[WARNING: Contains spoilers]
Anyone who knows me will know that I love all things Doctor Who-related. I like to think that when I watch Doctor Who, I’m the exact target demographic Russell T Davies had in mind when writing Who. Can spot and dissect the clever stuff Davies puts in, and still yelps like a 7 year old whenever a CGI beastie appears on screen. That’s me, that is.
However, I am uncomfortably aware of the fact I’m getting older, but that mere fact means I can watch telly after 9pm, ‘cos I’m ostensibly a ‘grown-up’ (I’m not really, mentally, but don’t let on).
And that means I get to watch this year’s Torchwood specials, 5 episodes shown in one week, under the title ‘Children of Earth’. And I am damn sure I’m the exact target demographic for that show. It feels like it’s written precisely for me to enjoy it. Proper nail-biting action, plots that they couldn’t get away with on Who, and people swearing. Oh, and mobile phones, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
I say that Torchwood: CoE is written for me, because it ticks every single box for what I consider awesome TV. Intrigue, gunplay, an incredibly detailed plot, black ops, Captain Jack getting blown into itty pieces and regenerating himself piece by piece while screaming in pain, before being sealed in concrete and dropped into a quarry, aliens, and Eve Myles, playing Gwen Cooper, kicking some serious bottom.
The plot centres around a group of aliens called The 456, who broadcast their return to Earth by freezing every child on the planet in their tracks, making them all simultaneously say, “We are coming.” The big, bad beasties didn’t get shown themselves, until episode 3, and that episode was responsible for one of the creepiest bits of TV in history, that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
If you saw it, you know exactly which bit I mean. All the kids in the world freeze again, and silently point towards London, before saying, “We… are here.”
*shiver*
Oh, and of course, when the beasties do reveal their intentions (oh yes they’re hostile… did you expect anything less?), and say they want 10% of the world’s children or they’ll wipe out our species, you then have the brilliant drama of the government deciding to sacrifice the kids, to save humanity, and the chilling scene of them deciding whose kids get to be taken by the 456. For what purpose? How will Torchwood beat the alien menace? Is humanity actually well and truly boned?
Tonight’s the last episode, and I shall be glued to the telly. Seriously, big horses with lots of heavy chains couldn’t pry me away from it, mainly because I’m at a complete loss to figure out how they’re gonna save the day, and any drama that can consistently keep me guessing, before (I suspect, since Who does it every year) pulling something even more awesome out of the bag than anything I’d come up with, gets my vote.
Oh yes, I was going to talk about phones, wasn’t I.
Sorry, nearly forgot there, in all the excitement. Mobile phones have always been an integral part of the Torchwood tapestry, and in Children of Earth, they’ve taken an even bigger role. I can’t be the only person watching the show to have noticed the whole ‘big brother is watching’ vibe it’s been giving off, with the Torchwood team forced underground, and every phone call they make being tracked and triangulated by a tooled up black ops team led by a woman who I have nicknamed Cruella.
Of course, with it being filmed a while ago, all their phones are a bit past it. I spotted, in one episode alone, an LG Viewty, a Nokia N82, an LG Secret, a Blackberry Curve and god knows how many Samsungs. It would’ve been nice to see something more up to date like a Samsung i8910 HD, but since I get the feeling the phones may actually be the film crew’s phones, which means only using ones available at the time, that was never gonna happen.
Still, at the end of the day, Torchwood: CoE is rocking harder than just about anything I’ve seen on telly or at the pictures, recently. It’s big, it’s epic, and it’s clever. Russell T Davies may be handing over the reins of the Whoniverse to someone else next year (Steven Moffat, the man responsible for the genuinely scary ‘Blink’, in the case of Doctor Who, and, er, I’ve no idea who, for Torchwood), but with Torchwood: CoE and the Who specials this year, he is damn well going out in style!
Have you been watching open mouthed at the brilliance of Torchwood: Children of Earth? Have you spotted any more phones that Technical Markus missed? Leave us a comment and have your say!
