Torchwood: Children of Earth
Jul. 25th, 2009 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesbiassparrowI will be buying this DVD but I am not sure I can ever watch it again. And I can't imagine what watching it would be like if you had children.
I think what most impressed me is that the show never backed off. It just got darker and darker and darker. And while aliens may not be your thing this was essentially a show that was more about how people will happily throw others under the bus without a second thought. And will throw other people's children under a bus and sleep at night by saying that they wouldn't have been productive members of society.
In the last episode there were four things that really gripped me:
1. The revelation that the 456 are using the children as a drug. All the people in charge have already decided who should be called upon to sacrifice for the greater good (without telling them, of course) and are very good at making that sound reasonable to themselves. But you still think that when this revelation is made that someone will say something. Because no only are you shipping off your children to be used for hundreds of years but you know that the 456 will eventually be back for more. And more.
2. Captain Jack's decision to use his grandson as the conduit, knowing he would kill him. This is just the choice of the higher ups on a smaller scale. And you can say 'well, it's one child for millions' but it's still the same choice and it's made for someone else. Jack sacrifices something he has no right to, knowing it's wrong and knowing he is partially responsible for it all in the first place. I should say here that I've always hated the 'greater good' argument, because in the end it's never really about the greater good, is it? It's about your good. Or that of people like you. And if people can't make an honest choice about whether they want to die for the greater good then it's not such a 'good' is it? And I think that this mini-series did a brilliant job of stripping away the clap trap that surrounds the pious presentations of this argument. And Jack has a lot of experience with both ends of that now.
3. Gwen's policeman friend taking off his uniform and fighting the army to save the kids along with everyone else from the estate. And it not making a blind bit of difference.
4. The Frobisher resolution. It could have been too much, but I don't think so. Because in the end although he thought he'd been promoted to the first rank, he was just cannon fodder.
Altogether I thought this entire mini-series did an amazing job of (excuse the cliché) of looking at how banal evil really is. And how quickly people not just do horrible things but come up with justifications for them so easily. And how that never changes: the sort of people who want to be in charge are always the same. I've heard people talk about Harriet Jones and how things might have been different if she were still in charge, but I don't think so. There was not one protest around that table apart from Lois' (and I would watch a Torchwood with her, Gwen, policeman guy, and Rhys) and I think it just rammed it home that essentially they're all the same.
The second thing I really like was how thoroughly it deconstructed the whole hero love affair SciFi often has. Because the only person that is the traditional hero type is Jack - and he can't sacrifice himself, but does others. And that just runs against what we are told heroes do in a very profound way. And at the end he's destroyed by it - as he should be. I really hated Jack in this, though I am now much more interested in the character than I ever was before. So I'd really like to see him come back, but maybe to a Torchwood that had no space - physical, emotional, or moral - for someone like him.
Er, that got way longer than I intended.
I think what most impressed me is that the show never backed off. It just got darker and darker and darker. And while aliens may not be your thing this was essentially a show that was more about how people will happily throw others under the bus without a second thought. And will throw other people's children under a bus and sleep at night by saying that they wouldn't have been productive members of society.
In the last episode there were four things that really gripped me:
1. The revelation that the 456 are using the children as a drug. All the people in charge have already decided who should be called upon to sacrifice for the greater good (without telling them, of course) and are very good at making that sound reasonable to themselves. But you still think that when this revelation is made that someone will say something. Because no only are you shipping off your children to be used for hundreds of years but you know that the 456 will eventually be back for more. And more.
2. Captain Jack's decision to use his grandson as the conduit, knowing he would kill him. This is just the choice of the higher ups on a smaller scale. And you can say 'well, it's one child for millions' but it's still the same choice and it's made for someone else. Jack sacrifices something he has no right to, knowing it's wrong and knowing he is partially responsible for it all in the first place. I should say here that I've always hated the 'greater good' argument, because in the end it's never really about the greater good, is it? It's about your good. Or that of people like you. And if people can't make an honest choice about whether they want to die for the greater good then it's not such a 'good' is it? And I think that this mini-series did a brilliant job of stripping away the clap trap that surrounds the pious presentations of this argument. And Jack has a lot of experience with both ends of that now.
3. Gwen's policeman friend taking off his uniform and fighting the army to save the kids along with everyone else from the estate. And it not making a blind bit of difference.
4. The Frobisher resolution. It could have been too much, but I don't think so. Because in the end although he thought he'd been promoted to the first rank, he was just cannon fodder.
Altogether I thought this entire mini-series did an amazing job of (excuse the cliché) of looking at how banal evil really is. And how quickly people not just do horrible things but come up with justifications for them so easily. And how that never changes: the sort of people who want to be in charge are always the same. I've heard people talk about Harriet Jones and how things might have been different if she were still in charge, but I don't think so. There was not one protest around that table apart from Lois' (and I would watch a Torchwood with her, Gwen, policeman guy, and Rhys) and I think it just rammed it home that essentially they're all the same.
The second thing I really like was how thoroughly it deconstructed the whole hero love affair SciFi often has. Because the only person that is the traditional hero type is Jack - and he can't sacrifice himself, but does others. And that just runs against what we are told heroes do in a very profound way. And at the end he's destroyed by it - as he should be. I really hated Jack in this, though I am now much more interested in the character than I ever was before. So I'd really like to see him come back, but maybe to a Torchwood that had no space - physical, emotional, or moral - for someone like him.
Er, that got way longer than I intended.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-25 08:28 pm (UTC)One of the things I find so sad about the end is that Jack would have taken Stephen's place in a heartbeat if he could have. He's demonstrated his willingness to die for something he thought was necessary twice before, when he wasn't immortal. But Jack doesn't get that luxury, ever. No one else who was justifying sacrificing millions of children would have, I bet. I still want to bash in the heads of everyone at that table. Except Lois.
It's a pretty interesting contrast. The politicians justify giving away millions of "undesirable" children, all the while making sure that their families are safe. They would sleep just fine at night, having convinced themselves they couldn't do anything else. Jack sacrifices his grandson (and the love of his daughter) for the millions, and doesn't try to create any illusions for himself about the fact that it was his decisions (at least partly) that led to that moment.
Gwen's policeman friend is named Andy. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 01:53 am (UTC)This is true but there's so much backstory that we hear about in this episode that suggests that he has also made deals like this before - the initial 12 children. for example. Certainly he wasn't the only person involved, but it's more appalling because he is technically the hero. Or as closes as TW gets to one.
I am conflicted: I agree with you that what Jack did was different in many ways from what the politicians did, but it still operated on some of the same principles. And when his daughter is screaming 'Daddy' - well, that the cherry on top of the misery cake. I think this was the most interesting thing they could have done with the character and I am glad in a way that they did - a lot of his actions in the past acquire a much darker hue.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 03:06 am (UTC)I might be more inclined to feel the way you do if I didn't hurt for Jack so much. I mean I always have. The idea of immortality is really kind of horrifying if you're the only one, and I've always really found Jack to be so tragic. This just intensifies it.
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Date: 2009-07-26 03:15 am (UTC)Oh, I totally agree with you about this. And my reaction to Jack is so mixed up in my horror of all the other people who made decisions about 'expendable' people in 1965 and in the present that it's hard to know to draw the lines. Normally when I hate a character I just want them to die horrible; here it's different. I hate him and want him somehow to find a way to redeem himself even if it's in the long from now future.
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Date: 2009-07-26 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-25 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 02:50 am (UTC)They were ready to sacrifice millions of children, knowing the 456 would be back for more.
Jack sacrificed one child in order to repel the 456, in order to keep them from coming back, ever.
He didn't sacrifice his grandson for his own selfish motives. I think he would have gladly sacrificed his own life, if he could have. Unlike the politicians.
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Date: 2009-07-26 03:19 am (UTC)But he is not even close to the same scale as all the others at the cabinet - they're pure evil. And pure evil that makes up lies that it will happily believe and justify till the cows come home.
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Date: 2009-07-26 02:00 pm (UTC)I agree with this SO MUCH. Also, another scene that I thought was absolutely brilliant was when Frobisher's secretary went to the prison and was talking to Lois about Frobisher, about how he was such a good man and a hard worker and etc.
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Date: 2009-07-26 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 11:16 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's pretty much what my other friend who saw it told me when it came out, so now I guess I will never be able to watch it, or at least until my kids are safely past puberty. *sigh*
(edited for html fail)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 03:28 am (UTC)