Torchwood: Children of the Earth

Fuck you Russel T. Davies

Here be spoilers- don't click open sesame if you don't wanna know



Seriously- I am tired of my favorite sci fi tv shows turning into the land of sucky wrongness at the end. BSG did it, and now Torchwood. Et tu Russel?

Now granted- Torchwood is decidedly more dark and violent than Doctor Who. That's part of the reason I like it. I'm perfectly fine with complicated moral conundrums and with the messiness of humanity. And this little mini-season of Torchwood started off well enough. All the children of the world possessed temporarily by scary alien life, Ianto and Captain Jack trying to figure out what they are to each other, and Gwen being her normal, awesome self. (Actually Gwen is her awesome self throughout- I have no complaints about her).

I liked it, right up until part 5. The thing about science fiction is that it's not only about stories of things that might actually be possible in the near future, but it's about how we can be better (or worse) as people. Doctor Who is ALL about that, about choosing to do the right thing no matter what and about how we always have a choice. But Children of the Earth forgot that, and Gwen points it out.

Which should have been the catalyst for Jack to do better. He's the one quoting the Doctor after all, with his "If you harm one of us you harm us all". And then he kills a child to save the world.

He didn't ask the kid if he was willing (and I think that there might have been a child or two in the world with enough of a martyr complex to agree to it- IF THEY"D BEEN ASKED!), he didn't even tell him what was going to happen. He just stuck him in the middle and melted his brain.

But even before that, no one thinks to ask the people what they want. Just ship off the poor kids as a "gift" cause no one wants to fight a war with an alien.

But no one asked the parents if they would rather fight and die than offer their kids up as a sacrifice. No one asks the kids if some of them would be willing to go off with the aliens, instead they pick the poor schools and load the kids onto buses while soldiers hold their screaming mothers back.

No one is allowed to make their own choice in this whole thing, and that is what is wrong with this whole thing. It was more like watching Keiffer Sutherland on 24 than watching sci fi, and 24 is torture porn for the worst kind of conservatives.

There is always a choice. Always. And only the worst kind of people think they can make that choice for someone else. For the most part, the entire Doctor Who series and it's spin offs have gotten that, not just understood it, but it has been a central theme. This time though, tmissed the fucking boat.