em. Sometimes they want to eat us, sometimes they want to breed in us, sometimes they just want to kill us. Sometimes they want to take over the planet, sometimes they want to blow up the planet, sometimes they want to rule the planet, and sometimes they're just grouchy imperialists. We've seen a lot of bad aliens. And these were scary - hardly seen, strange poison-breathers, communicating erratically, displaying their power over children over and over - using that to hold power over governments. But what are they? Drug-dealers, addicts, slavers in the pleasure-trade - the incredible sleaziness of it was the final chilling touch. Implacable and irrantional.