Torchwood: Children of Earth - Day Three

(Originally written 3/1/14)

The 456 have arrived, and the moral dilemmas with them. This episode’s dilemma largely belongs to Lois, who struggles deeply with the idea of committing treason. This makes her a more believable character for me, not just immediately trusting the strange people who ask her to help them.

I do have two problems with Lois’ visit to Thames House though. There’s the fact that though she’s lying about Frobisher’s affair with her, Bridget confirms that he has in fact slept around. (Why must this story keep reminding me that Frobisher isn’t as good a person as I remember him to be? And why would he do such things in the first place? I can only imagine that it’s to deal with the stresses of the job.) Secondly, I don’t really see any point in Bridget (and Lois) following Frobisher at all. They don’t do anything except sit or stand there.

The Prime Minister appears to face no such dilemmas, flat out admitting to the others that he’s quite happy to sit back and let Frobisher face the 456. He is such a coward and definitely the most unlikeable character (even assassin Johnson is willing to be blunt with her victims). Meanwhile, the offscreen American president is furious that Great Britain is handling the meeting. This a pattern that tends to repeat itself in the Whoniverse.

Other bits of the episode are just fun. The thieving montage shows the team getting up to a bit of mischief, and when Alice goes all badass in order to escape from her house, she very much has echoes of her father in her.

Speaking of “fun”, I must have completely forgotten the fact that, in this episode, Gwen and Rhys admit they use the contact lenses as sex toys, and Ianto implies that he’s done the same. This just comes straight out of nowhere, especially inserted into such a dark plot, and is also in complete contradiction to Jack’s rules about not taking tech outside the Hub! Isn’t that... bad? At least if it was between Jack and Ianto, that would most likely take place in the Hub.

(Speaking of between Jack and Ianto, why did Gwen have to sit directly between them? Her and Rhys are continually cockblocking them throughout the episode. It is bloody annoying.)

Finally, the 456 are wonderfully creepy, with Simon Poland’s voice sounding very like Gabriel Woolf’s. And yet, towards the end of the episode, I couldn’t help taking them less seriously than I should have...