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Torchwood Children of Earth: Day One |
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| Story No. | 27 | 
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| Production Code | Series Three Episode One | |
| Dates | July 6, 2009 |
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With John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Gareth David-Lloyd.
Written by Russell T Davies Directed by Euros Lyn Executive Producers: Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner. |
| Synopsis: All the children of earth speak in unison at the exact moment: We. Are. Coming. |
A Review by Emily Monaghan 13/9/09
I can't promise I'm going to keep this up for a whole week, but here's my expanded version of my "list of notes" I made during the episode.
To begin with, a little about me. I loathe Torchwood with a firey passion. It has some good ideas, but I find its conception of "adult" frustrating and simply don't buy that the team are competant enough to handle coordinating a Christmas party, let alone prevent an invasion. I'm just a sucker for something to tide me over until there is more Who. I only had a piece of paper for notes because I invited all my friends to see the episode together - but for this to work I promised to keep my mouth shut for the whole episode, no matter how daft, because they are all huge fans.
As it turned out, the episode was disappointingly brilliant, and there is barely a bitchy comment on the list. Maybe because it's the equivalent of the first fifth of a regular episode, which normally even Torchwood can't screw up (on the other hand, there was Dead Man Walking...). You have to wonder whether they can keep up this momentum for another four days. I do hope so, though, because last night's episode was a very exciting piece of television. It was brilliantly cinematic. It was well written, well acted. It was funny. In short, it wasn't rubbish. What a shame; I was so looking forward to taking the rip out of it for an entire week.
Nevermind, they've another four hours to screw up. For now, however, I'm just going to gush.
The new characters were a mixed bag. If it was going in for a reality TV vibe - who's gonna be the new Torchwood recruit? - us here at Team Traken would have voted Rupesh. The end of the episode made us wholly forgive the slightly ham-fisted way he was set up as "the new member". We found Lois very irritating - or, as we've been calling her, Jo Grant. She makes tea, she's pretty, she's going to be an appalling member of a government organisation. She bumbles in on Frobisher with all the finesse of the world's all-time-cutest-but-worst secret agent. It's also nice to see that the Home Office has a handy wikipedia file on Torchwood. ("You want information on extra-terrestrial threat? We have an app for that.")
I have the hugest soft spot for Peter Capaldi, and Frobisher was expectedly fantastic. I'm really looking forward to the inevitable crunch. I'm also still holding out for him to be a shape-shifting penguin. It's amusing to think the Doctor is also responsible for this new PM's appointment. I wonder how Harriet Jones would have handled this? I wonder whether this and Journey's End are part of how Harriet Jones would build her "golden age". But for his intervention, she would have been handling this crisis.
As for the regulars, again all disappointingly good, disappointingly convincing in subtle scenes. Jack wasn't bad once. The casual reveal of Alice's true identity was just marvellous. It's telling that he described Martha's honeymoon as being "on holiday". I like the ribbing about them being a couple, particularly because only Ianto who seems to be uncomfortable with it. No one else is being judgemental. And oh! Gwen's revelation from Clem? It should have been mawkish; instead, it was beliveably adorable, and after three years with these mugs, I felt like a beaming relation. Perhaps the greatest character moment of the episode was Stephen's line "I was talking like an alien! It was brilliant!"
Standout scenes included the hilariously deadpan double-act as Ianto and Jack went in to see their poor "neighbour". I loved the way they did the first "stop", wonderfully edited and subtly creepy. The second one was probably better done, but suffered because of the wearing it had been given in the trailer.
Finally, they seem to be doing adult properly. It's the same world as Doctor Who; RTD claims he cut a Daleks reference, and I agree it would have been oddly inappropriate. It's the same world that has been repeatedly invaded, yet only here we can have the story of the suicide rates going up. It's good dark, instead of - oh, I'm sure you have your favourite clunking moment to kick.
A few other thoughts. I'm a sucker for building coherent continuities where there isn't and doesn't need to be one. Was the laser device seen twice in this episode the same thing as used by the Master in Mark of the Rani? On similar lines, my sister tells me Gwen's "gizmo" is a perfectly normal piece of kit held by normal secret agents. Which is a pity, because I was kinda hoping it'd turn out to be Miss Foster's lost sonic pen. I'm happy to see UNIT back as the United Nations, at least semi-officially. They drop it into some background dialogue. I'm amused by the truly excessive triple deadlocking. The time difference in America was a brilliant observation. Reminds me of Goth Opera, when there's the 24 hour night in Britain. People are slightly less worried in Australia, where they experienced 24 hours of sunlight.
And I'm very, very excited to note that virtually every trailer scene came from this first episode. We're going off the roadmap, folks. 15 minutes until Day Two.