Day Five is not available on the BBC iPlayer yet but when it does it will here, after the BBC HD version has airred.

So beware of spoilers coming up... You have been warned.

...

It's all over now and I'm pretty sure people are going to be bandying words like bleak, sad, moving and depressing for quite a while. Myself I'm quite pleased with it, I do enjoy a good downer and Torchwood Day Five delivered that in spades.

Putting the pieces together it turns out that the 456 are effectively a race of addicted crack users, except their crack is the chemical composition of human children. No, the 456 aren't here because they need our children to survive or reproduce, they're not here because they're warmongering killers, they're here because they are effectively bullying drug addicts muscling in on the one place where they can get their fix from, but they're not willing to pay the bill. It's almost like an intergalactic version of The Corner in scope, almost.

Captain Jack's actions in this series have been very dark indeed, by the end of it he finally realises what a monster he's become. In someways it's quite ironic, the man he most admires - The Doctor - would never have sacrificed one child to save the rest, that kind of compromise is unthinkable. But Jack? Not content with effectively (if unintentionally) murdering his boyfriend last episode he now offers up his grandson as a sacrifice. It's one heck of a dark message, I do hope this means we shan't be seeing Captain Jack on Doctor Who again, I'm not sure a child killer is the right kind of person to make an appearance at all.

Anyhow, enough pondering on that. Was it any good? The answer is yes, yes it was. The fourth and fifth episodes have managed to make up for the second and third, though the story as a whole feels like it would have been better paced as a three parter. It did feel a little stretched thin in the middle, but by the end the pay off was almost worth it all. I'd certainly have few complaints if this had been a three parter.

I think the entire thing as a whole hangs together at around a seven out of ten, which may sound a little harsh - but the thing to remember is Torchwood previously was lucky if it achieved a five in my estimation. So there has been dramatic improvement, but I would quite happily award another point for the bleak ending, except Rusty once again pulls the final answer to solve all of this out of the ether. I'm tired of his "last minute Deus Ex Machina" finales, utterly sick of them all the way to the marrow of my bones, so I confiscated that point back and leave things at a seven.

There were silly moments, there are quite a few logical loopholes if you look to hard at things, but if there is one thing Rusty can do, it's write emotional scenes well - and that's what he did here, he finally played to his strengths at the end and delivered an ending which I'm sure will leave quite a lot of viewers used to more upbeat and light entertainment devastated. Me I was able to weather it as I've seen far more disturbing and upsetting moments on other drama shows, but I was still impressed.

So in a rather rambling way I guess I'm saying Torchwood: Children of Earth was pretty good, it was a huge improvement over the previous seasons and showed a lot of promise. I know and accept that I tend to hold drama up to an impossible standard at times, I especially don't cut Sci-fi any slack (mostly because Sci-fi seems to think it can cut corners in characterisation and plot because it has whizzy gizmos) but this was a decent enough offering from BBC Wales.

The Short Lowdown on the entire thing:
++
Good emotional stakes
Exceptional acting from the support characters
Some good performances from the main cast as well
Bleak ending
Great comedy moments earlier on, mostly from Ianto's family

--
A bit of a lame reasoning behind the alien's actions
Weak "defeating" of the 456
Massive logical mistakes in the plot, big enough to drive a truck through at times
Story was a little stretched thin over five hours and suffered from poor pacing at times

For an alternative take check out Dan's Media Digest or Snark and Fury.


Side Note: I was utterly thrown by some of the extras in this final episode. I suffer a lot when watching Torchwood (and Doctor Who) because I'm intimately familiar with the locations they film in and around Cardiff. So their attempts to pretend bits of Cardiff are London just don't work for me and I do get a little confused. But I was even more confused this time because several of the extras are people I know, as such I spent a lot of time going "Was that _____? It was!" and losing track of the plot occasionally. (If you're interested I have had a chance to be an extra in the Sarah Jane Adventures, but I'm exceptionally camera shy.)
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Day Four can be watched on the BBC iPlayer here. Expect spoilers here.

Better, much, much better. While I found Day Two to be fun filler and Day Three to be boring filler Day Four managed to hit the notes I was hoping for and paced itself very well. It's just a shame things had to be stretched out so much before reaching this.

Before I move on I'm going to have to shake a fist at the BBC as they spoilered Clem's death in this episode a while back - by removing him from the credit list for Day Five. So there was absolutely no surprises at his passing in this episode. On the other hand at least they didn't signal Ianto's death as well, so it wasn't a total wash out. But still, slightly annoying.

So Day Four was pretty much what Torchwood should be; energetic, tense, with action, politics, romance and loss. Also; finally, the Torchwood team stopped running about and pulled together a good plan to try and take charge. Only unforeseen circumstances turned it into a tragedy - unforeseen circumstances and Captain Jack's hubris really. So it was good to see the team actually acting instead of reacting as they normally do. A team created to handle the extra-normal should be more pro-active in my opinion, so it's good they finally settled down to do it.

At this point now the entire run really hinges on what's going to happen tomorrow, right now everything is so wonderfully bleak and desperate. That's where it should be at the end of the penultimate episode, the heroes should be at their lowest point, everything should look lost and impossible to solve. Which it did at the end of the episode with that wonderful image of the dead shrouded in red sheets with the occasional white one amongst them. Like human blood vessels, which is the price being demanded by the 456.

So yes, this was a good and enjoyable episode of Torchwood which hit the right notes, it's pretty much wiped the slate clean from the annoyances of the previous two Days and set things up well for one of the most exceptional endings to a UK series in recent times. Bravo Torchwood, all is forgiven - but I do hope RTD will avoid his Deus Ex Machina style of ending things for once.

For those of you still feeling a little wrung out about the loss of Ianto Jones at this point - here's a picture of him. But also, don't worry too much - it's Sci-Fi. People are hard to kill in Sci-Fi, remember Owen? His death didn't stick the first time. (Not that you should get your hopes up too much).


For some alternative takes on the episode check out Dan's Media Digest, Snark and Fury and Rullsenberg Rules.

(Does anyone else find themselves wondering what the heck the Doctor is up to letting things like this happen on Earth? It's not like him to neglect his favourite home from home this badly!)


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Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Three can be watched on the BBC iPlayer here.

You hear that sound? That almost inhuman cry of rage and frustration echoing out across the land followed by a tearing sound and two soft wet plops? That was me ripping out my eyes and ear drums during that episode of Torchwood. I know I wrote that almost nothing happened yesterday, but at least it was exciting nothing - this was genuinely nothing AND boring to boot.

Seriously, I can't remember the last time I've been so annoyed while watching a TV show as the last few moments of Day Three. Sat there having to slap my face in order to remain conscious while waiting for the dull monosyllabic fart breathing alien 456 s-l-o-w-l-y trot out it's rather ludicrous demand*.

*[Which for the record is a ten percent tithe of the world's children. Because why make sensible demands the human race is going to consider when you can be a cartoony super-villian style monster? (They could be making this daft request just as an excuse to start a war mind you). Someone get that alien a moustache to twiddle and a white cat to stroke.]

OK, initial rant aside. What was good in this episode? The stealing montage was kind of amusing, likewise the dressing up scene was also fun and Rhys again got some great and very human lines. Lois and Clem continue to be interesting characters (even if Lois is a rubbish liar) and the show continues to trot out amusing lines regarding Ianto's sexual orientation. Also the show cleverly kept the alien 456 out of sight, concealing it's appearance enough to make it look threatening and mysterious. What I did see of it reminded me of The Great Race of Yith.


If I'm honest I'm not sure why it reminded me of them, I guess just because it looks like strange things on the ends of tendrils, still being compared to a Lovecraftian monster is a GOOD thing, as all the cool monsters come from the Cthulhu Mythos. Just ask any Shoggoth.

But there were so many things wrong with this episode that the good was buried under a pile of mundanely and dross. I was consistently wound up by all the scenes involving the 456, which were slow paced and suffered from absolutely terrible continuity. If you have an alien which is busy spewing up on the inside of your tank at random moments it's pretty jarring to have the tank magically clean before each spew. I lost count of the number of times that green junk splashed up against the inside of a completely clean tank. Who's in charge of continuity and realism in the Torchwood development team? They need to be fired, immediately.

Likewise whoever thought the slow nature of the conversation between Frobisher and the smog tank would build suspense needs to be shown the door as well - it wasn't tense, it was frustrating and annoying. I was so un-gripped by it that I had no problem repeatedly pausing the scene to do other things, that's not the sign of gripping TV. In contrast during an episode of The Shield I watched earlier today I needed to pee about ten minutes into the story and refused to go to the loo until the episode was over - and I was watching that show on DVD and had seen it before at least four times.

I'd like to write more, but really I don't have much else to say except I pretty much hated this episode passionately. I'm going to catch the final two episodes, I still want to give Torchwood a chance to turn things around because I want to believe in the show. But it's not looking good if their going to keep milking these overly laboured and frankly boring moments.

All you need to know about this episode can be boiled down into a few points. In 1965 Jack gave 12 children to the 456 who promised that was all they wanted. Clem was supposed to be one of them, but ran away and went mad. It turns out the 456 lied, now they want 10% of all the world's children. That's it.

Gripping TV this was not. Please, please let Episodes 4 and 5 turn this around. Don't let me down BBC Wales.

For an alternative take on the episode check out Snark and Fury and Dan's Media Digest.

(For the record I'm tired and I might revise my opinion in the morning. But this episode of Torchwood actually gave me a huge headache, I can't remember the last time a TV show caused me physical pain.)
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Torchwood: Children of Earth Day Two is available on the BBC iPlayer here. No complaints about any spoilers which follow then.

I was half tempted to subtitle this episode review "Nothing Happens" instead of Day Two, annoyingly after a great (amazing by Torchwood standards) opening episode Day two appeared to be little more than exposition, more bum cloud mystery fogging up the cool stuff and I shit you not - a ride in the back of a potato truck. If you'd told me yesterday that Gwen and Rhys were going to spend scenes in the back of an articulated lorry delivering King Edward potatos from Cardiff to London I wouldn't have believed you. For a start, Cardiff doesn't deliver potatos to London! They should have snuck onto a coach filled with rugby fans or soccer hooligans, that I could have bought. But also it just sounds too low tech and frankly stupid for Torchwood - is this why the Torchwood Mystery Machine was stolen by chavs? Just to set up a potato run? And no comparisons between Rhys and a sack of potatos, Rhys is brilliant.

Now I will officially and figuratively eat my hat if classic Doctor Who villains turn up in that poison fog box which was set up at the end. It better had be something pretty monumental turning up in that cloud of gas before the end of the next episode or I'm going to print out a picture of the Torchwood team find something breakable to throw and hurl them at each other on fire*.

It wasn't that the episode was bad, it was just - well nothing really happened. I'm used to slow paced shows like The Wire or Six Feet Under, but they bouy up their slow pacing with deep characterisation and meaningful conversations. Torchwood instead used a few cheap laughs, lots of establishing shots and some vague and mysterious conversations to pad things out.

Maybe I'm being overly harsh because Torchwood is being directly compared to The Shield in my TV world right now and there's pretty much no show which comes off well when placed next to The Shield (Apart from The Wire) - but I can't help but feel the show would do a lot better if they learnt a little about pacing. I find myself watching four scenes in The Shield and thinking "Has it only been three minutes?" I found myself watching the whole of that episode and thinking "Is that it? Nothing has happened!" Which is kind of incredible when you think about the amount of (low) octane action and gun play stuffed into the episode. There was lots of (unconvincing) gunfire (seriously please teach Eve how to fire an gun TV style someone - and use less plastic looking weapons at the same time, a big shiny hand cannon would do), plenty of running about and another appearance of 'the gizmo' but beyond all of that shine there was little substance.

Once again Torchwood themselves are left to look a foolish and stupid - a lot. They spend much of the episode running about headless and surviving thanks to dumb luck; so it's up to the non-members of the team to get things done. Ianto's family, Rhys and Lois in this case shoulder a lot of the burden called 'having a plan or a good idea'.

While you might like to think "At least they got Captain Jack back" I'm hesitant to call their breakout plan a good one because it seems Ianto formed his plan of "I'll just drive a digger, steal concrete Jack and then drop him off a cliff" independently from Gwen and Rhys's 'Operation Body snatcher' - (Ok, I'll admit it, that was amusing). I can't see how the two plans were linked at all, even Gwen shouting "What kept you" at Ianto doesn't cover up her surprise at the concrete room, which Ianto already knew about.

It seems the main weapon of Torchwood is stupidty and dumb luck, I mean the two main weapons of Torchwood are... You can see where I'm going with that one can't you?

On the whole I didn't hate the episode, but honestly I didn't really like it either. It sort of just occupied space and time. Filling in an hour of my day with a semi-exciting mix of humdrum. Considering how much the first episode had improved this second one is a bit of a let down. Hopefully the third episode will bring the aliens in, spice things up and provide us with at least a little explanation of what's happening. It's all very well running around blowing up things, but occasionally it's nice to know the WHY and a bit more of the who (not Who).

Must try harder Torchwood.

Random Thoughts:

Clem McDonald wandering about the streets made me think of Father Ted. I believe it's the cardigan they've stuck him in which makes me think of Father Jack. Shame Father Ted isn't on the TV anymore to spoof it properly.

The 456 sound like they could be a gang from The Shield, if they arrive wearing bandannas and packing Mac 9's we'll know they are.

Jack's role in this episode was pretty funny by all accounts. First of all he's scattered across the ground like the Iron Giant, then he reassembles himself like Doctor Manhattan by 'inflating' himself inside the body bag and then he gets sealed in concrete and dropped off a cliff before striding off naked. For the record I don't care how much you might like John Barrowman, his arse is not his best feature - it's very flat in shape.

I was not impressed with Gwen shooting the cement truck and having it burst into flame. That was unnecessary and unrealistic. Just dumping the truck in the way and stealing the keys would do the job. The flames were a little too much.

For those keeping count so far we've had:
Four Captain Jack snuffs
Three naked man bums
Several thousand potatos

*What's on fire you ask? The picture, the breakable object and myself I think should suffice.

For an alternative take check out Snark and Fury and Dan's Media Digest. Others to be added here when they're written up.

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Torchwood: Children of Earth - Episode One is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer for the next 11 days.

Secretly I was hoping that the new Torchwood would be as rubbish as the previous two seasons were, but I was also wondering if the few sparks of brilliance shown on the odd occasion could result in something a little bit closer to the excellence of Doctor Who and further away from some of the more... dubious... moments the show gave us before. Torchwood previously felt like an adolescent manic depressive - alternating between ravaging horny nonsense, half formed and ridiculous fantasies and occasionally deep and clever moments. So you could say I'm suffering a little from cognitive dissonance over Torchwood - on one hand I want it to be rubbish so I can rip into it, on the other I genuinely want it to be good because it's got real potential and has a good idea at it's core.

Be warned, light spoilers follow...

It's too early to say exactly where Torchwood: Children of Earth stands on the scale, but if the improvement shown here is at least sustained and maybe even shows some growth then it could be a rather entertaining story, it's already better than 90% of things which have come before it. Personally I'm all for the five episode ongoing storyline, it's something which Doctor Who itself suffers a lack of these days - I recall the years where you used to spend all week in suspense waiting to find out if the Doctor would escape the latest "end of episode jeopardy" he was in. You always knew he would, but there was that little bit of doubt there from week to week. Sometimes it's good to have a little space to stew about what you've just seen.

Now we're only stuck waiting a day for the next part of this story, so it's not too bad on that front and the show does have the makings of an interesting storyline. The mystery is being laid thick at this point - there's clearly something BIG going on, but exactly what isn't entirely clear. A bunch of children were kidnapped by a 4400 style white light back in the day but one escaped and he's now in a mental asylum with magic powers of smell (I thought he was pretty good, and with that ability Torchwood should snap him up - prediction, he dies). Now all the children of the Earth are reciting "We are coming" at set intervals, occasionally getting themselves run down by passing cars and one would assume even drowning or falling off things. See? Torchwood is edgy, they're not afraid of killing off children - as long as it's not done on screen.

The main thing which holds me back at this point is the name on the script, yes it's Rusty (Russell T. Davies) who's notorious for writing himself into a corner with huge sweeping moments until he realises he has no way out of this except for the old "magic button". I can't help but predict it's going to be something similar this time. Also the episode went to the old standby of killing Jack off - yes, we get it, he can't die, blah blah blah. Oh there's a bomb in him? Well it's the first episode so he'll survive that obviously (Spoilered by the "next episode" bit for anyone with at least 30% of their brain working). The only neat part of "Jack can't die" was the introduction of his daughter who (supposedly) looks older than he does - that was a great idea, giving him family adds something to the character and provides some emotional grounding for Jack. Same with Ianto's family, though they're just as comedic as he is (which isn't a bad thing really).

Good things, Ianto having to watch the Bumble-mobile wander past with some chav's arse hanging out of it was just humiliation for him and comedy for us (loved the brick tossing). He's really rubbish at his job isn't he? Likewise the line "Have you gone bender?" just cracked me up, there's nothing like the Welsh accent for asking things like that and making them sound hilarious. But that's Torchwood for you, might as well paint Ianto's face up white, give him big shoes, a red nose, a wig and call him Mr Jolly. That's his role - he's either doing nothing useful or making a fool out of himself. Honk honk!

No surprise, but it's Rhys who provides the biggest insight in the episode - it's a rather inspired thought of "The chants are being timed at times in the UK where there are lots of children gathered together." Seriously Torchwood, Rhys has more intelligence than the rest of you put together. Hurry up and hand him a giant pile of cash to get him to sign up, he's much better than the rest of the team - both as a character and as an individual.

Rupesh Patanjali was barely worth mentioning, an interesting character with potential thrown away by the needs of the script and story. Shame really, because a three person Torchwood team is pretty dull, there's not much hope of crazy office romances getting in the way of "serious" sci-fi action with this group at the moment. Fortunately London lass will join the team (prediction!) There was also woman in black who shot Jack and stuffed the bomb in him - putting the Jack death count at three by the end of the episode, two shootings and one tummy upset.

Short Version: Shows a lot of promise and I'll certainly be returning to watch the remaining four episodes. Just don't let us down with the ending Rusty!

Oh and Gwen's pregnant. Yay?

For alternative takes on this episode check out Snark and Fury, Dan's Media Digest or The Medium is not Enough.

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The attempt to expose myself to a variety of light or trashy entertainment continues at a rather slow pace, mostly because I'm limited to trying this out on Fridays and Saturday evenings - fortunately an abnormal amount of trash collects on those two days here in the UK so I can normally catch a few programs.

First up this week was Totally Saturday, a light entertainment/game show in the style of the 1990s and presented by Graham Norton. I must confess I do enjoy watching Graham Norton on TV, but he can get a little shrill when he's doing his chat show. On the other hand he's completely in his element on Totally Saturday and very well suited to the strange and humiliating events the public are forced to go through.

This week people threw ma tresses out of windows in an attempt to win new furniture by weighing it on giant scales, a man had to identify the celebrity in his shed (which had been 'stolen' and moved into the studio), another man was dressed as a hamster and made to run for 40 seconds in a giant wheel for a meager £565 - I guess we know the price of his pride now and the old 'spell words out of letters you're wearing' game was played. The girl band Saturday were also present, but the most attractive woman was a member of the team who won a trip to Kenya - I think her name was Kath (maybe). Perhaps I'm getting maturer now that I'm more interested in members of the public over preening songbirds. One would hope so.

I decided to watch the new series of Total Wipeout - but I have little to say about that except it's gotten old fast and I quickly grew tired of it. I also gave Make My Body Younger on BBC3 a whirl, expecting some horror involving plastic surgery, make up tips (or "paint on lies" as I prefer to call make up), new clothing and rude comments about the poor member of the public who's inflicting the show on themselves. Instead I discovered a moderately intelligent show extolling the virtues of diet, exercise and confidence.

The episode I watched included a Welshman named Chris who was imaginatively nicknamed "Welshie", I imagine his eventual fate will be a terrible demise on Omega 3 at the hands of Trek fan Melllvar. But before then we at least got to see him learn the horrors he was inflicting on his body in a variety of manners and see if he's able to turn his life around. Like any stereotypical Welshman Chris's problems were his weight and the ridiculous amount of alcohol he consumed each month - around 800 units. That's ten times the recommended consumption level. Or to put it another way, that's around 400 pints a month or approximately 13 pints a day. Amazingly despite this abuse he'd only gained four stone over two years - but his body was pushing 40 years old, pretty tragic for a 24 year old.

But after being shown the error of his ways and helped along in a variety of methods Chris actually managed to turn his life around in a short period and went from looking sweaty, overweight and constantly tired into a far brighter and more energetic individual. So on the whole I was impressed with Make My Body Younger - it's a show with far better intentions than the simply awful Embarrassing Illnesses. But then again it's not hard to be better than that particular piece of cruelty.

I caught a bit of Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow this week which is sort of the spiritual successor to Live at the Apollo, it's a far more energetically paced show with four acts (and Michael) so each of them has a brief time on stage to wow you. That's a pretty good thing because it means they can trot out the very best of their material for you to laugh at. Also if you don't click with one of the acts it's no problem because there are three others (and Michael) to try out. I enjoyed two out of the four acts (and Michael) - Neil's act was superb (best of the night) and Kerry Goldiman was pretty good also.

I look forward to watching reruns of it on Dave. But until then you can catch it on the BBC iPlayer here.

I've also come to realise one thing which I can't afford to miss out on during 'Shield Week' Torchwood will be airring and I must watch and rip into it as much as possible. So I shall be taking a "break" each day to watch the latest episode of Torchwood and write about it here. I guess that makes it Shield/Torchwood Week - I shall dub it "Shield me from Torchwood" then or possibly something else which is actually witty...

I'm sure Aaron over at Snark and Fury will be also ripping into the episodes with his usual glee and wit. He's already been listening to the audio plays and writing about them on twitter. I'm sure that Rob and Dan will also have something to write about Torchwood this coming week. Sadly I suspect Alien Rohypnol wielding Radioactive Zombie Hulk Owen will not be making an appearance as I didn't forward the script to the BBC.
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