Some fans may not like it but I think Ben Foster's music for the five part Torchwood: Children Of Earth truly allows him to step from out the shadow of his mentor Murray Gold. It demonstrates he can deliver music that's as strong as anything that could be considered Gold's best for Doctor Who. There. And I've been saying it since reviewing the first Torchwood soundtrack album.

The album opens with The First Sacrifice, lushly romantic music that suddenly plunges into tense high strings. It's a compositional arrangement that will crop up through all five episodes as a musical motif for Jack's original exchange of the children in 1965. Onto business as usual with What's Occurring, with its lovely driving strings and percussion punctuated by those big, fat blasts of brass as Gwen clacks into work and the team start poring over their Hub monitors. The gorgeous piano motif for Jack's Daughter is supplemented by lush strings, a hint of tragedy already embedded into the theme. Quite lovely and sad.



Diplomatic Cars is that unforgettable cue from Day One. Pumping brass sections, skittering percussion and that Bondian feel, explored in similar fashion by David Arnold, that's later developed into a terrific piece of music in Thames House that pulls in much of the feel of Murray Gold's UNIT theme from the parent series, throws in subtle electronic tonalities, stunning brass parts, and an overall string motif to make it the signature music for this series. Foster takes many of the threads from these themes - the brass and strings in particular - and uses them as the key parts of the more frenetic cues like Double Crossed and Countdown To Destruction. Very stirring themes, they develop out of much of the work he put in on the previous two series, underscoring the action elements of the story beautifully, especially that really climactic clatter of strings, brass, guitar and percussion that signals the destruction of the Hub. Torchwood Hunted equally has squally guitar and percussion driving along with some wonderfully accelerating strings. He takes all of these ideas and then throws in more brass and some choral emphasis for The World Looks To The Skies. The scoring for brass is especially stunning. Foster certainly ups the ante on the action stuff and if he was asked to score a Bond movie tomorrow I'm sure he'd be up to the job.



He's also at home underlining the hideous threat of the 456 with his cues We Are Coming and Something's Coming. He captures their creeping unearthliness in slow strings, plucked sections and that repeated use of a discordant set of arpeggios. There are also some very sensitive cues that are purely used as character defining motifs - the gorgeous music for Clem in Clement MacDonald and Clem Remembers - high strings symbolising the man's terror followed by warm and romantic strings and piano that echo the tragedy of his connection to the 456. The latter also has a beautiful vocal section with harps. Vocals are also very much to the fore in Judgement Day and Annalise Whittlesea and Lewis Cullen provide very memorable choral work, interspersed with some twangy guitar sections and soaring strings, those repeated brass parts, that are reworked later in the score during Jack's ultimate sacrifice. It's lush and powerful and definitely one of the highlights of the score.

If Requiem For The Fallen and The Ballad Of Ianto Jones don't have you wiping away a tear then quite frankly you've no soul. Vocalist Annalise Whittlesea returns with a very moving performance on both tracks. Ianto's theme is given due prominence here and built upon with said vocals, mournful twangy guitar and pulsing treated keyboards. It finally bursts into full rock mode and the guitars and swirling strings and piano sections all hurtle towards a fabulous crescendo. Think Donna's music from Turn Left cranked up to 11! Full of lost possibilities and mournfulness, it's gorgeous music and for me is a fitting tribute to the character.



All the cues are arranged as they appeared in each episode and for Day Five, there's the lovely Calm Before The Storm, full of sadness; the gritty determination of Phase Two has Begun, again echoing Foster's overall theme as the music turns to the threat and fear of a government using troops to round up the children. Requisition 31 is as uncomfortable as the scene it scores, namely Frobisher's decision to murder his own family. High, tense strings, staccato piano and then sad, Mahler like strings augmented by percussion and a brief section of Foster's main themes. Again, some very sensitive scoring is accomplished for He Was A Good Man, that unforgettable exchange between Lois and Bridget Spears.

The Children Of Earth is stunning, aided by a soaringly beautiful Lewis Cullen vocal, soft romantic strings covering a slower articulation of those characteristic arpeggios. Breaking The Connection and Fighting Back take the album towards the shocking conclusion of the series and define the way that Jack and Gwen turn around the dire situation. Connection is wonderfully atmospheric with drawn out atonal brass and high strings. Fighting Back, jittery percussion and lush strings dotted with those lovely brass sequences, dares to suggest hope momentarily and overlaps into Run For Your Life as Gwen attempts to smuggle children away from the authorities, with a grand and sweeping use of the orchestra. Both tracks then form a linked suite with Sacrifice And Salvation as Jack uses his grandson to destroy the 456. Again, soaring and powerful.



Finally, Redemption and I Can Run Forever sensitively explore Jack's mindset after all that has happened. Great string composition, subtly exploring the emotions of the hero who has had to make personal sacrifices and unpleasant moral choices in order for the Earth to survive, with breathtakingly beautiful vocals from chorister Lewis Cullen. I Can Run Forever is another outstanding piece, using the established Captain Jack themes and hints of fallen Torchwood comrades with brief nods from the Tosh, Owen and Ianto themes. To end the album, a little treat with Here Comes Torchwood, firing on all cylinders with staccato brass, scratchy guitars, electronic percussion, chugging strings, and Next Time On Torchwood, a rising musical motif that ends with crashing drums that was used as the tag for each episode.

Superb. No other word will do. Essential purchase.

Tracklisting -

Day One
1. “The First Sacrifice” (1:25)
2. “What’s Occurring?” (2:10)
3. “Jack’s Daughter” (1:28)
4. “Diplomatic Cars” (1:20)
5. “We Are Coming” (1:12)
6. “Thames House” (1:53)
7. “Double Crossed” (1:26)
8. “Countdown To Destruction” (1:52)

Day Two
9. “The Crater” (1:00)
10. “Torchwood Hunted” (1:42)
11. “Gwen’s Baby” (1:03)
12. “On The Run” (1:13)
13. “Jack In A Box” (1:34)
15. “Tractor Attack” (2:21)
16. “Resurrection” (1:11)

Day Three
17. “Clement Macdonald” (2:05)
18. “Something’s Coming” (2:35)
19. “Eye Spy” (1:20)
20. “Trust Nobody” (1:46)
21. “The World Looks To The Skies” (2:10)

Day Four
22. “Jack’s Secret” (1:36)
23. “Clem Remembers” (1:34)
24. “Judgement Day” (4:05)
25. “Requiem For The Fallen” (1:23)
26. “The Ballad Of Ianto Jones” (4:36)

Day Five
27. “The Final Day” (0:40)
28. “Calm Before The Storm” (3:22)
29. “Phase Two Has Begun” (1:50)
30. “Requisition 31″ (2:38)
31. “He Was A Good Man” (1:39)
32. “The Children Of Earth” (3:27)
33. “Breaking The Connection” (2:25)
34. “Fighting Back” (2:02)
35. “Run For Your Lives” (1:13)
36. “Sacrifice And Salvation” (1:39)
37. “Redemption” (3:13)
38. “I Can Run Forever” (3:28)
………
39. “Here Comes Torchwood” (2:24)
40. “Next Time On Torchwood” (0:31)

TORCHWOOD Children Of Earth - Original Television Soundtrack: Ben Foster & BBC National Orchestra of Wales (SILCD1290 Released 11th August 2009)

BBCHD - 10th July 2009 - 9.00pm

The idea of sacrifice has been one of the strongest themes in both the new version of Doctor Who and Torchwood and the closing episode of Children Of Earth was perhaps the ultimate statement in this 'slaughter of the innocents' dramatic trope, the series own use of the 'death of one to save all' motif. What Day Five clearly demonstrates is the unflinching courage of writers Russell T Davies, John Fay and James Moran to travel into the abyss and conduct a reportage from the front line. I didn't think we were going to get a satisfying ending and I honestly thought that the idea of using a reset might just have made it into the episode as a way of writing themselves out of the various corners they'd arrived in. But they reveled in those dark corners and went further, pulling no punches as they went.

It was striking to open with Gwen narrating the end of the world in similar fashion to Rose's eulogy in Doomsday and it suggested that this was indeed the end of Torchwood itself and that all was actually lost even before the episode unfolded. The structure of the episode cycled back to this reportage and opened it out to feature Rhys filming Gwen in the barn with the children they had rescued from Rhiannon's house. This was not the end, merely a prelude to it. And the children, who were always the focus of the story and had been the beginning of the narrative through their possession by the 456 were also, very fittingly, and in the nature of this circular narrative, their end.



But what an end. As the government, hostage to American General Pierce, carried out their cull of 10% of the child population, those that indeed served its modus operandi in the end realised that they were propping up something so ugly and heinous they understood that only by switching sides could they affect the outcome of the 456 demands. Johnson (we never find out her first name) who has been the cartoon villain in the midst of the narrative finally reveals herself to us and to Alice, Jack's daughter. She's as real as all the other characters and just hides behind her duty. She finally becomes a lynchpin in the desperate solution that removes the 456 from the Earth.



The interesting aspect of Day Five is how it does pick the stories of Johnson, Alice and Clem and makes them integral to the conclusion of the story. Thinking their narratives had drawn to a close in Day Four, it's a surprise and a relief to see how they affect the outcome of the story. Clem's death isn't for nothing because the cause of his death is the way that Jack cruelly hoists the 456 with their own petard; Johnson effectively rescues Jack from incarceration to fulfill this narrative purpose; Alice provides a son, a lamb to the slaughter. It's a fantastic opening out of the narrative and it's chilling in the way Jack uses these separate threads. Jack very much becomes the untempered 10.5 version of the Doctor, knowing that he has to kill a child in order to save millions more and he doesn't flinch from the operation even though that child is his own flesh and blood. It's Biblical in scope.



Jack, as I discussed earlier, is not a very pleasant person to be around and it is truly shocking to see him go to these extremes. He has to become as monstrous as the 456 and Prime Minister Brian Green, be as ruthless as they are to accomplish the goal of eradicating the threat and saving those children. It's as gut-wrenching as Bernard Quatermass and his daughter setting off the nuke to banish the alien threat in the 1979 Euston Films series. There are great parallels here between both series about human sacrifice as well as the raison d'etre of the alien incursion. In Quatermass, humanity is being harvested as a condiment to a greater meal, here the 456 are simply drug addicts who want to get a good deal on the merchandise and get high on kids. That there was still yet another, darker twist to the 456's purpose in the story added to the complex political metaphors. Here, it's about the demands of the free market.

At the centre of this bleakest of codas is that utterly chilling scene in which Frobisher, ordered by Green to publicly offer his own children up to the 456 as a sop to a government demanding a positive spin on their policy of 'the first born must die'. In that perfectly realised confrontation between Frobisher and Green, where Green can barely raise his eyes from the paperwork on his desk and look Frobisher in the eye whilst telling him to bury bad news, it's Capaldi's performance that succinctly signals to the audience just how dark this is going to get. I can't praise Capaldi high enough and his performance in this epic saga is probably one of the elements that has propelled Torchwood from what could arguably considered cult status to a full blooded serious drama that can hold its own in a prime position in BBC1's schedule. When he kills his own family, the sequence is brilliantly cut together with the scene of Bridget talking to Lois in her cell about him being 'a good man' who 'worked hard' which again touches on the themes of class, the social pecking order and how that refers to Johnson's observations about the desire to remove certain kinds of kids from our street corners whilst the 90% who are 'good' and 'work hard' are spared.

The sequences where the troops arrive to take children away are painfully reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing activities reported from various unstable regimes from around the globe. Euros Lyn connects to this viscerally through rough and ready hand held camera work, adding a searing verisimilitude to the drama. Children Of Earth has clearly shown that Lyn has a blooming career in major films if he so chooses and his contribution to the series should not be underestimated. His visual judgement and his obvious attention to performances has paid off and if Torchwood did return then the notion of allowing a single director to hold the reigns wouldn't be a bad idea at all.



Depressing as it was, the 'final solution' in which Jack kills his own grandson also offered us very decent performances from John Barrowman and Lucy Cohu, as Alice Carter. I was pleased that Alice's story was continued beyond her simply being held in a cell and that there was a conclusion of sorts to the Jack/Alice arc, even though Russell T Davies took it to perhaps one of the darkest extremes he's ever taken his writing. It's also interesting to compare the actions of Jack and Frobisher - Frobisher executes his own family and technically one could argue he's a coward for not facing up to the 456 or even attempting to get his kids out of harm's way and Jack, shell-shocked from all the death and destruction he's instigated, buggers off six months later after a final goodbye to Gwen and Rhys. Technically, is he also a coward for not starting over? Jack's journey could be seen as similar to that of Homer's Odysseus - a hero that undergoes a series of tragedies and moral struggles in striving for a sense of place. Jack flees the cause of his pain for the home of imagination - in this case abandoning the Earth because he observes it as a sterile and futile waste land. Several times in the poem Homer describes Odysseus's quest as a desire for re-birth - a rising from the dead that can only occur when he reaches his home. Jack is now clearly looking for that home.

Torchwood ends as it should. You can either accept it as a well realised conclusion to the entire Torchwood saga or you can see it as the end of this particular phase of the programme and, if a fourth series is given the go ahead, a new beginning, potentially with an entirely new cast. For now see this as a vindication of Davies faith in the series as a modern, adult drama and as the Torchwood we always hoped we would get three years ago.

Day One review
Day Two review
Day Three review
Day Four Review

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Cathode Ray Tube Children Of Earth Torchwood Series 3 Day Five

RIP Ianto Jones. Britain goes to hell in a hand basket. Please, please let this be a satisfying conclusion. Don't let me down now Torchwood!

BBCHD - 9th July 2009 - 9.00pm

Or John Fay sticks the boot in.

Did you feel it repeatedly go into the already bloody and battered body of Labour's gloriously tarnished Third Way? Torchwood does politics in Day Four and Fay has at the centre of his script a depressing but horribly realistic satire on how far-right thinking fills the vacuum left by a failed centre-left liberal agenda. He piled everything in there and it was breathtaking: a government's abject inability to communicate to the working classes, the poorly educated, the disenfranchised and the failed asylum seekers is turned into a Daily Mail wet dream of a policy to placate an equally fascistic alien invader. And while they're at it they devise a cunning scheme to use school league tables, a system of figures already proven to be inaccurate and heavily fiddled, to weed out the potential failures...er, units...and hand them over to the 456. How supremely ironic and how apt then that Nick 'voice of the Daleks' Briggs gets to play one of these self-interested kleptocrats who can only see it as a good thing for the planet's resources. Are we sure that isn't Nick 'voice of the BNP' Griffin continually throwing up and draining the life energy out of a child in that smog filled chamber?



Small gods and big sacrifices. Jack does not come out of this mess smelling of roses. In a bid to avert a 1965 swine flu type pandemic he 'sacrifices the innocent' in order to buy time and a cure and packs 12 children (who won't be missed, just like all those failed asylum seekers) to the 456 in a remote part of Scotland. His female colleague hits the nail right on the head and says 'we need someone who doesn't care', simultaneously damning Jack and Prime Minister Green's government. In fact, Jack's a bit of a fool because even if he's immortal he's no god, he can't go dashing into a crisis and face off with an alien threat as if he was the Doctor. He's out of his depth and stunningly naive, a common trait within Torchwood, and he gets people killed in the process. Fay's script is bleak because it suggests that even righting a wrong just isn't enough to combat a foe that feeds on the bodies of children. Even Ianto witnesses a version of Jack he's never really seen before and it foreshadows his own fate.



Gareth David Lloyd and John Barrowman have their work cut out for them in ensuring that Ianto's death isn't tokenistic or overly sentimental and I think Fay and Barrowman get to explore Jack's attitude to those who will not only die before him but those who will die because of his actions. It's been an ongoing theme in Torchwood and Clem sums it up well: 'The man who sent me and my friends to die can't die himself'. It's this that makes Jack an anti-hero who, unlike the best anti-heroes, is very hard to sympathise with at all. What makes it more difficult here is that he's also trying to deal with Alice being held hostage by Frobisher and he's kept it to himself until Ianto dares to push him.

Day Four pretty much dispenses with the capers and absurdities of Torchwood's bluff methodology and concentrates on how a government might attempt to placate an enemy that simply wants to cull a tenth of the child population and the COBRA cabinet scene reminded me of the equally powerful drama Conspiracy which fictionalised the meeting at Wannsee, outside Berlin, in 1942, when the administrative apparatus of the Third Reich set in motion the detailed plans of the Final Solution. There are sprinklings of humour to lighten the atmosphere: Gwen's observation to Clem, who has just witnessed Jack returning from the dead yet again, 'look at it this way, you can shoot first and ask questions later'; Rhys mistaking the FAS file for an SAS file 'now you're talking'; Jonny thinking the kids are chanting 'lottery numbers or what'.



Director Euros Lyn drives this ahead relentlessly, barely letting the tension sag, and doesn't fail to disappoint when it comes to getting the camera inside the 456 chamber to give us further glimpses of the beast and the unforgettable, if bizarre, image of the child it has hooked up to itself. It's a truly arresting moment, emphasising the monstrousness of the creatures and the cruel form of immortality, something Jack recognises about himself perhaps, that they bestow on their victims. It's of course at this moment that the whole house of cards that Frobisher has been trying to protect finally comes crashing down. What's been curious and interesting in the series so far is how Torchwood has been disassembled and, after Jack's rescue, placed on the sidelines of the plot. It's this structure that has helped shift the tone of Children Of Earth, away from a sort of Buffy alien threat of the week comic book to something resembling a 21st Century Quatermass where the fantastic supports a harder edged social commentary within an epic canvas. In the final third of this episode, Torchwood swings into action having recorded evidence of the cabinet meeting to force their way to the negotiating table and a confrontation with the 456. But there really isn't a plan to deal with the 456 and it has devastating consequences. Jack's gunboat diplomacy simply doesn't work because the 456 just decides to gas everyone in the building. He even quotes the slogan used by the International Workers Of The World at the creature and it simply flags up the fact that the human race blithely accepts the death of its children every day.



There's also the rather horrible death inflicted on poor old Clem just as Johnson finally acquires a conscience after witnessing a government held to account by Torchwood's recordings. Ianto's death is foreshadowed in that phone call to Rhiannon, as it was in all that fluff with Jack about being a 'couple' in Day One, and really, in the end, what did Jack expect? It's a bittersweet departure, drawn out slightly too long, but it's also a devastating moment to end the episode on. Once again, director Euros Lyn, the lead actors and guest artists keep up the high standard and make this gripping and compelling. Ben Foster also pulls out the stops with his score, using some spectacular choral music to great effect. Only one episode to go and crucially it has to resolve this story without resorting to a dumb Deus Ex Machina. Can they pull off a satisfying ending? Will anyone from Torchwood make it to the end of Day Five?

Day One review
Day Two review
Day Three review

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Cathode Ray Tube Children Of Earth Torchwood Series 3 Day Four

Day Four in the Torchwood Hub and Ianto is making coffee while Gwen changes her knickers...erm...here's the trailer and the preview. Now, where's that Lemsip...?

BBCHD - 8th July 2009 - 9.00pm

That. Was. Scary.

Scary Torchwood.

I wonder if this is how we'll have to conduct diplomatic relations with the North Koreans when they decide to hold us to ransom by nuking the entire planet? I've not been as chilled to the bone by an hour of television as much as that in a very long time. Day Three's rendition of an archetypical science fiction genre trope - 'first contact' (except in this case, it was more like...er...second contact) - was magnificently done. More of that later.

We do, unfortunately, have to deal with the rest of the episode first. Round of applause please for Lachele Carl as the ever reliable Trinity Wells. The first half of the script's pincer movement from James Moran and Russell T Davies to try and convince us that, yeah, this a global event. Look out for the French newsreader and American general plus various extras of ethnic diversity to complete the manoeuvre. However, we did get interminable, grating scenes of newreaders with various close ups of their mouths and eyes scattered throughout the hour. Enough! I know the world's hanging by a thread but judging by this we'll all probably suffocate under swathes of rolling 24 hour news bulletins first before the slimy, boomy voiced aliens get us.



The script strikes an ironic note with Ianto's 'All together. The old team' because of course it's not the old team. Torchwood's reputation for early retirement has seen to that and instead we've got Jack fretting about his track suit bottoms fashion faux pas, Rhys throwing a strop with Gwen about sharing her good news and Ianto getting the horn. Erm...excuse me? The Prime Minister's on the telly doing a 'swine flu pandemic' closing the schools type announcement thing. Focus. Despite this fluff, there's a sweet and funny scene where Ianto passes a message on to Rhiannon and we find out that her husband Jonny has reacted with entrepreneurial zeal ('ten quid a kid!') and is getting her to mind the neighbours kids. I really like the efforts to fill in Ianto's background and with Davies trademark ability to write naturalistic dialogue and characters it's been easy to warm to Rhiannon and Jonny. We also check back in with Jack's daughter, Alice and there's a gently percolating build up to giving her more involvement in Day Three.

I say you can never go wrong having a spare Lemsip so sod recovering the Hub software and put the kettle on. Oh, well. Time for our rag-tag team to remember what they learned from The Real Hustle and use various cons to snaffle themselves enough equipment and money to set themselves up a temporary Hub and get Gwen some clean knickers and Jack a new army surplus coat. Again, this has that comic book feel to it where our heroes simply can't just go out and deal with the problem until they've sorted out their sartorial arrangements. What baffles me is how on earth they cracked the chip and pin on those cards they ran off with? More delaying tactics really and enough to get Ocean's 3 and a half set up so that they can snoop in on the diplomatic talks of the century. And Rhys gets to cook a nice pan of beans, Ianto's got the coffee on and there's loo paper in the shitter. Back in business.



Fortunately, Moran and Davies centre a good portion of the episode on Lois Habiba as our point of view at the meeting with the 456. This is thanks to that ubiquitous Bond gadget, tried and tested by one Martha Jones in Reset, the ACME Contact Lens Camera™. There is perhaps a suggestion here that Lois was pretty much created as a replacement for the rumoured idea of Martha joining Torchwood. In the end, Cush Jumbo has by now already made the role her very own and she communicates great vulnerability and fear when Gwen pleads with her to use the camera to spy on their behalf. We also start to get details of Jack's connection to the incident in 1965 and his relationship to one of Torchwood's former employees. It's at this point that the episode drops all the fluffy caper nonsense and really starts getting hard nosed. Agent Johnson's found Alice and is ordered to bring her in, Gwen gets help from PC Andy to release the recently arrested Clem in a very emotional reunion with some superb playing from Paul Copley, whilst Frobisher prepares for the arrival of the 456.



Lois bluffs her way into persuading Bridget to allow her into the meeting with the 456 by intimating that her relationship with Frobisher is based on more than taking a letter. It's another superb little character moment where Susan Brown, who has been brilliant as the dour Bridget, succinctly reveals all of Bridget's personal history with Frobisher with her tart remark to Lois of 'You're not the first, you know. Don't go thinking you're the first'. Meanwhile, Alice goes all Captain Jack on us, and she even has a matching coat, in an attempt to escape Johnson's clutches ('certainly your father's daughter') but suddenly all the kids go weird and do lots of pointing to the sky. The 456 are here. Lois gets ready to pop her contacts in as, in scenes reminiscent of Euston Films 1979 Quatermass, a column of fire descends to earth and we are treated to probably the finest, and scariest minutes of British telefantasy in a long while.



The encounters with the 456 work because they follow the simplest and most effective premise for generating genuine terror. Don't show the creature. Merely suggest it. The build up to the scene where they arrive and Frobisher converses with them completely rested on how Moran, Davies and director Lyn were going to scare the pants off you. It's really a tour de force of writing, directing and acting as well as the use of impressive and highly suggestive sound effects which again takes us right back to Kneale's early Quatermass serials where alien visitors are only briefly glimpsed but given fantastic presence by good reactions from actors and, more importantly, from the work of the fledgling Radiophonic Workshop. Here, all is required is the combination of brilliant sound effects, Ben Foster's very sensitive scoring, the subtlest of movements broken by violent thrashing and the spilling of lots of very unpleasant looking body fluids in the gas filled chamber to provide fuel for over active imaginations and sleepless nights. And then you get that dead pan, slightly synthesised voice as a bonus. Close Encounters this ain't. Stunning.



Add Peter Capaldi in, quite frankly, what should be an award winning performance as Frobisher, his stress summed up by that exhausted slump against the corridor wall after the first encounter, and this is very definitely must see television. I also loved the contrast between this and the then tit for tat squabble between General Pierce, Colonel Oduya of UNIT and Prime Minister Green in a sort of G8 for alien encounters where, similarly, much hot air fills the vaulted ceilings of rooms bearing witness to the cut and thrust of international relations. Green decides to leave it to the 'middle men' like Frobisher, claiming he's 'expendable' and suggesting that he's possibly unlikely to survive beyond Day Five. As Gwen cuts through traffic to get Clem a cup of tea and a hotdog ('I bloody love 'em'), there's that lovely, rather humanising, moment between Bridget and Lois as she suggests that perhaps her eagerness to 'trot after John Frobisher' didn't forsee meetings with slimy beasties from outer space. Likewise, Frobisher's admission that Jack is the better man because he won't take Frobisher's wife and children as hostage tells us that he's very determined for Jack not to reacquaint himself with the 456.



As we watch, director Lyn covers the formal diplomatic negotiations through Frobisher's reactions, Lois's eyes, through the laptop screens and translations via shorthand in the makeshift Hub, beautifully building the tension of the scene and also using that lovely bit of tension breaking humour with Gwen's typo of 'Need his moth' and Rhys' comment about smileys. The pieces start to come together and, shockingly, it is clear that Jack and Torchwood originally did a deal with the 456 back in 1965, as recalled by Clem, and now they're back and they want their further 10%. In the end, the story positions both Jack and Frobisher not as opposites but very much men as on the same side in their dealings with the 456.

Let's hope we get more scary Torchwood with Day Four because Day Three was, quite simply, excellent.

Day One review
Day Two review

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Cathode Ray Tube Children Of Earth Torchwood Series 3 Day Three

BBCHD - 7th July 2009 - 9.00pm

It's the little touches that impress in Torchwood.

Mucking about with the sound design and giving us Gwen's POV is such a neat idea, so that the audience can share her disorientation and the concussive effects of the explosion that's torn apart the Hub. John Fay's script for Day Two is very much about the public perception of authority, trust and control. It begins with poor Gwen confronted with the realisation that the two ambulance men who drag her from the wreckage of the Hub (stunningly realised on location) are simply there to ensure that she does not survive. Nigel Kneale played on these fears back in 1956, the fear that the public servants you trust have actually been compromised and are working against you or wish to suppress any criticism of your agenda. The opening action sequence is really thrilling with Gwen throwing herself out of the ambulance and firing at a rooftop sniper and then stealing the vehicle. And just hope if you're a paramedic that you don't end up with Gwen Cooper in the back of the vehicle. You don't stand a bloody chance. Trouble is, that sniper must have been trained in UNIT and can't shoot for bloody toffee even with a laser sight. To maintain the realism, either Gwen or Ianto should have been wounded. As it was they both escaped, a la Enemy Of The State, with barely a scratch.



The worst of it is that Frobisher's own wife and daughters are realising that he's deeply involved in the whole of the 'we are coming' business and have noticed those odd, defensive behaviour patterns that are a dead give away that something is, indeed, up. Peter Capaldi grabs the character and manages to create such a tortured government fall-guy that one minute you feel sorry and afraid for him and the next wishing he would die a horrible death for all the destruction he's unleashed upon Torchwood and their extended families. Q branch boffin Dekker, a deliciously slimy performance from Ian Gelder, turns up on Frobisher's doorstep and reinforces the retro science fiction paranoia by producing a hefty reference to Fred Hoyle's wonderful A For Andromeda series in which alien transmissions turn out to be the design blueprint for a super computer and an advanced life form. And off they go with their meccano set from outer space.



Bless, PC Andy. Does he even have a surname? (It's Davidson but he's never credited as such and therefore comes across as a sort of Cardiff equivalent of Camberwick Green's PC McGarry) How on earth did this man graduate from Hendon Police College anyway? He's not safe to be out on his own. Love his introduction as he cops a look at Agent Johnson, 'If she's anti-terrorist then I wouldn't mind being Uncle terrorist' because we know full well he'd run a mile if she showed even a flicker of interest. Tom Price provides great comedy value with Andy sitting in the pursuit vehicle next to Johnson and her troops espousing the values of a 'little bit of local knowledge' whilst clearly leading them directly and unwittingly to Gwen's flat. Gwen and Rhys decide to go into hiding whilst having a row about car keys, Ianto claims ice cream gives him a headache and Agent Johnson's tyres don't last five minutes. The dialogue at this point isn't going to win any prizes, 'What kind of terrorist shoots your wheels?' Deep Sigh. 'A clever one'. It's at this point that, try as she may, Liz May Brice is unable to prevent the character of Johnson from descending into a Sheriff Of Nottingham clone who has no other reason to be in the episode other than to be undermined by those pesky outlaws from Sherwood...er...Torchwood. Fay's script chucks away any attempt at actually making her a three dimensional character and it gets worse.



Disturbingly there seems to be some sort of tradition being carried over from Day One. Clearly, there is an ongoing obsession with male arses. In the raid on Rhiannon's house the troops unearth the equivalent of a beached whale protesting, rather hilariously, that he's a married man and you wouldn't find Ianto in his bed. No, I don't think you would. Later, a man more used to exposing himself, a certain Mr. Barrowman, dutifully fulfills a BBC Wales contract obligation to show us his...well...everything, really. This is Torchwood creeping back into adult comic book mode and Fay's script threatens to undo the sterling work of his boss on Day One. One of the problems here is that we're supposed to pretend that Jack's dead when most of us are just simply waiting for him to inevitably jump back into life. The aforementioned scene of Frobisher at breakfast with his daughters attempting to act as if he's about to have a normal day at the office is terrific, especially the two girls taking the piss out of the situation with their 'We want a pony' chant, and his ongoing agonising about dealing the death blow to Torchwood, realising that taking the Hub out was pointless and taking one for the government at the same time, makes for gripping viewing.



Unfortunately, Clem/Timothy White is somewhat sidelined in this episode and rather embarrasses himself in a pub by intimating, in a rather unintentionally amusing moment, that the bar maid has done an extremely smelly fart by announcing to her, 'Can you smell that?'. Despite the amusing, if not charming, repartee between Gwen and Rhys (the scene inside the haulage truck full of potatoes, perhaps inspired by Hitchcock's Frenzy, is delightful) by far the best character development in this episode is that of Lois Habiba. Cush Jumbo manages to effectively get across the woman's conscience and her concern at what's going on around her and it's a huge relief when she turns up at the meeting with Gwen and Rhys at the cafe after deciding to help them. We even get a bit of location filming in London thrown in for good measure. Another Torchwood recruit in waiting, I hope. Although it does stretch the credibility of the depiction of a government department that allows a temp on her second day of work to continue to access and remove classified files. Mind you, on the other hand, so many departments lose private data on a regular basis it may not be that far from the truth. Can I also say a good word for Susan Brown as the nasty Bridget Spears looking down her nose at everyone and everything? So, Lois to the rescue and a rather barmy sub-plot featuring Gwen and Rhys pretending to be undertakers. Meanwhile, we also get more of the great Katy Wix as Ianto's sister Rhiannon who does her bit to help out Ianto with a laptop and eventually tracking Jack's body down to a military facility.



Jack's reconstitution is downright creepy and disturbing as is the further scene of chanting children but it does turn into a bit of a comic book romp by the time Gwen and Rhys infiltrate the facility only to find Jack's been encased in concrete by the rather peeved Johnson. Never mind, Ianto to the rescue with a great big digging machine (a nod to Jack's similar action in Series One's Countrycide) and a very long drop into that Doctor Who cliche, a quarry. So, as Jack hobbles away, flashing his bits, the episode switches tone again to the very menacing conclusion as Mr. Dekker proudly demonstrates the arrival chamber for the visiting 456 whilst also posing the questions on the lips of the audience. Why are they coming for Britain? Just what did happen in 1965? It ends very unnervingly with that striking visual of Dekker breathing on the glass of the chamber and holding his arms out to embrace it.



Delivered with enormous visual panache by Euros Lyn and again played well by all the regulars and the guest artists, Day Two doesn't quite live up to the polished opening episode, preferring to veer off unevenly into a bit of farce, Scooby Doo villainy and comic book heroics. It doesn't completely reacquaint us with Torchwood's previous penchant for overblown adolescence and histrionics and that's still a bit of a blessing. It's highly entertaining, often spectacular and propelled by good, pacy direction, a thoroughly Bondian soundtrack from Ben Foster and the intriguing mystery of the 456 also ensures I'm still looking forward to Day Three.

Day One review

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Cathode Ray Tube Children Of Earth Torchwood Series 3 Day Two

The preview and trailer for Day Three of Torchwood: Children Of Earth. The major questions are...will there be any more sightings of men's bums? And where is Trinity Wells when you need her to convince you this really is a worldwide threat?

Next time trailer for Day Two, BBC1 - 7th July, at 9.00pm. Review will be here tomorrow night.



Day Two trailer:

BBCHD - 6th July 2009 - 9.00pm

SPOILERS FOR NON-UK VIEWERS

'You're working for the Home Office and you've never heard of Torchwood?'

Jesus, you mean they're not on Facebook? Not even Twittering? MI6 have got a lot of explaining to do this week. Their new boss Sir John Sawyer popping up on Facebook wearing a pair of Speedos has put the wind up the counter terrorism sub-committee and they've also got their hands full in Day One of the long awaited Torchwood epic, Children Of Earth. Dirty laundry from 1965 has made its way to the top of the pile in the washing basket and social networking isn't going to make diddly-squat difference in the world of Torchwood because here everyone does their washing in public. Everyone knows about Torchwood. People in Cardiff point to the Bay when total strangers ask about them. They're the least secret organisation known to (Welsh) man.



At the heart of tonight's episode is a great big homage to what Brian Aldiss called the 'cosy catastrophe' of John Wyndham, with numerous references to his particular brand of post-war British science fiction in The Kraken Wakes, The Day Of The Triffids and most particularly here The Midwich Cuckoos. For all the attempts, in this first episode at least, by Russell T Davies to globalise the crisis of the world's children abruptly stopping (shades of The Day The Earth Stood Still, another prime example of 1950s paranoid SF) it just doesn't quite come across by simply having Ianto read off a string of countries at the same time that a UNIT officer is providing a similar litany to a civil servant in the Home Office. Mind you, I bet parents would give their eye teeth for something as effective as this to shut their kids up. When it boils down to it, Russell, you're just a sucker for Wyndham and as much in love with Professor Bernard Quatermass as the rest of us who quite happily lap up alien invasion yarns designed to threaten the British Isles and patriotically disturb our stiffened upper lips. Even if he invokes Quatermass and his own run in with paranoid politicians, there is no doubt Russell will counter this by eventually wheeling out Lachele Carl as American news anchor Trinity Wells. Wait and see.



The homage to 1950s science fiction paranoia and to State Of Play political subterfuge stands the first episode in good stead. It is a very tight script, trimmed of fat, full of urgency and the need to coast towards an equally gripping conclusion. What's also interesting here is the way class is depicted in the story, where we see families and the backgrounds to the main characters revealed within a Britain where education and even how we use Facebook and My Space all still run along the old class divisions. Frobisher's family is clearly upper middleclass whilst Ianto's sister and brother are lower class from a neighbourhood that is, quite literally, as rough as arseholes. In the midst of the crisis, the script has time to highlight these differences and similarities, particularly with the fan pleasing scenes of Jack visiting his own daughter Alice and his great grandson and Ianto struggling to articulate his very individualistic sexual relationship with Jack to his sister whilst she can only simply codify him as 'gay'. Excellently played out scenes, and interestingly hinting at rather unpleasant opportunism on the part of Torchwood's male staff to simply get a chance to examine a relative's child caught up in the alien manipulation, they are a good example of Davies' ability to write good character moments. He does have an annoying tendency to over milk the pudding though and the running gag between Ianto and Jack about their status as a 'couple', whilst initially charming, is clearly a blatant sign-post to the audience that this 'couple' may not survive beyond the span of this week's five episodes.



These problems aside, this is full of broad humour, touching visual motifs and good character exploration. From Gwen turning the lights back on in a darkened Hub, briefly stroking a photo of the deceased Owen and Tosh, to the amusing encounter with Dr. Rupesh Patanjali as Jack and Ianto pose as 'poor old Mr. Williams' neighbours only to then surgically remove an alien 'hitch-hiker' from his dead body. Ianto's 'And I've got Tupperware' line and the observation 'NHS, too much red tape' sums up Torchwood in one brief scene for any brave newcomers. To confirm that this is definitely a Russell T Davies script we even get a joke about Jack and Ianto being The Chuckle Brothers and an ironic nod in Gwen's line about the Hub being 'a big science fiction superbase' in answer to Rupesh's query. Davies also mirrors Gwen's induction into Torchwood with her taking on the role of recruitment officer to the by now curious Rupesh Patanjali. There's a sweet scene where Davies pretty much distills all of Gwen's attitudes towards Torchwood, life and the Universe and intriguingly explores the effects of contact with alien life on the population with Rupesh discussing the insignificance ordinary people must now feel and how it shakes their faith in God. A bit of Davies own atheism creeping in there too.



There's also a very Bondian feel to the conspiracy within government sub-plot, bolstered by a wonderful scene early in the episode as both Frobisher and Lois Habiba arrive for work, he arriving in his sleek black ministerial car and she hoping off the bus, as Ben Foster's score of driving strings echoes Murray Gold's UNIT theme. Whilst the inclusion of Lois mirrors Gwen's 'first day at the office' introduction way back from Series One, there are also a couple of continuity nuggets thrown out to the fans with Frobisher's mention of Colonel Mace (The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky) and news of Martha's honeymoon (or is that perhaps a guarded reference to Freema's flit to ITV's Law And Order? Still, at least Foster pops in a bit of Martha's theme). Peter Capaldi is great as the twitchy Frobisher and at one point I thought he was going to launch in a Malcolm Tucker tirade of expletives at Cush Jumbo playing Lois, as she titted about with cups of tea whilst Frobisher is trying to conduct a debrief with UNIT's Colonel Oduya. 'Fucking tea! Thank you very fucking much. Now will you piss off and go and breach some high security protocols on Bridget's bloody computer!'



When the possessed children eerily begin chanting 'We are coming', the script then introduces another character, one with a link back to the dirty dealings of 1965. Timothy White (yes, and Davies manages to get a joke in there about that but you'd need to be a certain age to appreciate it), in a superb performance from the ever wonderful Paul Copley, is in a care home and one of the best scenes in the entire episode is Gwen's interview with him. It's an emotionally powerful scene with both Eve Myles and Copley magnificent as Gwen tenderly teases his real name and background from him. Beautiful acting from them both, adding a tragic core to the archetypical alien invasion plot. That the plot is also part of a government cover up is later revealed by Mr. Dekker, a boffin straight out of Bond's Q branch who has been tracing the alien signals for donkey's years. Cue intense chat with the Prime Minister, who doesn't want any stains on his hands and orders Frobisher to cover up Britain's involvement with the aliens, the 456. That also means killing Jack.



The final twist is that lovely Rupesh turns out to be an agent undercover at the hospital. But here the plotting gets muddied. Yes, we know Frobisher orders the death of Jack and other retired military personnel, suggesting he may have knowledge or been witness to the original 456 abductions but what exactly was Rupesh doing trying to infiltrate Torchwood in the first place? It seems terribly convenient that he's involved in this set up and is asked to carry out the execution. And if they know Jack is immortal then what plans do they have for him because it seems another agenda, primarily of agent Johnson (a suitably severe Liz May Brice), is also being played out with the destruction of the Hub being part of it. All very Machiavellian even if the discovery of the bomb in Jack's stomach is horribly contrived around Gwen busy giving herself a pregnancy scan. Gives a whole new meaning to having a bun in the oven, I suppose.

This is leaps and bounds ahead of most Torchwood fare it has to be said, complete with a frenetic cliffhanger to ensure viewer loyalty, with director Euros Lyn getting excellent performances from the three remaining main characters, suggesting that the original line up was always too cumbersome in the first place. Here, there is enough involvement for Jack, Gwen and Ianto in the main plot as well as opportunities for character development. Lyn's direction is slick, handling the actions scenes with a grand sweep and understanding the importance of framing actors to maximise their performances for the screen. Coupled with an excellent score from Ben Foster, a committed guest cast, splendid use of Cardiff locations...this is a Torchwood, if the momentum can be carried through the remaining episodes, completely fit for BBC1's purpose.

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Cathode Ray Tube Children Of Earth Torchwood Series 3 Day One

A new BBC One trailer has started airing this week for Torchwood: Children Of Earth, confirming that the five part story will be broadcast, starting on Monday 6th July, over five consecutive nights. Creepy trailer!



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Cathode Ray Tube Children Of Earth Torchwood Series 3

Well, it looks like the week of 4th July to 10th July for the transmission of the five episodes of Torchwood: Children Of Earth. According to the BBC Press Office the programme is currently unplaced during that week (it means they can't decide or can't reveal the actual time of day it's going out).

Programme copy for 'Day One' has also now been released and there are links to Days Two - Five at the Press Office link above but be warned there are likely to be spoilers in there:

"Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones (John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Gareth David-Lloyd) return for a new adventure in Torchwood – Children Of Earth, a five-part series for BBC One.

An ordinary day becomes one of terror, as every single child in the world stops. A message is sent to all the governments of Earth: "We are coming." But, as a trap closes around Captain Jack, the sins of the past are returning and long-forgotten events from 1965 threaten to reveal an awful truth.

Torchwood is forced underground as the government takes swift and brutal action. As members of the team are hunted down, Britain risks becoming a rogue state. Meanwhile, the mysterious and powerful 456 draws ever-closer.

Captain Jack, Gwen and Ianto are helpless as events escalate to such a degree that mankind faces the end of civilisation itself.

John Barrowman plays Captain Jack Harkness; Eve Myles plays Gwen Cooper; and Gareth David-Lloyd plays Ianto Jones. Torchwood also stars Kai Owen as Rhys Williams; Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who, Skins) as John Frobisher; Paul Copley (Coronation Street, The Bill) as Clem; Liz May Brice (Bad Girls, The Bill) as Johnson, Lucy Cohu (Forgiven) as Alice Carter; Nicholas Farrell (Casualty 1909) as Brian Green; Susan Brown (Brideshead Revisited) as Bridget Spears; and Cush Jumbo (Harley Street) as Lois Habiba"

The full Torchwood: Children Of Earth press pack (again beware spoilers) is here

Silva Screen have also announced the release of Ben Foster's music for the forthcoming series. This is scheduled to arrive on July 7th. and comprises of 40 tracks. Track listing for Torchwood: Children of Earth contains:



1. The First Sacrifice
2. What's Occurring?
3. Jack's Daughter
4. Diplomatic Cars
5. We Are Coming
6. Thames House
7. Double Crossed
8. Countdown to Destruction
9. The Crater
10. Torchwood Hunted
11. Gwen's Baby
12. On the Run
13. Jack in a Box
14. Ianto Jones
15. Tractor Attack
16. Resurrection
17. Clement MacDonald
18. Something's Coming
19. Eye Spy
20. Trust Nobody
21. The World Looks to the Skies
22. Jack's Secret
23. Clem Remembers
24. Judgement Day
25. Requiem for the Fallen
26. The Ballad of Ianto Jones
27. The Final Day
28. Calm Before the Storm
29. Phase Two Has Begun
30. Requisition 31
31. Here Comes Torchwood
32. He Was a Good Man
33. The Children of the Earth
34. Breaking the Connection
35. Fighting Back
36. Run for Your Lives
37. Sacrifice and Salvation
38. Redemption
39. I Can Run Forever
40. Next Time on Torchwood

And don't forget the plays airing over three consecutive afternoons at 2.15pm in early July on BBC Radio 4.
Asylum - 1st July
Golden Age - 2nd July
The Dead Line - 3rd July

All will be released on CD too.

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