Burseraceae

As much as I like British television, the BBC doesn't appear to like me. Their exporting of television borders on the completely unreasonable. I watched Being Human and was all about to write a review on the pilot, but it turned out to not be the actual pilot, and the whole first season had already been aired in England. The Doctor Who Easter special just recently aired here in the states, even. But for once--one shining moment--we were allowed to see some British programing in the same month as the Brits.

Torchwood: Children of Earth (2009) is the third season of the Doctor Who anagramtastic spin-off, Torchwood. The show did something similar to Doctor Who while only having five episodes, but where The Doctor is technically still clinging to its season four title, jumble up the letters a bit and Torchwood is had a five-part mini-series for its entire third season and all the episodes were broadcasted on consecutive nights. The show is different from Doctor Who such that it is much darker with lots of death, brutality, cursing, sex, and homosexuality. After spinning off after Doct Who's second season, the show has tied into the show relatively closely, using occasional mentioning of The Doctor, and even has Martha Jones as a guest in several episodes in season two. The prior two seasons were good enough to be associated with its former show, and the third season--even at half the length of a normal season and only one continuous story--was looking pretty goddamn good.

The story of Children of Earth is that all the children in the world stop moving and speaking in unison, heralding the arrival of visitors from outer space. The remaining members of Torchwood, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), and Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) begin to investigate the occurrence when The Hub--their base of operations--blows up at the hands of the British government. Oh, yeah, and the bomb was inside Jack Harkness. The story continues through the next four episodes with driving action and story, and I really don't want to spoil anything, but it is absolutely worth watching.

The writing of Russell T. Davies is even better than a lot of his work with Doctor Who, and Eyros Lyn's directing is just as good as his best Who work. The acting was everything you'd come to expect from Torchwood, especially on the part of the children. One of my biggest peeves is that children actors can ruin segments of a show, such as some scenes of another favorite of mine: Weeds. But the kids in Children of Earth did really well; they were believable in the way that they were being possessed one minute and joking about it and not seeing the seriousness of all of it the next. The acting of Barrowman, Myles, and David-Lloyd rocked. Some of the parts were very emotional and the characters experienced great loss and sacrifice--and everyone pulled it off sublimely. Bringing Torchwood from Cardiff to London was a change from the series, but the mini-series was a great way in which to do that.

Davies has said that season four is ready to go so long as BBC signs off on it, and they would be feels not to. The show has a lot of life left in it, as does its predecessor, Doctor Who. Series in this canon have proven they can withstand massive cast changes, and Torchwood is ready.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor