Torchwood Season 3 thoughts
Jul. 17th, 2009 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tahnanMan, that was just bleak.
And clearly Russell T. Davies subscribes to a variant of the Chekhov maxim: "If you introduce characters in Act I, then in the following acts they should be killed." (Obviously other severe traumas can substitute for death.)
Mostly, though, what really struck me was how stupid the government was. And not "stupid" like "ha ha man politicians can be so dumb", but like "oh for god's sake what the hell were they thinking?". In fact, since much of the plot hinged on the actions of the government, I found a lot of the holes in the government's logic to be really striking to the point of actively distracting. For instance: Britain implemented a plan to round up 10% of their children. What exactly did they think would happen if some other country refused—Timor L'este, say, or another country that had been making a habit of standing up to oppression for the last few years? Did they plan to make up the difference with British children? Invade to force them (and if so, how long did they think they had)? How long was it going to take to round up 10% of the children of Iraq?
But even within Britain: the plan was "casually gather together the lowest-achieving 10% of the children for inoculations, and then act surprised when the children were taken away". That ranks slightly above "Get her!" as a plan. Did they really think no one would notice that it happened to be the lowest ten percent? Or that the inoculations involved the military taking the children away? Or going door to door to take children by force? (Yeah, right, that was "the backup plan", and apparently the government thought "well, so every single student will be at school, no one in the country will still be nervous about sending their children, or will notice that the children of military personnel and government officials are missing, so we're not really going to need the military".) Hell, you didn't even need Torchwood's recordings to topple the government, you needed two BBC reporters and a Twitter account, because the facts pretty much spoke for themselves.
OK, sure, there was a lot of gutwrenchiness, and I liked Lois and I found Frobisher to be quite interesting (and well-played) as a character, and all right. But the fact that the top government thinkers in the UK couldn't come up with a better plan than they did makes me wonder how this country ever managed an empire, and for that matter why they aren't a colony of France.
And clearly Russell T. Davies subscribes to a variant of the Chekhov maxim: "If you introduce characters in Act I, then in the following acts they should be killed." (Obviously other severe traumas can substitute for death.)
Mostly, though, what really struck me was how stupid the government was. And not "stupid" like "ha ha man politicians can be so dumb", but like "oh for god's sake what the hell were they thinking?". In fact, since much of the plot hinged on the actions of the government, I found a lot of the holes in the government's logic to be really striking to the point of actively distracting. For instance: Britain implemented a plan to round up 10% of their children. What exactly did they think would happen if some other country refused—Timor L'este, say, or another country that had been making a habit of standing up to oppression for the last few years? Did they plan to make up the difference with British children? Invade to force them (and if so, how long did they think they had)? How long was it going to take to round up 10% of the children of Iraq?
But even within Britain: the plan was "casually gather together the lowest-achieving 10% of the children for inoculations, and then act surprised when the children were taken away". That ranks slightly above "Get her!" as a plan. Did they really think no one would notice that it happened to be the lowest ten percent? Or that the inoculations involved the military taking the children away? Or going door to door to take children by force? (Yeah, right, that was "the backup plan", and apparently the government thought "well, so every single student will be at school, no one in the country will still be nervous about sending their children, or will notice that the children of military personnel and government officials are missing, so we're not really going to need the military".) Hell, you didn't even need Torchwood's recordings to topple the government, you needed two BBC reporters and a Twitter account, because the facts pretty much spoke for themselves.
OK, sure, there was a lot of gutwrenchiness, and I liked Lois and I found Frobisher to be quite interesting (and well-played) as a character, and all right. But the fact that the top government thinkers in the UK couldn't come up with a better plan than they did makes me wonder how this country ever managed an empire, and for that matter why they aren't a colony of France.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-17 09:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-17 10:04 pm (UTC)For one thing, I think America wouldn't be nearly so pushover in that situation: perhaps eventually, after the display of force against Thames House, but I feel like the initial reaction of an American to a demand to turn over 10% of our children would be "go to hell". (I can't speak for the British national character.) I think there are numbers that would lead to appeasement—for all that we express ideals about not sacrificing anyone, I think we'd readily turn over 12 children in exchange for peace, but somewhere between "12" and "10% is the tipping point at which we'd say "thank you, but no, and you don't mind if we try nuclear force against you, do you?". I'd like to think our national character has a strong streak of what Emiliano Zapata apparently expressed as "¡Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!" but which I know in translation as "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!".
But even setting that aside: if your intent is to stay in power after this thing, or perhaps at least have history remember you somewhere above Millard Fillmore and Neville "peace in our time" Chamberlain, what you do is you go on the air and say, "Cards on the table. They're way the hell more powerful than us, and they want 10% of our children, and there's nothing we can do. So there will be a national lottery, no families exempt, no more than one from any family if we can help it...." and so forth. Mobilize the military immediately to stop rioting. But dear god, anything is a better plan than "we're doing this incredibly social-Darwinian thing and we were kinda just hoping no one would notice".
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-17 10:16 pm (UTC)Oh, I think the British reaction (across the whole population) to "give us 10% of your children" would probably be even stronger than "go to hell" (though I say this as someone who neither has nor wants children).
With more time to prepare and mobilise (again I speak in the context of the series) I would have expected a different solution, but what they had was about as "good" as they would have been likely to get in the time available.
Dunno. Still processing. More thoughts later, probably.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 07:25 am (UTC)I found the fictional PM's actions to simply be grossly self-serving and chilling and unfortunately as well, regardless of nationality, thought it was far too likely to play out that way. The gamut of reactions, proposed solutions etc. could have, I think happened in any country.
I agree that Frobisher is one of the most interesting portrayals I've seen on TV in a while. What does a relatively ordinary man do in that sort of situation to be able to cling to some shred of his morality in the face of a total loss of hope, stabbed in the back and hung out to dry?
I can't really see another series after this one either. Total brain fail.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 11:38 am (UTC)I can't imagine where they could go from here either. I mean, I guess they could hire Lois as a replacement for Ianto, and I kind of had hopes for the doctor as a replacement doctor, but that clearly wasn't going to happen. On the other hand, since I don't much like Gwen and she's kind of literally the only one left...well.
Torchwood 3
Date: 2009-07-19 03:22 am (UTC)R.T.D. & the crew have gone so deep & dark in this one... Hard to see how the show can continue though; which would be a heartbreak to the fans.
Re: Torchwood 3
Date: 2009-07-19 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Agreed about Harriet Jones.
(no subject)
Frobisher was the living embodiment of the banality of evil, a grey, faceless bureaucrat who had no qualms about ordering murder when ordered in turn by a higher-up.
And, not that I agree with the idea, but if I were the P.M., I'd never let RTD have BBC funds for a program again. To-ny Blair. Gor-don Brown. Bri-an Green. He all but stated outright to the audience that he thought the current and previous Prime Ministers would toss their children to alien wolves without a second thought.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-25 02:22 am (UTC)For me the big flaw was one that you mentioned, if they had just told the world what was going on they would have gotten, not love and maybe not a solution, but at least some sort of comprehension. Governments do like their secrecy, though...
What do I know. It was a terrific miniseries.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-25 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-25 07:03 pm (UTC)Oh, look what came in the mail today.... Hmm.