3.04: Children of Earth - Day Four

[Lenny]

Torchwood finally learns the truth about the events of 1965. But Britain is in danger of becoming a rogue state, and everything now pivots around John Frobisher, as the Ambassador of the 456 destroys its old allegiances and reveals its true intent.

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I've been at band tonight, so I haven't been able to watch the episode live.

Instead, I've set this thread up and scoured the others for questions which still need answering. Here they are (in no particular order) - how many are being left for the last day?

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- Is there more to Dekker, or is he simply an old hand?
- What about John Frobisher - he's not old enough to have been part of '65.
- Talking about '65, what exactly happened? We know it was Jack and three (military?) others, but why? Why a gift of twelve children (and why only twelve?)? What was the threat?
- If it's the government who are hunting Torchwood, then what are UNIT doing?
- Why is Torchwood being kept out of it?
- What's with Clem and his super-smell?
- Why don't the government train their armed forces properly?
- Who was the third body in Ashton Down? Is it actually important?
- Who are the 456? What type of species, and what do they want this time round? Why don't they feel the need to make threats?

Just a note - the questions come from various people, not just me!

 

[ctg]

That was good and I couldn't stop thinking where's the bloody doctor when we need him. Also I couldn't stop noticing that almost everything that we've been saying here, has been taken on board and correct in very next episode.

Lenny only one of your questions was answered.

 

[Xael]

Not sure about posting spoilers but this episode killed Torchwood for me.

 

[Lenny]

Post away - I'm not going to read this thread again until I've seen the episode, and I think that's generally true for everyone (we all know that threads about episodes in TV shows, or about new books, will contain spoilers, so we avoid until we've seen/read the thing in question).

 

[Xael]

It's worth the wait. I've joined just to get it out of my system.

 

[Susan Boulton]

Some nice layers of social comment in tonight's show, finally Torchwood has 'adult' content, rather than sexual content.

Bet Miss Baddie is in the next series working for Torchwood.

 

[nebecus]

My problem is, I missed the first half hour of this fourth episode! What happened in the first part?

 

[Mary Hoffman]

"What else are school league tables for?" Brilliant!

But I'm very wrung out by that. Say it isn't so!

 

[Lenny]

It definitely opens the way for Miss Habiba joining Torchwood... I like the idea of Johnson working for TW next series, too, but I think she'll be one of those who declines because of the alien aspect, particularly after this.

Two questions answered - what happened in 1965, and why the 456 don't feel the need to make threats.

There's not much else we can really add. Everything's gearing up for a gung-ho final episode, and it would make sense for Jack to go all out.

Interesting that, despite our hatred of Doctor Who being set in London, no-one has said anything about Torchwood being in London. Is it because there's actually a point to it, and everyone can see that the story calls for it, or have we simply given the argument up as a lost cause?

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The fourth series (I believe RTD has a fourth and a fifth written, which both depend on the success of this one - which could imply two things: 1. They're going to be of the same format, or 2. Torchwood is going mainstream) is going to be very different - the old guard is, more or less, gone.

 

[Xael]

I think that series four would have to start pretty much from scratch cast-wise (barring the first few episodes), I'm not sure how RTD would be able to shoehorn a pregnant Gwen continuing to work on a conveyor belt to a bodybag.

 

[PTeppic]

- Is there more to Dekker, or is he simply an old hand?
- What about John Frobisher - he's not old enough to have been part of '65.
- Talking about '65, what exactly happened? We know it was Jack and three (military?) others, but why? Why a gift of twelve children (and why only twelve?)? What was the threat?
- If it's the government who are hunting Torchwood, then what are UNIT doing?
- Why is Torchwood being kept out of it?
- What's with Clem and his super-smell?
- Why don't the government train their armed forces properly?
- Who was the third body in Ashton Down? Is it actually important?
- Who are the 456? What type of species, and what do they want this time round? Why don't they feel the need to make threats?

- He may just be an old hand but he's a lucky one: he seems to be the only one (conveniently) to have survived the gas - or did he?
- If Frobisher were 65 himself, (and "father of the house" often goes on to late 70s or even 80s) he could have been an office boy in the 65 incident
- we now know what happened in 1965
- I can't quite work out who Johnson's mob are: military, anti-terrorist, anti-Torchwood, independent, TW4?
- We might not know now
- drama
- pass
- twin headed? (the smoke was really distracting)

Anyway, it was still a slow episode in many ways but totally and utterly absorbing. From watching it prone I literally sat up towards the end as the climax built. One line made me laugh out loud (but made me wonder if it would make others cringe) but I can't remember what it was. Very interesting plot development: nice little plan by the TW team to get "used" to solve the problem only for it to fall apart in a bad way. Strike Ianto (leaving room in the team for Lois?) and smelling-hand Clem. But, that's going to leave Jack serious annoyed and out for vengeance. But - how do you fight back against a race like the 456?

 

[mercs]

I'm not sure about this mini-series. It is pretty gripping stuff and I can't stop watching, but i'm not sure if i like it or if i'd watch any more series. I'd rather captain jack was the centre of an entire doctor who series -they could drop off at different parts of earth's history, say 100 years in the future, death of torchwood, how he became the face of bo etc etc. May as well do it now as it will be harder to explain why Barrowman has aged despite Captain Jack not being able to!

 

[ctg]

But - how do you fight back against a race like the 456?

You call their big brother 455 to come and get them from collection point B.


No seriously. They could try ignore 456. The kids goes bonkers every now and then, but then what, the creature cannot step in this planet because of the atmosphere. It could try to force all the kids to go to collection points, but we could bar those areas and keep ignoring the bugger. At the end, what it can do? Wipe us out ... lol ... then what? Where the hell it's going to get human slaves. Maybe it should do a time shift and go to the stargate universe, where every single planet in the galaxy is populated with humans.

 

[Dave]

But - how do you fight back against a race like the 456?

Thinking laterally, you would "poison the water" (the "scorched earth" tactic.) If an enemy needs use of infrastructure, or of an economic or industrial resource you render it unusable, or at least lead them to think that it is no longer of any use to them. If the 456 want the children, they would need to show how unsuitable they are for their purpose - unfortunately, the 456 already know how suitable they are because they used 11 in the past.

For what purpose/reason do they actually want the children though? It looked to me as if the boy was integrated biologically into the being (a chimera?) Is this just so they can communicate? It cannot be so they can live in an Earth-type atmosphere, since they still cannot even with the boy. Maybe it is to do with space travel? The reason they need the children might have some bearing on the solution to dealing with them.

The 456, or else someone translated, that the children were unharmed and would live forever, but the boy looked disfigured behind the gas mask. Also that combination of gases would not just be unbreathable, it would attack our skin and bodies too, so I expect it is no longer 'a boy' at all, but just looks like one.

Also, I must have missed something but how did the presence of the child prove the UK government had had dealings with the 456 before? The American seemed to jump to that conclusion and the PM just meekly admitted it. Maybe I missed something the 456 said, but the boy could have been abducted by aliens without the knowledge of anyone at all.

- Why don't the government train their armed forces properly?

It took them until Ianto used his mobile phone to guess the Torchwood team would be heading for London? Duh! And only then did they make the connection that Ianto once worked for TW2 and start looking at mothballed TW2 sites? They wasted a whole day to that!

And what about all these disused warehouses that are mothballed? Who is paying the council business rates (companies are demolishing sites they don't need rather than pay extortionate rates)? Wouldn't they stand out? "Oh! that place! They used to keep aliens in there but no one has used it for years now!"

 

[Moonbat]

how did the presence of the child prove the UK government had had dealings with the 456 before?

The 456 replayed some recordings of Frobisher saying that the earlier visit was off the record and private. So it sort of told tales on them.

I thought it was quite good when they showed the child at the centre of the alien. It seems like the 456 need the children.
Maybe when they first arrived there were only 12 of the 456, so they only needed 12 children, but now they have bred many thousands and so need more children.

I bet Lois is kicking herself now, after that grand speech it all went wrong and everyone in the building died. Except for dekker, he ran to put on a bio hazard suit. But looks like in next episode the soldiers punch him! (typical soldiers)

Jack and Ianto were pretty useless though, they fired some shots at the glass and that was it. Not very good at fighting are we?

 

[ctg]

Jack and Ianto were pretty useless though, they fired some shots at the glass and that was it. Not very good at fighting are we?

I think that was director's or writer's dramatic decision. If they would had gone to atmospheric control and reversed it, then would that'd been as dramatic as firing some guns and doing nothing? Note that they still have one episode to go.

 

[Moonbat]

Note that they still have one episode to go.

Yeah, but they are no longer in Thames House, it has been cleared out. It will be good to see how they defeat the 456, but for a first punch the humans were less than useless. They should have setup the cage with something that would be poison to the 456 then if they threatened us we could kill them, or at least one of them (or is that 3?)

 

[nj1]

Surely the guy in the bio-suit is still in there hiding and since he built the tank he knows how to change the atmoshere to make it poisoness to 456

 

[Cobolt]

The series is what Torchwood shouyld have been from season one!! The only gripe is: If this is all in the Doctor Who universe (which it is) and this being a major almighty big event (which it is) then why only 1 reference to the Doctor (which there was).

Anything of this magnatude usually has Torchwood and Unit screaming down their mobiles for the Doctor to help (which they havent).

Currently the series is brilliant but seems to forsake the one major person that surrounds them...the Doctor.

 

[Moonbat]

Maybe that's it. It'll all go horribly wrong and then David Tennant will dance in, with a smile and a joke and some distant look in his eyes, then fix everything, expose the 456 as actually being the 321 and send them packing.

Dr Who has never appeared in an episode of Torchwood, am I right. Obviously Torchwood have been in who, but has who ever been in torchwood? I think not!!!

EP4 was very good, with the whole social commentary bit, what are league tables for if not to work out the bottom 10% of schools. I thought the spin that this woudl be good for over population was interesting. It actually seemed to get serious and tackle a serious problem. Politicians.