# Torchwood: Children of Earth (Miniseries Spoilers)



## wrightejw (Feb 7, 2004)

All i can say about TorchWood 5 part mini so far is *WOW!* to damn bad it's not in HD.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

I second the "wow". Granted my copy is HD but still... I reserve comment on the final episode until more have seen it.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

I'm waiting for the weekend marathon.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

Watched the last half of Day One and Day Two yesterday. Awesome.

*Day 2 Spoiler*


Spoiler



The whole regeneration thing with Jack was pretty darn cool. Apparently, you can't even blow him to bits. I did like the whole idea of containing him. Pretty intelligent on the military's part, although their security stinks.



- Merg


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## uslimey (Mar 13, 2006)

Torchwood was supposed to debut in HD on BBCA Monday - what happened?


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

uslimey said:


> Torchwood was supposed to debut in HD on BBCA Monday - what happened?


Many other threads about BBCA-HD... Basically, while BBCA is now available in HD, there are no service providers carrying it yet.

- Merg


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## Surveyor40 (Jan 5, 2006)

I'll hold comment until the BluRay comes out next week. Its hard to view Torchwood in SD, no matter the provider.


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## Church AV Guy (Jul 9, 2007)

The crawling message on the bottom of the screen in Day 2 was annoying, irritating and very distracting. Whoever decided to do that during the premire event should be shot! By now, almost everyone knows that BBCA HD is available. I don;t need a crawling message telling me to contact my cable provider as a reminder. It was on several times in that hour. Is more than once really necessary?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Merg,



Spoiler



I couldn't help but wonder... they gathered an arm, a shoulder, and part of his head... and he regenerated from that. What would have happened if they hadn't gathered those parts together? Would Jack just have grown from the head and the other remaining parts died? or what.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

Stewart,



Spoiler



I was kinda wondering the same thing. If they had just found a part of his head, would that have been enough? I'm wondering if he just regenerates faster the more of him that is "together".



I almost didn't look at your post thinking I might ruin something from Day 3 until I saw it was posted before Day 3 had aired.

- Merg


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

I too wish Dish and BBCA had their ducks in a row already. But, Torchwood in SD is better than no Torchwood. And since I don't have a BD player...


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Yeah - we should preface spoilers with the Day (Day 1, Day 2, etc.) so as not to confuse anyone. I will say that I am PISSED that I read an actor's bio on Wikipedia and found out a significant event from Day 5 ... did I say PISSED???? No spoiler tag on Wikipedia! 

Avoid any news, web sites, IMDB, Wikipedia and anything else related to this show until you've seen all 5 days ... that's all I can say.


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

Drew2k said:


> Yeah - we should preface spoilers with the Day (Day 1, Day 2, etc.) so as not to confuse anyone. I will say that I am PISSED that I read an actor's bio on Wikipedia and found out a significant event from Day 5 ... did I say PISSED???? No spoiler tag on Wikipedia!
> 
> Avoid any news, web sites, IMDB, Wikipedia and anything else related to this show until you've seen all 5 days ... that's all I can say.


At my age my CRS would let me wait a week or so and it would be all new to me


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Oops... sorry about that. I should have clarified before my spoiler that I was responding to Merg's spoiler at least so people wouldn't think I was spoilering anything yet to come.

I'm watching these for the first time as they air new... so if I forget to mention, at least everyone can be sure I'm not spoilering the next episode yet to air.

It has been pretty good so far. I guess they couldn't do this grand of a story with a normal once-a-week schedule because it would drive people nuts waiting a week to see what happens next...

But maybe this bodes well for the next season, as maybe they can carry the sensibilities they are establishing here... of course I am assuming there will be a normal series 4 in 2010. I haven't heard one way or the other.


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## TedBarrett (Oct 10, 2007)

Last year? whenever the last season aired, I watched Torched in HD on HDN? UHD? HDTH? about a month later. Anyone remember which network that was and kmow if that will happen for the mini-series? I'm recording the SD BBCA version just in case.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

I believe I watched it in HD on HDNET..306


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

Torchwood did air last season on HDNET in HD BUT I have seen no indication that they will air the current mini series.

Frankly, it would be a mistake on BBCA's part. They just made a very poor and ill advised attempt to use the mini series to pick up quick carriage agreements and failed. No one is carrying the HD signal yet.

After I fired the exec responsible for this idiocy, I would task his/her replacement with securing the carriage agreements and then do a "re-boot" with hat in hand and do everything in my power to make disenchanted fans happy.



CCarncross said:


> I believe I watched it in HD on HDNET..306


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## Church AV Guy (Jul 9, 2007)

LarryFlowers said:


> Torchwood did air last season on HDNET in HD BUT I have seen no indication that they will air the current mini series.
> 
> Frankly, it would be a mistake on BBCA's part. They just made a very poor and ill advised attempt to use the mini series to pick up quick carriage agreements and failed. No one is carrying the HD signal yet.
> 
> After I fired the exec responsible for this idiocy, I would task his/her replacement with securing the carriage agreements and then do a "re-boot" with hat in hand and do everything in my power to make disenchanted fans happy.


I agree with you completely. Since BBCA has an HD feed now, there is absolutely no incentive on their part to show anything further on HDNET. It would be a very bad decision to supply what is now "the competition" with prime material.

The promotion of BBCA HD, and the tie in with the Torchwood miniseries has been intense. If it hasn't produced results, I can only assume one of two things. 1) Most carriers are seriously bandwidth limited and adding another channel would be difficult. Or 2) the revenue stream from BBCA HD would not justify the expense and effort of adding it. Maybe both. They really need to do business in a business-like manner, as you suggest.


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## LOCODUDE (Aug 8, 2007)

Really liking this Mini-Series......


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## LOCODUDE (Aug 8, 2007)

Looking forward to the New season of Doctor Who...


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## jacksonm30354 (Mar 29, 2007)

Church AV Guy said:


> I agree with you completely. Since BBCA has an HD feed now, there is absolutely no incentive on their part to show anything further on HDNET. It would be a very bad decision to supply what is now "the competition" with prime material.
> 
> The promotion of BBCA HD, and the tie in with the Torchwood miniseries has been intense. If it hasn't produced results, I can only assume one of two things. 1) Most carriers are seriously bandwidth limited and adding another channel would be difficult. Or 2) the revenue stream from BBCA HD would not justify the expense and effort of adding it. Maybe both. They really need to do business in a business-like manner, as you suggest.


Actually if the priceis right it is in their interest to sell programming to the network that will pay the most for it and gereate more in advertising than what would be possible on BBCA. These BBC shows are funded by a "license fee" by all UK households with a TV. Their first priority for outside the UK is to sell to the highest bidder.

What you see on BBCA is not only content from the BBC but also from commercial broadcaster ITV (Primeval) and Channel 4.


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## erpbridge (Apr 23, 2009)

To be honest... BBCA HD launched on Monday in conjunction with the Torchwood special and the Doctor Who episode this weekend. According to Wikipedia (reliability questionable, always), no provider has BBCA HD up and running yet. I would have hoped that at least the two major sat providers had done so, but guess it's still in the works.


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Drew2k said:


> Yeah - we should preface spoilers with the Day (Day 1, Day 2, etc.) so as not to confuse anyone. I will say that I am PISSED that I read an actor's bio on Wikipedia and found out a significant event from Day 5 ... did I say PISSED???? No spoiler tag on Wikipedia!
> 
> Avoid any news, web sites, IMDB, Wikipedia and anything else related to this show until you've seen all 5 days ... that's all I can say.


Wikipedia had the entire 5 day plot up.


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> Merg,
> Day 1 Spoiler
> 
> I couldn't help but wonder... they gathered an arm, a shoulder, and part of his head... and he regenerated from that. What would have happened if they hadn't gathered those parts together? Would Jack just have grown from the head and the other remaining parts died? or what.


It would have been an interesting plot if he had regenerated into three separate Capt'n Jacks. Of course the missing parts of him would have regenerated into many Capt'n Jacks if that was possible.

The one plot hole in the regeneration idea is that his mass wasn't constant. There needed to be a source of raw materials to make up for the loss of body mass. Although there is a lot of carbon in the air, I don't think his body could possibly regenerate in the time frame shown if he pulled carbon from the air. Especially while in the body bag.


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Day 5 Spoiler

I felt the ending was too contrived and too fast. They needed a solution to wrap things up and took an easy out. I didn't feel a sense of satisfaction. Although the 456 left, there was no indication that they won't return.

I wanted the classic hero returns to Thames house and surprises the 456 that he survived their virus and reveals to them that he is immortal. Bring his feedback device to them and play it there. As it is, the 456 doesn't have a clue who did it to them.

The decision to use Steven was not played strongly enough because they ran out of time. What did Jack tell Steven? Was he honest? Did Steven volunteer to die? His mother's anguish was only briefly shown. In a way, she was indirectly responible for her son's death by telling the female militray agent to get Captain Jack. There needed to be a final statement from Jack's daughter about how she feels that he used her only child - whether she never wants to see him again or not.

The real hole in the total plot is why abduct children using the government? Their transportation technology would allow them to abduct children all over the world at will. Just focus on schools and beam and grab!

Also, why don't the 456 just take a few kids off to space and grow/clone their own? It might take a little time, but they could make as many as they want. They took 44 years to come back as it was. If they are technologally advanced as they seemed, cloning shouldn't be an issue.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

V'ger;2166679 said:


> Wikipedia had the entire 5 day plot up.


I wasn't looking at the Wikipedia entry for Torchwood, I was reading the entry for an actor on the series.

---

At this point, I'm only up to day 3. We had severe weather here on Thursday, so I couldn't record the showings and decided to wait for the Blu-ray disc this Tuesday. I'll watch it the way nature intended ...


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

Day 5 spoiler - kinda



Spoiler



I don't think I like Jack so much anymore. Is there another season of TW? If so, I want Gwen to be the boss and bring young Miss Habib along. And maybe the old gal that worked for Frobisher. And also the gal with the attitude and big gun.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Without spoilering... It seems all involved (actors, producer, writers, etc.) are up for a 4th season if the BBC wants one next year... but it's really hard to see how they'd get there.

The door isn't 100% closed I suppose... but the way this series ended, makes it VERY difficult, in my opinion, to bring things back. Given the twists and turns I'm not sure how "Torchwood" could come back.

I think it much more likely we could get a completely different show, that has many of the same characters... just not the Torchwood Institute.


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I think it much more likely we could get a completely different show, that has many of the same characters... just not the Torchwood Institute.


How's this for a thought. 100 or so years in the future And see how the future Torchwood deals with 456? Or back in history to the founding of Torchwood, prior to Jack's involvement? They did give a hint in a couple of early episodes. Except I want to see Gwen again. And the gal with the attitude and big gun.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Eve Myles (Gwen) is pregnant in real life. There's a long interview with her on the _Under the Radar_ web site *
Torchwood's Eve Myles Dressed as Wonder Woman on a Beach with Johnny Cash*
.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

IF they wanted old-style Torchwood... they could go back to the beginning.

They could also go back to the time when Jack was waiting around for the present if they want to keep John Barrowman on the show.

But, yeah... I'd miss modern times and Gwen.

They did sow seeds for potential new members... but it'd just be hard to imagine Jack being all back-to-normal given how they ended this series.

It's one of those great for the show, horrible for the show situations. The story had parts that worked well, but were kind of bridge-burning moments that you can't undo.


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## frederic1943 (Dec 2, 2006)

Remember Jack has that time and space wristband. He could be gone for a few hundred thousand years and still come back the day after he left Gwen and Rhys.


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

According to Richard T. Davies, the Torchwood creator:


> DAVIES: We don't yet know about our fourth series, but I'm fairly confident [it will continue] in some shape or form. I will just sit down and invent new stories and characters. That's what I've spent my entire life doing. It's not difficult at all. I could write the first 10 scenes in an episode right now.


That's from an interview you can read on EW.com. However, if you've not watched all 5 episodes, don't read it. Spoiler alert.


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## LOCODUDE (Aug 8, 2007)

Would be interesting to see how they will handle the 4th season...


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Day 5 Spoiler

At the end when Forbisher's secretary is wearing the Torchwood contacts, the other woman pulled rank on the PM, and she was as guilty as anyone else in that room since she was the one who proposed using the lowest ranking schools to determine which children should go to the 456. This seems to be a major continuity error to me.

She certainly has a holier than thou attitude. I don't think she will be so uppity once the Torchwood videos get released.


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

olguy said:


> Day 5 spoiler - kinda
> 
> I don't think I like Jack so much anymore. Is there another season of TW? If so, I want Gwen to be the boss and bring young Miss Habib along. And maybe the old gal that worked for Frobisher. And also the gal with the attitude and big gun.


I really wanted to see the militray babe with the big attitude get hers at some point in the show. But it didn't happen. I kinda think she was a lot like Jack was in 1965.. He didn't care. She didn't care about rules or people or anyone who got in the way.

In a fourth season, I could see her being a foil, having found Torchwood alien technology in the rubble at the Hub.


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## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> IF they wanted old-style Torchwood... they could go back to the beginning.
> 
> They could also go back to the time when Jack was waiting around for the present if they want to keep John Barrowman on the show.
> 
> ...


I wonder how Jack evolves into the "Face of Boe" as in the two Doctor Who episodes with the cat people. In the second episode, Boe dies. The face of Boe told the Doctor that there was another (timelord)... which turned out to be the Master. So somehow in the distant future Jack regenerates into a huge prunefaced head.

More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_of_Boe


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

frederic1943 said:


> Remember Jack has that time and space wristband. He could be gone for a few hundred thousand years and still come back the day after he left Gwen and Rhys.


Outside of Torchwood, the Doctor keeps breaking the time-portion of that wristband... so not sure it is anything more than just a teleporter at the moment.

That said... there would be no logical reason for Jack to want to return to that time. He wants time away to forget the things he has done... so if he does that, he wouldn't want to jump back into the fire. Makes more sense for him to stay away and come back in the future UNLESS something happens to bring him back sooner.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

There's plenty of folks living who could make a good next season as primary and secondary characters, even if Jack didn't "drop in" which he could under the right circumstances.
















We have Gwen Cooper and hubby Rhys Williams, plus a kid whose reality could easily be something more than the sum of the genetic Gwen/Rhys (hey, it's "Torchwood" isn't it).
















Then we have the obvious new characters - Lois Habiba and Johnson.
















Plus we have the two relatives who are going to be angry for entirely different reasons - Alice Carter and Rhiannon Davies.
















And then speaking of the angry, we have PC Andy Davidson and Bridget Spears.









And wasn't Mr. Dekker alive and well when we last saw him - the science geek.

I think we all could think of story lines that could be built around these people that might even involve a reason for Jack to drop in.


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## LOCODUDE (Aug 8, 2007)

You know what? What you just said, makes sense. Could work......


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## olguy (Jan 9, 2006)

Yeah, phrelin. What LOCODUDE said.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

I've been puzzling over my inability to find discussion from both critics and fans about the dark political/social (and individual in the case of Jack and Frobisher) morality "logic theme" presented by the 456.

Fans of the series seem crushed by the death of the popular character Ianto and the dark turn taken by Captain Jack Harkness in the unusually dark story line.

For me the crux of the story relates to the belief by an alien species that humans are, in fact and with a great deal of irony, "inhuman" meaning "lacking qualities of sympathy, pity, warmth, compassion, or the like; cruel; brutal" particularly in regard to our own species. The 456 want 10% of the Earth's children. When an objection is raised by Captain Jack, the 456 response is "but you're letting children die every day; why would you mind this?" They offer statistics we all know but don't seem care about. Over 25,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to:

1 child dying every 3.5 seconds
17-18 children dying every minute
Over 9 million children dying every year
Some 70 million children dying between 2000 and 2007
Our children (the alien assumes "our" because we are a single species) die of hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other poverty related causes. In spite of the scale of this ongoing catastrophe, humanity does nothing to solve a problem that could be solved simply by reallocating half the accumulated wealth from North America, Europe and Japan which would by all human historical standards still leave the people in those three areas incredibly wealthy.

Given this inhuman nature of our species, an alien species that appears to be able to kill us all merely wants 10% of our children. We are presented with a meeting of elected and appointed officials discussing criteria for selecting children based on their desirability, which concluded. as such a meeting would, that most would be chosen from the poor all for the good of society as a whole.

This shouldn't be too disturbing because the Nazi's in fact did hold the Wannsee Conference to establish criteria for the processes of the "final solution" and in fact most of the foot soldiers in most armies around the world who are sent to kill and die for the good of their nation are mostly the poor.

It would seem so logical to an alien observing humanity over time that we could select 10% of our children to give to aliens for the good of the remainder of humanity. Day in and day out as a species the richest societies buy iPods while far more than 10% of human young die from preventable causes.

In Britain the one frequent fan criticism of the show is that somehow the writers were trying to write a Shakespearean tragedy. Personally, I thought it was more akin to the tragedies of the ancient Greek myths.

Like those myths, it was a modern morality tale with it's flawed hero. But somehow I think it failed to stir the type of discussion one might expect.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

One problem, in my mind... was that the 456 presented it as if it was an either-or situation.

Either we give them 10% OR kids would be dying every day anyway.

The truth is that the 10% given to the 456 would not necessarily be part of the kids that would have died that day anyway... and in fact, likely would not be given the methodology used to get the kids (the scenes of kids being ripped away from parents by military, indicates kids that while poor and perhaps underachieving were loved and cared for)...

So, the giving of 10% wouldn't have been the 10% that might have also died under normal circumstances, but instead in addition to it.

So while much of the show was scary in its closeness to "what if" in a real-world scenario... it really wasn't an either-or choice.

Also disappointing that there really wasn't much of a fight put up against them. In 1965, capitulation was purely voluntary. In 2009 a handful of people in a building that was secured from escape died from an unknown virus that perhaps could have been cured given time. In an actual war against the 456, who knows hoe much better humanity might have fared. Also, Jack was able to frighteningly easily and simply turn them away once he spent a few minutes actually thinking about it.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> One problem, in my mind... was that the 456 presented it as if it was an either-or situation.
> 
> Either we give them 10% OR kids would be dying every day anyway.
> 
> ...


That is the way _we_ view it. But from a logical standpoint a 456 might not understand why we just wouldn't give them the kids that would die anyway. Or give them "some kids" and thereby free up resources to save the rest, or buy more iPhones, the 456 don't care. It's all about choices as a species, not as artificially created, and biologically irrelevant, nations. Initially the number was just 10% of the world's children. When we balked, they put it into the logical form we understand - 10% from each nation. One thing that surprised me, and it may have been a time constraint, is that the show didn't explore the "what if" of one nation refusing.


Stewart Vernon said:


> Also disappointing that there really wasn't much of a fight put up against them. In 1965, capitulation was purely voluntary. In 2009 a handful of people in a building that was secured from escape died from an unknown virus that perhaps could have been cured given time. In an actual war against the 456, who knows how much better humanity might have fared. Also, Jack was able to frighteningly easily and simply turn them away once he spent a few minutes actually thinking about it.


Historically, most of what humans have feared and hated as a species is "the other" of our own species. It seems we instinctively divide along family, class, tribal and national lines thinking we are protecting "our own". In this show, it was clearly family and class that mattered more than mankind as a whole.

Enter the tragically flawed hero who acting against instinct saves all mankind, but at great sacrifice to himself - the sacrifice of his family line.

Of course, we have to suspend disbelief. It is television and it is science fiction, after all. But most of the world's tragic myths require the same. And unless the show's producers have advanced knowledge that they'll have 300 hours in which to tell the story, most things just go unexplored.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

That was sort of where I was going... the 10% to be given were going to be pulled from the "less important" section of society without regard to viability. In truth, to make such a decision when weighed against kids who wouldn't survive anyway... they should have made the choice to first sacrifice children with terminal illnesses, for example.

Mind you, I'm not advocating it in a real world scenario... Just from the pure-logic point of view that would have followed pure-logic.

The end-result, is that people in the show did what people do... protect themselves and others be damned... so it was realistic on that point, unfortunately... I was just pointing out the logic flaw that if the argument was "why not give kids since a bunch would die anyway" then that only works if you give away those kids first... then you'd be sacrificing without affecting the mortality rate and a "win win" within the confines of the show.

The blurry moral argument there being... Is it wrong to kill a dying kid to save the world? Some would argue that if it saves the world, and the kid would die anyway... why not. Not saying that's my choice... but in a show like Torchwood, it would probably seem like a rational conclusion.

Like in movies where the guy with terminal cancer sacrifices his life to save someone... he knows he was going to die anyway, and makes his death mean something by saving someone else.

At the end of the day, of course, it's just TV  And it was entertaining, and definitely one of those "something happens that changes everything" type of stories.


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

My BluRay disks arrived today  I think a marathon may be happening here tomorrow. Or should that be a TWoodathon?

Don't forget, if Law & Order UK doesn't work out, we've still also got Martha, personally I thought she was rather disappointing in L&O UK, and would be much better back in TW. Did no one go to ComicCon in San Diego? RTD was there answering questions on TW and DW.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

First off, children dying is not a resource allocation problem. It's a distribution problem. Things like warlords preventing aid workers from distributing food. But that's as far as I'l go politically in this thread.

The problem I had was about the 'collection process'.

Tell me - is the UK military filled with such automatons that they would not rebel against such an order? We saw, to use phrases that right-wing radio likes to use, jack-booted thugs taking away children. Does not the British soldier have a conscience?

Also, there should have been a story line about how the U.S. was WAY under quota. Why? We are an armed society. If the military or anyone else started rounding up children - you bet your bottom dollar that there's be rioting and gunfire on a massive scale. Every survivalist would be arming his neighbors while screaming "I told you so!".


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

djlong,

good points. I gather the UK military was "in the dark" and perhaps were told they were taking children under duress for the good of the children for those "vaccinations"...

I remember being in a hospital emergency room as a kid (probably around 10 or so years old) and we did not have a family doctor yet, hence the emergency room for the high fever I was running... so they wanted to take blood and I hated needles.

I ripped the lining out of my father's dress coat (I was wearing because of being cold) and it took several adult males to hold me down so they could get the blood sample to diagnose me.

From my perspective as a child, a horrible violation! From my parents and the doctors/nurses perspective, I was running a 104 degree fever and it was very much necessary to do what they needed to do to find out what was wrong. (Long story short, I had Strep Throat and obviously I survived the experience)

The point being... it'd be very easy to lie and get most people to go along with the "we need to cure the weird thing that the children have been doing" as portrayed in the show.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that IF they had gone even more public with that info, and not been so secretive... they might have gotten even more cooperation from the populace with that lie.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

Can a moderator please rename this thread to *Torchwood: Children of Earth (Miniseries Spoilers)* ? Otherwise some unsuspecting Torchwood fan could easily be spoiled thinking this is just a generic discussion thread. Thanks.


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

I finished watching this in HD last night (thank you Blu-ray!) and really enjoyed it. I was a little disappointed the BD did not include the five 15-minute "Inside Look" specials that BBCA aired. It had Torchwood Declassified but there was information in the Inside Look (such as discussion of the future of the Torchwood series) that was not in Declassified.

I noted a few inconsistencies that momentarily took me out of the story (Johnson's team could immediately trace phone calls made by Alice, Ianto and Gwen, but could not immediately trace Jack's phone call; People on the ground floor of the MI5 building died before Ianto and Jack at the source and before Dekker did; that the time it took for Jack to resurrect varied for no apparent reason: gunshot = 2 minutes; concrete suffocation = 30 seconds; virus = several hours apparently) but I still really, really enjoyed it.

It's a shame Ianto is not coming back - it would have been so much fun to see a continuation of the "are we a couple or not" plot - but as Davies said a significant death was needed to convey properly that this was a tragedy all the way around. I'll miss Ianto, but the story was better for his passing.

Now I'm just hoping the BBC wants to make another series ...


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Thread title changed at Drew's request. Thanks, Drew!


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

Drew2k said:


> I finished watching this in HD last night (thank you Blu-ray!) and really enjoyed it. I was a little disappointed the BD did not include the five 15-minute "Inside Look" specials that BBCA aired. It had Torchwood Declassified but there was information in the Inside Look (such as discussion of the future of the Torchwood series) that was not in Declassified.
> 
> I noted a few inconsistencies that momentarily took me out of the story (Johnson's team could immediately trace phone calls made by Alice, Ianto and Gwen, but could not immediately trace Jack's phone call; People on the ground floor of the MI5 building died before Ianto and Jack at the source and before Dekker did; that the time it took for Jack to resurrect varied for no apparent reason: gunshot = 2 minutes; concrete suffocation = 30 seconds; virus = several hours apparently) but I still really, really enjoyed it.
> 
> ...


I agree with you as well about how the series went. Which phone call from Jack are you referring? I don't think they immediately traced Ianto's and Gwen's calls either, although it was fairly quick.

As for Ianto taking so long to die, I looked at it that the virus was released into the ventilation system in some way and not in the room where the 456 was. Remember the case the 456 was in was supposedly completely sealed off.

In regards to Jack's ressurection, I looked at it that his ressurection time depended on how long his body needed to repair the damage. With regards to the virus, his body would have needed to clean the virus out of every part of his body that it had seeped into so it would take quite a bit longer than when he got shot or if he was suffocated.

- Merg


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## jadebox (Dec 14, 2004)

Church AV Guy said:


> The crawling message on the bottom of the screen in Day 2 was annoying, irritating and very distracting. Whoever decided to do that during the premire event should be shot! By now, almost everyone knows that BBCA HD is available. I don;t need a crawling message telling me to contact my cable provider as a reminder. It was on several times in that hour. Is more than once really necessary?


That and the animated ads on the bottom of the screen convinced me that I don't care if we get BBC America in HD or not. I'm not going to watch the channel any more. Fortunately, it looks like Doctor Who and Torchwood come to DVD shortly after being shown on BBC America.

I thought the Torchwood mini-series was very good, but I liked the lighter, hour-long stand-alone episodes better.

-- Roger


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## Mr_Bester (Feb 13, 2007)

I don't know if it "really" matters, but when they traced Ianto's call, he called a landline. I doubt that would really help, but that may be their "workaround" in the writers room...


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## frederic1943 (Dec 2, 2006)

BBC America is bragging that they had 3.3 million viewers for TW: COE. They get that number by adding together all the viewers for each day as though everybody watched one day only.
They also bragged that they had more viewers than MSNBC, Animal Planet, Bravo, BET, Travel, Oxygen, Hallmark, TV Land, Soap, MTV, E!, WE, or Headline News.:lol:

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20090810bbca01


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

I just watched it. 
In the shortest possible review let me say this was the best written Scifi story (on TV) that I have ever watched! It was so real that it kept me glued to the set for every minute of it!
No Black, No White it was the all the grey colors that surround every real life event.
Bravo for Torchwood.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

I have been in a few hairy situations in third world countries and I have seen first hand what people will do to survive. I would say to people, dont believe for a second that you and I are any better than these people and what I have learned from all of this is that people can rationalize anything when their lives or childrens lives are on the line. People will hand over one child to a group of soldiers to save another. 
Its very easy to talk about what we would do or how we think people would behave and thats because luckily most of us will never be faced with making this decision nor do we know anybody who has been faced with the decision.

In WWII i have heard that some Jewish families faced this same situation, they could smuggle out only one or two family members and had to decide who would live and who would die.



phrelin said:


> That is the way _we_ view it. But from a logical standpoint a 456 might not understand why we just wouldn't give them the kids that would die anyway. Or give them "some kids" and thereby free up resources to save the rest, or buy more iPhones, the 456 don't care. It's all about choices as a species, not as artificially created, and biologically irrelevant, nations. Initially the number was just 10% of the world's children. When we balked, they put it into the logical form we understand - 10% from each nation. One thing that surprised me, and it may have been a time constraint, is that the show didn't explore the "what if" of one nation refusing.
> Historically, most of what humans have feared and hated as a species is "the other" of our own species. It seems we instinctively divide along family, class, tribal and national lines thinking we are protecting "our own". In this show, it was clearly family and class that mattered more than mankind as a whole.
> 
> Enter the tragically flawed hero who acting against instinct saves all mankind, but at great sacrifice to himself - the sacrifice of his family line.
> ...


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