Since I'm re-watching Children of Earth on BBC America--because there's something to be said for watching TV the old fashioned way, on the TV--I figured I'd post my original thoughts along with a few new ones.
Here's the original post.
And under the cut are my final thoughts, which I will get to after I join PC Andy in a police meelee...
Addendum for Torchwood: Children of Earth episode 5:
"I just stood back, a strategy that's worked all my life." God, Dekker, could you be any more callous?
I remember watching this the first time and being thrown when they revealed the 4-5-6 wanted to get high off of the children. Of all the reasons, I never would have come up with that one.
John Barrowman kills me this whole episode. It's sort of amazing/harrowing/depressing to see the journey they've put this character on since introducing him as a time-traveling conman way back when on DW.
Giving over Frobisher's kids as a PR gesture? Not only do I want to punch Green in the face, I want to whack him a few times with a lead pipe, maybe hit him with my car, and then feed him to Janet the Weevil...if she's still around. If not, Myfanwy will do. Or a Hoix.
Gwen breaks me heart when she's talking to Andy on the way to Rhiannon's. It's the speech she gave in "End of Days" but about 100 time worse, punching-me-in-the-gut-wise.
Of course this being THIS show, we can't have a proper untarnished happy moment, and Rhiannon has to throw it in Gwen's face that if she bought Ianto's stories about his dad then she didn't really know him at all. Torchwood: We're "up" people!
Re: Steven "He'll be fine; the nice kids are safe." Big flashing neon "DED" sign? Just ignore that...
Ianto's superpowers were making a damn fine cup of coffee and knowing everything. Rhiannon's are just being generally awesome and rolling with it. Johnny's is being able to start a riot with no notice. What a wonderfully diverse family.
I can't figure a way to summarize my thoughts better than plagiarizing myself, so this is from my initial thoughts, in case you don't want to bother clicking the link, plus a couple of extra things at the end:
I don't begrudge Gwen getting off with relatively little damage--that's apparent anyways, who knows what kind of PTSD she's gone through between the end of the 456 threat and the "six months later" post script. I have no idea how she got through it, but I know like all the others she would have the strength to pick up and start again, Rhys and the coming baby there to give her love and meaning. I want to hate Jack even more for leaving her there--alone as the last of Torchwood Three--but I do understand some of his reasons. Everyone he has known, knows, and will know in the future will die--either because of him, knowing him, or simply the steady march of time--and he will always be left to keep going. I don't blame him for wanting to leave a planet where love and loss are so intertwined that it feels like he is suffocated by every memory he's ever had of the place. Of course, running away won't magically solve all his problems; it just means he'll have to deal with them on Omicron Persei 8 or wherever the hell instead of Earth. I hate him for being a cowardly bastard, but he was a cowardly bastard before he met the Doctor, and some part of him will always be a cowardly bastard. It's just one part of who he is--nonetheless, it's a shitty part. I hate him for leaving Gwen behind. But I don't hate him as a person. He's done monstrous things and said it was for "the greater good", for "Queen and country", for any number of reasons. Yet, I can't hate him because no matter what he does it is his fate to keep on living no matter what happens, what he does or does not do, whether he chooses to love or not, whether he does good or not. Someone who will live that long, I can't even begin to fathom, to contemplate, what it will do to him. And because of that, I can't help but sympathize, but mourn a bit that every connection he makes, every person he meets, every place he goes, he will outlast them all. The only solace I find is that he will be able to keep connecting in spite of this, that he will keep his humanity, that he will keep fighting for it.
Also at LJ
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