Torchwood: Children of Earth, Days 4 and 5

[stakebait]

Wait, what?

I know someone who was deeply affected by Day 4, and she knows lots of other people who were too, and I think something is wrong with me, because I was not watching that show at all.

The death of Ianto had almost no effect on me, I think because I was spoiled, but also because, what the fuck? That was their big plan? Go in and make a speech and shoot at the glass with  revolvers? I'm not saying they could have anticipated the airborne poison release, even though Jack at least knew they knew an awful lot about infectious diseases -- and how did the 456 do that from inside a sealed glass tank? -- but that really is exceptionally lame. I've seen Torchwood stage FAR more meticulously planned raids on small cottages. I am totally fine with the plan going completely fubared, but that requires that they have had a plan in the first place. What about getting the plans for Thames House, or the tank, or both? What about pumping in oxygen, or pumping out the air it's already got? Why were all those people still working in Thames House when the alien was in it anyway?  Don't you think you would move your routine functions?

Also, how did they get all those dead people OUT of Thames House if it was in total lockdown mode? Wouldn't they have had drills and erquipment for biohazard attack if it is supposedly so impregnable? And why didn't Jack wake up from death like he usually does while he was still inside and do something useful? I guess maybe he just kept dying because of the air, but he'd have had the few minutes he had the first time. And then why would they bother to send in hazmat teams to pull out the bodies in the middle of this emergency? And why does it take him so much longer to wake up from some deaths than others? My suspension of disbelief pretty well completely deflated and without that it was just so much melodrama to me.

At least they mentioned the U.N. this time.

Day 5 got to me more, albeit in a very bleak and quiet way, but there were still plot holes big enough to drive a truck through that were majorly interfering with my ability to be emotionally invested. 

How come aliens who chemically advanced enough to cure a rapidly mutating flu in a species they've just made first contact with cannot synthesize their drugs? With 40 years to experiment in? Hell, WE can synthesize a good chunk of the chemicals the human body makes. Whaddya want, adrenaline? Dopamine? Hormones? Let me introduce you to my friends at Merck, nobody has to die and they can open up a brand new lucrative marketplace. (And what chemical do children make that grownups don't? And didn't Frobisher's elder daughter look past puberty to you?)

Though I actually loved, in a creepy way, that the politicians who are busy sending the least desirable children to lifetime imprisonment still took a moment to be horrified when they found out it was DRUG trafficking.

If, as they said, they expected a lot of people to keep their kids home that day, then why on earth didn't they just take the kids that *did* show up to the bottom 20 percent of schools, or 25, or so on until they hit quota, instead of going commando on the holdouts in the original 10 percent? I thought the whole justification for doing it by schools was that they didn't have time to deal with individual families? So then the house to house kid raids are totally inefficient and stupid compared to going to the next school down the list. Not to mention causing panic and resistance and spreading the word across the country at the speed of cell phone. It makes good, dramatic visuals but it doesn't make sense.

Speaking of not making sense, hello, the 456 CONTROL THE CHILDREN. Can't they just make them walk to whereever they're going to be collected and leave the grownups out of it? Even if we posit that they can ONLY make them talk, and not walk, they certainly could make them yell "HERE I AM COME AND GET ME" and all the hiding stuff wouldn't do any good. Unless maybe you could knock them out. I wonder if unconscious kids still talk? That would have been something to test on Clement.

I did shed a tear for Frobisher (didn't the PM promise immunity for the families of the people in that room?) and even more so for his kids and wife. I wish he could have waited till they were asleep, so they didn't have to know. He spent his whole life keeping them from knowing anything that would have let them be useful or more than pawns, why break that now when it is too late? And if I were him I would have at least tried to run, or fight, or SOMETHING. But I understand why he didn't; it wasn't in his character.

Why would Gwen risk everyone's lives by talking to make her video after they've got all the kids to be quiet? Why would she say that stuff in front of kids who she wants to be quiet, when some of them are old enough to understand her?

This is not a question of artistic difficulties, but I was mildly irritated by the innoculation cover story simply because it plays into the paranoia of people in the real world who think innoculations are unsafe and the gov't is covering it up. I realize Torchwood is not a Public Safety Announcement and I'm not sure the people who believe that are reachable by argument in any case, but I could do without any more reinforcement of that particular attitude. Also on the plot hole front, I cannot believe the World Health Organization would publicly endorse an innoculation that it knew was going to end in catastrophe, even if it was willing to connive at the sacrifice of the kids, for the same reason I gave above, even if aliens were at their front door and chewing on the mat.  

I don't really understand how they built the equipment to connect Steven to all the other kids in the world from a standing start, but that sort of thing I can handwave better -- fancy equipment is a Torchwood speciality. I am even less clear as to why they assumed that the aliens would be listening to the kids and couldn't tune them out. I use my phone to communicate; I can still unplug it or just not answer. Also, a side issue, but I think if I were Mr. Naysayer that after the first time I got SHOT for it, I might settle for muttering under my breath. As far as I can tell he had all the pieces of the puzzle before Jack got there, all he lacked was the will to try it.

The one thing that really, unerringly worked for me, in an awful way, was Jack's decision to kill his grandson to save the world. It's completely inexcuseable, and he couldn't have done anything else, and that kind of painful balanced on the head of a pin dilemma, when it feels real and not forced, is exactly why I loved this show. I was upset as much for Jack as for Alice or Steven. He should have answered Steven, though. He should have said something.

I would have expected a lot more from Alice than a look and walking away. Quite frankly I would have expected her to kill him over and over and over. And I would have expected him to let her. Her guilt that she was the one who told them to get Jack, and therefore what happened to her son is her fault, will be with her forever, I imagine. I would like to see what happens to her now.

I found Jack's last hilltop stand entirely too much of a cop out -- on his part, but also on the writers' . This is exactly what I DON"T love about this show, the lack of restraint which sends them right up and over the genuinely big moments and down into schmaltz on the other side. I don't like him leaving, but I buy it, it is a Jack kind of thing to do, to try to outrun his conscience and outlive anyone who might remind him of it. But to do it at night, on a hilltop, with the wind blowing his hair back and a speech about how the planet is too small? Oh, please. It feels like a regression to me, more like Jack was when he was annoying the shit out of me in the beginning of season one. I thought he'd learned better. I guess maybe he doesn't trust that growth, considering what it led to, but I'm never going to find that satisfying.

And what the hell happens to Torchwood now, with Gwen the last man standing? There are still aliens, yes, still the Rift? Tell me she recruits another team, Alice among them, and raises holy hell in Jack's memory? Because if she goes off to raise little Rhysette and let the world go to hell I think my eyes will roll right out of my head.

Oh, and I forgot to mention last time my favorite line of the whole thing:" We want a pony. We want a pony."

Edited to add: We didn't even get a mention of what all those others countries chose to do, whether they were collecting their kids or having riots or gearing up for war or what. I know the show is set in the UK, but when you consider that the aliens threatened to kill the entire human race if they didn't get 100 percent compliance, not just British, you would think that tracking other people's progress and trying to convince them to comply would be happening in the Room of Politicians.
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