WARNING: There Be Spoilers Ahead!
Leaving no room for breath, Torchwood: Children Of Earth burst onto our screens this evening with the best hour of Torchwood we've yet seen.
It was quite literally an explosive start to the compact five-part (over five nights) series, and I wonder if it will be able to maintain this breakneck pace for the next four days or whether we're in for a slow patch around Wednesday as everyone slows down to get their second wind.
The story began in Scotland 40 years ago, with a group of children being abducted by an alien race known as the 456, then immediately sprang forward to modern day with children around the world suddenly coming to a halt. The second time this happened, all the children announced, in a typically spooky alien voice: "We are coming."
From then on, we were introduced to a government conspiracy involving the 456; Jack's daughter, Alice (Lucy Cohu, a superb addition to the Torchwood mythos and Captain Jack's backstory); Ianto's comedy family; Jack and Ianto's developing relationship; numerous sinister civil servants; a black ops organisation tasked with taking Torchwood out of the equation; and the fact that Gwen is pregnant.
Gwen follows a lead on the children's strange behaviour to East Grinstead, where she finds a man in a mental hospital, Clem (Paul Copley) who turns out to be the only child who got away from the mass abduction in Scotland. His fractured rambles suggest to Gwen that the children were deliberately handed over to the aliens!
Jack is captured by the black ops team (who I hope aren't connected to UNIT) and turned into a human bomb, which he discovers upon his return to the Hub. This necessary moment of revelation was one of Russell T Davies' neatest tricks, a subtle touch that didn't feel like a heavy-handed deus ex machina.
To be honest, I may have come down hard on some of RTD's writing in the past, but this episode was spot on in every regard; a fine balance between laugh-out loud one-liners and serious, dramatic shocks.
The Torchwood status quo was already shifting as the show opened and I just can't see how much further it can be dramatically twisted, torn and shredded and still maintain this high standard of entertainment for four more nights... but the Sky+ is set and I'm prepared to be dazzled.
Tomorrow:
Monday, 6 July 2009
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About Me
- The Acrobatic Flea
- I was a regular salaryman, earning a crust with my meager writing skills, until an aneurysm tore open my aorta unexpectedly in early 2005. I suffered a stroke during surgery and a collapsed lung afterwards. I have since realised that I now have a new chance at life, which (body willing) I shall indulge in with positiveness, happiness and the good companionship of my wonderful wife. The Acrobatic Flea handle comes from the name of my favourite - and most successful - Villains & Vigilantes RPG character in the '80s.
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3 persons have something to say about this!:
Torchwood was darned impressive stuff. I think it's finally found it's feet with a terrific mixture of.... well, everything really. It's Doctor Who meets X-Files meets Coronation Street (of all things), running at a non-stop pace with a musical score which kept the tension building throughout.
Love the idea of using Captain Jack as the ultimate Recyclable Bomb. How's that for environmentally conscious terrorism?!
In some way this hour long cliffhanger format hearkens back to the earliest days of Doctor Who; I'd love to see this brought back to Doctor Who itself. Here's hoping it's picked up and run with.
My only concern: changing scriptwriters for episodes 2-4. Is that really a good idea? Stay tuned and find out!
Changing script writers is a great idea, as long as they talked about things. Its done all the time in the states with shows and works well for the most part.
The show was fabulous though. I can't wait until tonight!
I am a relative Torchwood newbie, so there is so much I haven't seen, but enough to follow what is going on. I didn't realize Jack and Ianto's relationship had gone that far yet either.
Great stuff!
I don't think we need worry about the change of named writers.
Episodes 2 & 4 certainly won't have been written in isolation and I'm pretty sure RTD will have had a major hand in rewrites, script amendments, suggestions, ideas etc.
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