Day Four

Blimey, this episode really does feel topical watching it in 2020! You've got a killer virus on the loose, and no vaccine to stop it.

Ianto's death at the hands of said virus is still a really shocking and emotional moment, even if like me you have already watched this episode before and knows it's coming. It's such a powerful scene, and it comes at a very unpredictable moment, at the end of the penultimate part rather than the final episode.

I also love how corrupt the government are shown to be here. Here we've got agovernment trying to justify giving up the lives of millions of children by pointing to things like overpopulation and school league tables as excuses, as though that makes their deaths perfectly fine. In their words, kids who are underperformers are of no use to society because they will likely end up on benefits anyway. It's so dark, but totally true to how a government would deal with such an extreme situation in real life. I can buy that they would be this callous and full of their own self interests.

Children of Earth is a wonderful chapter in not just Torchwood history but for the Doctor Who franchise, too. A smart balance of science fiction, creativity, politics, ethics, and tragedy, this is a devastating five part story that I will be reviewing out of order for the sake of my sanity.

Part Four is often regarded as the best part for good reason. It has some of the most memorable moments to it, but this was never going to be a guarantee. This is the darkest Children of the Earth gets and it already is horribly grim and terrible. In any given story arc, this is the part before our climax, where things look their worst for our protagonist and the odds couldn't be more stacked against them. In intense stories like this, that can lead to a feeling of being as trapped as all the humans are in this story.

This is a showcase of cruelty that locks you in its grips of discomfort. We have these big impressive sets, yet it is one of the more claustrophobic and uncomfortable stories in the whole franchise. And it is all done so well. It's so savage and aggressive, the 456 just have people like Capaldi in this impossible position and it leads to this consistently awful sense that there are no good solutions here. Standing up to these being just led to a devastating show of force and a very memorable main character death in a show already getting low on main characters at this time.

And I just keep thinking about how it isn't even just about anything for the 456 in that it is just about the suffering. Torturing kids just makes them feel good. It's creepy and unsettling, but the way they interact with and use the human race feels distinctly human. They remind me a lot of the history of colonialism and how nations have and continue to exploit others - dehumanizing them and treating them as little more than a commodity. Jack is right to suggest they can't be trusted, but the other hand this episode in particular really paints a more disturbing truth - it doesn't matter that the 456 will certainly come back in enabled to do so, it doesn't matter that this is all monstrous behaviour, none of it really matters if the 456 just have every advantage when it comes to technology and power. It's disturbing and deeply thoughtful stuff.

The whole serial is impressive and stands head and shoulders above the rest of the TV series of Torchwood. I do hope Big Finish has been able to produce other stories of similar calibre to the franchise. I'm still very new to the audio but this really feels like Torchwood at its full potential and what their writers should be striving for. I haven't seen it yet, but Big Finish is also far more consistent with overall quality than the show ever was, so I remain optimistic.