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Language: eng
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reviewed by alasdair stuart Torchwood: Children of Earth

Starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Peter Capaldi, Kai Owen, Tom Price Katy Wix, Rhodri Lewis, Paul Copley, Nicholas Farrell, Susan Brown, Lucy Cohu, Cush Jumbo, Liz May Brice, Ian Gelder, Colin McFarlane and Deborah Findlay

Directed by Euros Lyn

Available now on DVD

Every child in the world stops and delivers a simple message: ‘We are coming back’. Torchwood are targeted for assassination, something terrible buried in Great Britain’s past returns to life and the moment Torchwood has talked about for years, the moment where everything changes, finally arrives.

There are three elements that make Children of Earth unique. The first is how much of an ensemble piece it is. Every actor listed above, from the Torchwood team themselves to government secretary Lois Habiba (Cush Jumbo) and the genial, amoral and deeply unsettling Mr Dekker (Ian Gelder) not only get moments in the spotlight but are intimately connected to and affected by each of the other characters. The arrival of the 456 is a pebble thrown into a very small pond and the ripples it causes make for drama which is both colossal in scope and deeply personal.

Which leads into the second unique element; the show’s ambition. This is a series that nests Torchwood itself within a much larger narrative, exploring a remarkably grounded and profoundly dark view of first contact. There is no polite glossing over here, no ‘oh people thought it was something in the water’. The very first episode features two characters openly discussing the fact that humanity isn’t alone, everyone knows, no one’s talking about it and it’s driving some of us mad. This is a very different, very personal singularity and the series uses its large cast to explore multiple perspectives of the same event, an event that can be summed up in two words; everything changes.

But the series’ greatest strength is its bravery. There’s no Doctor here, no touching moment where humanity rallies around a hero, only a group of flawed, broken people trying to find the least horrifying solution to an impossible situation. Nothing goes right, nothing is easy and the series piles the darkness on until a scene in Day Four which is one of the best moments of TV drama in the last ten years. Faced with a demand for ten percent of the Earth’s children, the cabinet debate the issue, gradually eliminating their own families until Deborah Findlay’s character delivers a line which is grounded, pragmatic, utterly convincing and horrific in its implications. This is first contact under spotlights, humanity alone and frightened and making the worst chances possible. No one is right, no one is trustworthy and every victory comes at the steepest price. By itself, this would be an extremely brave thing to do but presented as part of a series that featured a Cyberwoman in a metal thong in its first run it’s frankly astounding.

Children of Earth may well be the best piece of drama the BBC produces this year. Intelligent enough

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