Notes for Episode 12: Torchwood Children of Earth

Hannah here! This set of notes is extra long because there's a whole bonus section where we just catalogue observations from the episodes we watched from seasons 1 and 2 of Torchwood. Those being Countrycide, Adam, and Exit Wounds. We didn't even discuss those on the show, really! So you all get an exclusive treat. As usual, I've included a PDF version if any of you prefer reading them like that. See you all next month!

PATREON NOTES

• Plot / Structure Stuff:

  • I like that there’s some nested lil mysteries here. Some of them we might never get answers to, those might just not be Torchwood things 🙂

  • The mystery in question, about unexplained deaths, ended up being a fake mystery to lure Jack in and capture him. Clever!

  • Suicide rates have doubled ever since the aliens were made public… that’s a very Lostalike type of thing to say

  • I really love secret projects that predate the current administration

  • Specifications for something they want us to build… yes… it’s good when aliens send that type of shit

  • I assume the appeal of the Torchwood team being Ghost Protocol’d is a little bigger if you’ve seen the whole show up to this point

  • It would be funny though if it’s just happened six times in the episodes we didn’t watch and this is in fact the same as the IMF

  • Taking a procedural and making it juggle all these plotlines is an interesting change of pace. There’s a surprising amount of side stuff going on!

  • OH SHE’S PUTTING CEMENT ON HIM THAT’S SICK

  • Ok I’m just gonna say it: this is the first show we’ve watched since Day Break where I truly am intrigued by the mystery and want to know what happens next

  • Similar to The Event, this has both adrenochrome and a plandemic

  • 30 minutes left in the show, Torchwood doesn’t even have the beginnings of a plan! How are they gonna fucking win!
    
    

• Character / Performance Stuff:

  • Children of Earth being a sort of soft reboot seems to mean that they’ve all just gotten over the tragic deaths of Tosh and Owen in the previous season’s finale

  • I love the evil government agent woman (Johnson). Her own guys saying about her “If she’s anti-terrorist, I wouldn’t mind being called a terrorist!”

  • Frobisher is such a clear standout, it’s no wonder they went back for more Capaldi on the main show

  • British TV loves having the representative of America being a Distinguished Black General. Their entire conception of this country is based on 24

  • The aliens learning enough like… bureaucratic English terminology to be unnerving, it’s so good. “It is off the record. Come in.”

  • The argument between Jack and Ianto after the 456 make their demands is genuinely good! We were not familiar with Torchwood’s game!

• Technical / Aesthetic Stuff: 

  • Okay as of the first episode this does feel like they just took the standard Torchwood template and made it more of a Lostalike, with a much higher level of production sheen

  • The dramatic music dropping out when a shot is from Gwen’s perspective after the Torchwood hub bombing… it’s corny but it’s good

  • The extended trashy action opening of episode 2 is like… you can’t hide what you are, Torchwood. You’re British TV, even if you try to be something else

• Notable Quotes:

  • In general, Rusty has a really good head for banter. It’s hard to make this style work, but he does

  • “As far as we can tell, at 8:40 in the morning, every single child in the world… stopped”

  • There’s the Lostalike juice

  • Gwen’s startled “Oh my God!” during the first “We Are Coming” scene is really cute. I like this

  • “Adopt a Filipino and get him to clean the chimneys” The UK is a different planet

  • “I’m going into England - farewell forever” is some really cute romantic banter

  • “If they can communicate with us like this, why do that thing with the children?” “Because they can”

  • “We came here because you have no significance, you are middle men”

  • “You are in every nightmare I’ve ever had”

  • When Frobisher refers to some asylum-seekers as “21 units” FUCK DUDE

  • “We could do it alphabetically” “Oh, thanks, Mr. YATES”

  • “I think sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame” 

  • “We must be seen to have lost,” about pretending they were tricked into a fake vaccination scheme 

• Cute Things We Said:

  • TV can be a Welsh guy poorly throwing a cinderblock

  • In the UK they call them breezeblocks

  • That x-ray has a fucking cock!! They’re doing pervert shit with their British x-rays!

  • “How far are we?” “2 mins.” “Good. That’s how long it takes me to cock my gun”

  • The saga of “Cardiff Bay” must make it into the episode

  • Episode 2’s climax hinges on dropping a big cement block into a ravine. Can they do it!

  • YES

  • This is the most lavish stunt ever performed on British telly

  • Esther watches 5x YouTube videos about this kind of stuff a week

  • The aliens are making the kids all point at London… they all just wanna ride the Ferris wheel, I bet

  • The first message from the 456 ambassador is “What Call of Duty are you all on? On our planet we just got Impossible Warfare, do you have that one yet”

  • The aliens coming to Earth because they covered their own planet with slime and they need a new one. Asking to be brought to Nickelodeon Studios and thrashing around because the slime isn’t up to their standards

  • Frobisher asking the aliens if they’re alright and they reply “Thought there would be more games in this box”

  • Euros Lyn you got a Game of Thrones assed name

  • Making Jack say “i’ve dealt with you lot before” in his American accent is really funny

  • In the most general American accent of all time: “Listen mate, if you don’t sod off, we’ll BOTH be slated in the Daily Mail!”

  • “Report from Sweden… they’re telling the 456 they don’t have kids. They’re saying the small ones they have, are the same as the larger ones, but small”
    
    

• Things Exclusive The S1/S2 Episodes We Watched:

  • Alright this is very different than Lost. It feels very, dare I say, Special Unit 2

  • STARTS OFF STRONG WITH OUR DEAR FRIEND JACKSON’S FAVORITE INDIE LANDFILL SONG. IT’S A MONSTER

  • This is such a different look for Burn Gorman than I’m used to. He’s a little gay with it in this

  • Esther I think he’s very gay with it in this

  • The thing is we’re watching these episodes because they’re the “before it tried to be Lost” era of the show but. This could be an episode of Threshold

  • Love that they’ve chosen this beautiful picturesque valley to shoot this very rote expository scene. Not a lot of shows are doing that

  • I knew this was a horny show but Burn Gorman asking a blunt bangs woman WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU CAME SO HARD in the woods is like. What’s England. What’s the issue with England

  • Five is pretty big for a team show. Five’s a crowd. SVU at any given time has at most 4 guys and a captain

  • Children of Earth solved this, didn’t it

  • It’s so funny that this is where the creative energy for Lostalike guys used to go. High concept episodes of long running genre shows

  • I think the high-concept-ness works against this episode eventually, there’s only so many times they can play out the scenes of pointing guns at nothing and looking scared

  • Torchwood… this local policeman thinks it’s a band. It’s not a band, is it

  • So the ethos here is very clear. X-Files with the implication of everyone being stupid guy horny at all times

  • Oh this Adam episode is just Total Rickall! From Ricky Morty, which Esther loves!

  • I love that he’s creating memories of him fucking all of them. Tremendous. That’s the BBC schlock sensibility

  • THE ZOOMS. THE ZOOMS OF THIS

  • “WHAT KIND OF SICK GAMES ARE YOU PLAYING? PILLS THAT MAKE YOU FORGET?”

  • The episode ends with them all taking pills to forget so Rhys was just right. He called it from the jump

  • This is fun but it’s kinda wild how these are paced. I’m watching this like alright that was a good first two acts, but we’re 20 minutes in

  • They’re doing the backstory flashback on a football pitch with basketball hoops??

  • These are common in the UK????

  • “You like to write about artifacts in your diary?” “Among other things”

  • “Cross me, and I will fill your head with fake memories till it’s on fire, because that’s how I exist!”

  • Yeah I totally get how the tumblr girlies who had never seen a TV show before would have flipped for this

  • Adam inserting himself into Jack’s last happy memory with his dad as blackmail to keep him alive is cool and fucked up

  • After wiping their memories the crew are like “damn we’ve all been lazy pieces of shit for the last two days, better kill ourselves”

  • Jack having an American accent is insane… the intro is the most English thing ever committed to television and having an American accent fucks with the vibe so hard

  • I get the feeling all of British TV is the same, more or less. I watched a couple seasons of Luther and it was just a slightly tonier version of this

  • 13 minutes in we’ve covered 2 sentences of the Wikipedia synopsis. What else HAPPENS in this episode

  • This is really fun! Burying him eternally under the foundation of Cardiff. I like that

  • Oh I love these aliens. The Evils

  • THE EVILS LOVE OWEN I bet that was established earlier 🙂

  • I don’t follow most of anything going on here but the high level concepts are really fun and Something Happens every two minutes guaranteed

  • They’re killing off half the Torchwoods… they were really like yeah we don’t need these guys for where the show’s going. It’s all good