Torchwood: Children of Earth: Day Three
Jul. 8th, 2009 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThat felt like it was all made of middle.
Oddly enough. Since it is all the middle.
I have how-to-write diagrams that would have liked today's episode very much, as the middle of five hours; I'm not convinced it felt episode shaped its own self though.
At exactly half way through the middle episode of the set, to the second, we get A Big Thing happening, with the aliens landing.
What we didn't get was anything particularly new and exciting.
Well, if you assumed as I did that Jack had been a bad man because this is Torchwood.
It's good though, cause it's like it took Jasmine and the fairies and had it come back to bite everyone.
I thought the scale of threat was going to shrink to make it plausible: 10% of children. Yup. That works. Because you would get people agreeing to it, on the theory it would be someone else's 10%, and you would get people fighting it because they know full well which end of the luck they and theirs always come out on, and it will be slanted by privilege and expectations, and what you'll end up with is the people who always get stepped on standing up for what is right and the people who got away with it so far thinking they'll get away with it again. Especially if they personally do not have children. So now it's not only plausible in-world, with people perhaps acting that way, it's plausible in writer-level too, because you could get rid of 10% of children and it would change the world but not so much you couldn't set stories there. So now there is being worried.
Also Jack's descendents are in personal danger.
And I love that it was 'like gran' and not like Jack. She did the training. Win.
Why it didn't feel episode shaped: We didn't get a particular element that was set up as a problem at the start and resolved by the end. Episode 1 and 2 we did, with Rupesh and then Jack's abduction. Episode three was more: We have no stuff! Let's nick it! All done by 20 minutes, okay now what, oh look there's aliens! We will spend the last few minutes repeating everything they say and watching people react to it.
I'm not gripped, is what I'm saying.
There's a lot of setup and a lot of elements that are going to roll in the last two episodes and the middle is a competent middle, but as for things that happen in this episode? Meh.
Ianto and Jack were good. Ianto with the world's always ending give us half an hour. (Jack wanted 20 minutes? *raised eyebrow*)
And priorities of win: Coat of Jack! Army surplus! "I'm back."
... those of us who have been looking for the things find the odds not in Ianto's favor, but clearly he has butler magic.
So what do we have to lead us into next episode?
Gwen going grr about Jack giving children away is predictable. Ianto's reaction isn't. I hope they play his tension as far as possible. Because if he falls into line now, one step behind Jack as usual, he's mini-Jack and not much else, but if he's got a whole internal struggle about it he's interesting.
Talking of struggle, non subtle moment of sexual-identity-is-an-issue there.
There were some good moments here, friends and family network, Lois being a neat mix of subtle and awkward. The aliens are proper scary can't see them creeps.
All that shouting of paedo round the car last week, Ianto being called a perv, and now Jack being the one to give the kids away, combines in a rather nasty way. Ick.
Jack and Ianto and Gwen will save the world though.
... this is Torchwood, so that should be, probably will save the world, from what is once again their own leftover screwup.
Torchwood has a theme.
Oddly enough. Since it is all the middle.
I have how-to-write diagrams that would have liked today's episode very much, as the middle of five hours; I'm not convinced it felt episode shaped its own self though.
At exactly half way through the middle episode of the set, to the second, we get A Big Thing happening, with the aliens landing.
What we didn't get was anything particularly new and exciting.
Well, if you assumed as I did that Jack had been a bad man because this is Torchwood.
It's good though, cause it's like it took Jasmine and the fairies and had it come back to bite everyone.
I thought the scale of threat was going to shrink to make it plausible: 10% of children. Yup. That works. Because you would get people agreeing to it, on the theory it would be someone else's 10%, and you would get people fighting it because they know full well which end of the luck they and theirs always come out on, and it will be slanted by privilege and expectations, and what you'll end up with is the people who always get stepped on standing up for what is right and the people who got away with it so far thinking they'll get away with it again. Especially if they personally do not have children. So now it's not only plausible in-world, with people perhaps acting that way, it's plausible in writer-level too, because you could get rid of 10% of children and it would change the world but not so much you couldn't set stories there. So now there is being worried.
Also Jack's descendents are in personal danger.
And I love that it was 'like gran' and not like Jack. She did the training. Win.
Why it didn't feel episode shaped: We didn't get a particular element that was set up as a problem at the start and resolved by the end. Episode 1 and 2 we did, with Rupesh and then Jack's abduction. Episode three was more: We have no stuff! Let's nick it! All done by 20 minutes, okay now what, oh look there's aliens! We will spend the last few minutes repeating everything they say and watching people react to it.
I'm not gripped, is what I'm saying.
There's a lot of setup and a lot of elements that are going to roll in the last two episodes and the middle is a competent middle, but as for things that happen in this episode? Meh.
Ianto and Jack were good. Ianto with the world's always ending give us half an hour. (Jack wanted 20 minutes? *raised eyebrow*)
And priorities of win: Coat of Jack! Army surplus! "I'm back."
... those of us who have been looking for the things find the odds not in Ianto's favor, but clearly he has butler magic.
So what do we have to lead us into next episode?
Gwen going grr about Jack giving children away is predictable. Ianto's reaction isn't. I hope they play his tension as far as possible. Because if he falls into line now, one step behind Jack as usual, he's mini-Jack and not much else, but if he's got a whole internal struggle about it he's interesting.
Talking of struggle, non subtle moment of sexual-identity-is-an-issue there.
There were some good moments here, friends and family network, Lois being a neat mix of subtle and awkward. The aliens are proper scary can't see them creeps.
All that shouting of paedo round the car last week, Ianto being called a perv, and now Jack being the one to give the kids away, combines in a rather nasty way. Ick.
Jack and Ianto and Gwen will save the world though.
... this is Torchwood, so that should be, probably will save the world, from what is once again their own leftover screwup.
Torchwood has a theme.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 09:33 pm (UTC):-D
no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 09:40 pm (UTC)Ianto knows shorthand. Of course Ianto knows shorthand. Ianto knows everything.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-08 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-09 03:59 am (UTC)