Torchwood: Children of Earth

Reviewer: Alan Hogue
Rating (out of 5): ***

Over the decades a minor sub-genre has emerged in science fiction. As far as I know it has no name, so I hereby dub it the "Diplomatic Alien" genre. As opposed to the more familiar and numerous alien invasion stories, where mighty alien races appear without warning and proceed to wreak unprecedented mayhem (War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Mars Attacks, etc.), there has been another, much more interesting strain of alien invasion films which may have begun with The Day the Earth Stood Still. In these stories the aliens come to negotiate, and naturally this sets the stage for all sorts of interesting social and political commentary. The TV spin-off Torchwood: Children of Earth, while not without flaws, is still a welcome addition to this genre.

I won't give many more details about the plot, because Children of Earth does manage to be very suspenseful. All you really need to know is that something is on its way to have a chat with us humans, and it doesn't appear friendly. I will say that Children of Earth is quite brilliant at drawing out the very fundamental social issues at stake when the aliens finally arrive.

For those who don't know, Torchwood is a recent TV spin-off of the BBC's new, improved, modernized Dr. Who. This Torchwood miniseries shares many qualities with its progenitor. It is decidedly hokey in much the same way that Dr. Who has always been, which Dr. Who fans will consider a good thing. This hokiness is easy enough to take in the context of whimsical stories about an absentminded professor who travels through time, but when the subject matter tends more to heavily armed super-spies and gritty gun battles it's much harder to swallow. As seems common in British TV, while the regular cast is not especially good, the supporting cast is excellent.

But most annoying are the occasional attempts at hipness which always fall perfectly flat. For instance, the shootouts in Children of Earth seem meant to be grand John Woo-esque exercises in overheated violence. In fact, they are remarkably inept, from the clumsy editing to the laughably awkward way the actors handle their firearms. I don't think I've seen action sequences handled so badly in a recent TV show.

However, in spite of the uneven acting and lame attempts at hipness, Torchwood shares another very important quality with Dr. Who: good writing. The writers are good enough to transcend the generic silliness and fashion a compelling and intelligent story. After the first hour or so, when the required niceties are out of the way, Children of Earth really takes off. And when it does, it remains a smart, gripping, and fun bit of television right until the end.