Review: Torchwood

Children of Earth, Day 3

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.

Hmmm. Was expecting a really big kick off, especially as this episode was written by 2 of my favourite writers, one of whom has horror pedigree (which kind of showed) having written the movie "Severance" and a creepy horror-like episode of Primeval. What we got was still quite contemplative but essentially boiled down to one ace scene that stood out among the others,...

The Good:
- The scene in question being right after the 456's initial arrival and Frobisher's first encounter with them, an absolute master class in tension and building it from what is NOT seen, entirely compelling and rather scary.
- Capaldi absolutely shines in this scene, showing the value of an actor at the top of his profession, in a scene which could have been potentially cheesy and ridiculous he is one hundred and ten per cent believable and mesmerising.
- Euros Lyn's direction, still great but didn't notice anything extravagant, so arguably doing the job even better.
- Love the reveal of Jack's involvement in everything, whilst not exactly astoundingly shocking it is a nice return to the darker, more complex character of episodes like "Small Worlds" (which this storyline seems to owe a debt too).
- O.k, it was slightly cool seeing the gang reunite and that moment of Jack striding back out in the coat.
- Nice bit of morality and great interplay between Jack and Frobisher in the scene on the mobile, "you're a better man than me" could turn out to be vitally important words.
- Black ops team still cool but we still need some more investment, it worked wonders that we found out the little bit about Alice from them and I really want to know more about who Johnson is and why she's doing these things.
- Some slight nice reveals about the past but we still need more of the 456's intentions, two eps to go...

The Not So Good
- I can't emphasise enough how furious I am that the best and cleverest way the writers could find of getting the team rebuilt was to have them do BAD things and become the "Hustle" crowd, especially in light of the conversation later, which I referenced above re Jack being a good man, too many innocents are suffering throughout these events in random, crap ways.
- Lois is still waaay too unbelievable and convenient. Needs to be better plotted perhaps but honestly nobody realistic would be so brave with no real reason or visible connection to the people she's helping
- It's a shame that when the alien creature did appear in glimpses it looked like a 70's era Dr Who prosthetic, as I feared. With writing itself up like this show has been doing it needs a better effects budget, its all the more annoying because I know it can do it, both this show and Who have done in the past!
- Bit of a let down cliffhanger again, I'm waiting to be as impressed as I was at the start of this piece.
- The show is in danger of losing its USP by rooting action so far out of Cardiff then travelling up and down there (somehow avoiding any security, talk about lax) as if it was up the street.

Still lots of build up but I'm getting increasingly annoyed and losing interest, the last pieces of the puzzle will have to be spectacular to deliver on all this foreshadowing. A creepy villainous concept though with the child stealing, truly nightmarish and presented well again, the acting of all is keeping me involved but some more than others. It was also a wise decision to show less of the menacing alien and it's gross, ominous splutters and deep language were pretty cool, I hope we'll still see the badass though. The first 3 stars are for masterful technical direction of the villain moments and well written bad guy sequences and dialogue. And if you're keeping score Capaldi earns the 4th star single handedly (I would otherwise have docked it for the "Hustle" behaviour).



**** 4/5