Review: Torchwood

Children of Earth, Day 2

SPOILER WARNING: I will be discussing the events which occured so it may not make sense until you've seen the episode and if it does it may blow something you would have preferred to experience first hand, which I recommend. Proceed at your own risk.

Some interesting building of stakes, but an exercise in regrouping and perhaps treading water a bit, still it increases all the dynamics so can't be all bad, and it was wonderfully action packed and has some truly precious personal moments and little scenes between people. Still no bloody answers though...

The Good:
- No shortage of top notch energy and action, the story seemed to slow down but the characters remained as kinetic as before.
- Maybe its just because I'm a fan who has been there from the beginning but you really do root for this team, and get some real punch-the-air moments when they come through.
- Euros Lyn's direction is noticeably bold and a thing of beauty to watch.
- Gwen is always good value at centre stage, Eve again didn't let the audience down and she and Kai make a really watchable couple.
- Lois was nice and seemed a perfectly pleasant new potential team member after the red herring of yesterday, I just hope she grows into more than a conveniently deus-ex-machina amalgam of her job skills.
- Still a bit creepy with the "Midwich cuckoos" thing, but getting old fast, we need the reveal tomorrow that we're promised, much better was the horror film worthy scene of Jacks tortuous journey through being a collection of incinerated parts to being a screaming, agonised cinder of a torso.
- Some very, very, very slight cheese but some cracking dialogue too, though most of it from Johnson oddly.
- Even Ianto's annoying family had a plot function after all, and quite a cool one actually, metaphorically being the power of people against the state, Robert Lindsay would be proud.

The Not So Good
- Some great flourishes of personality but still a touch of the unnecessary funny, can veer too far if not reigned back a touch.
- The governments action and role as the bad guy is undeniably cool but it's hard to get invested without knowing exactly why they are behaving this way, and who they all are and what their link is to the (worryingly still absent) extraterrestrial threat.
- Lois was just too convenient as a friend on the inside with all the right access, knowledege etc, symptomatic of a few too many logic and security flaws (Ianto turning up to the bomb site, not shooting on sight, keeping Jack in one place to knit together, the list goes on). I would argue the same of the handily timed Ianto escape plan but it was so unexpected and ace that it was forgivable.
- Bit of a let down cliffhanger this time too.
- The nice moments with these guys are when they make mistakes, stumble and generally demonstrate that they could be us, they are getting a bit too skilled, turning them into super-capable gun toting John Woo rejects is to be avoided, if you need a capable good guy Jack is forgivable, he's got invincibility and hundreds of years of knowledge to back it up.

Interesting build up with some great scenes but a less than stellar whole, we can take away the righteous anger the good guys will have against the bad, and not much else, but I still can't wait until the next installment, I really hope the 456 are in some way badass.

*** 3/5