Torchwood: Children of Earth, Day Five (SPOILERS)

[talkingtothesky]

You know how I said before all this started that I was worried that nothing was ever going to be the same again?

Well, it's not, is it?

Earlier in the week someone posted on torch_wood that writer James Moran twittered that 'this is not the end if we can help it'. But a Series 4 after that? How, and where? Where do you start from? Do you get Jack to come back, dooming him to go through all of that all over again? Do you have Gwen pick a new team and start again, without Jack?

I don't want Torchwood to be over for good, of course I don't. All this week the thought that this could be the end has frightened me more than anything else.

But with that ending? Wow. Leave it there, guys, leave it there.

The message this series have left us with? We are not ready. There is no line of defence. Put people on the front line and they inevitably crumble under the strain.

And so we're faced with this. In the world of Torchwood, alien life exists and it will crush us underfoot. And in real life? We are utterly alone in the universe, a tiny speck of life shining out in the dark. And we will die, eventually. When the Sun expands and engulfs us we will cease to exist. The only hope is that maybe, an indeterminable distance into the future, with the right random combination of collapsing dust clouds, of elements, of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen (or maybe not, maybe this world will exist of things we cannot and will not ever discover or name), just by chance something will spark again.

I will see Doctor Who in an entirely new light now.

Thanks for giving me something to think about, Torchwood. It's been fun. And thank you for being brave enough to actually go there, and not try and tack on a false happy ending to make us feel better. Well done, show. 
 
EDIT: Sorry for html problems. I hope nobody saw anything they didn't want to see. 

 

Comments

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

You've just pinpointed why I stopped watching Torchwood after S1.

Doctor Who is...hopeful. Which is an odd thing to say about a series that regularly kills off extras like crazy, and main characters in slightly lower ratios. But it is. The Doctor may get all depressed and Lonely-God-ish sometimes, but in the end there is an optimistic viewpoint. You may have to take the long view to see it, but things will be all right in the end.

And S1 of Torchwood didn't have that, at all. Suzie voiced this in the very first episode, that all the crap in the universe comes to Earth, and there's nothing else out there. I watched hoping to see something that proved her wrong, but I really didn't. (Except, maybe, "Random Shoes".) I like my TV viewing a little more escapist than that.

I don't know about this season, because I've been holding off on watching it until I see everyone's reaction, but based on what I'm seeing, I'm not optimistic.

[talkingtothesky]

I hate to say this, but yes. I wish I'd stopped. In S1 I thought Suzie's dark undertones were interesting, chilling, something to think about. It was a place so dark I'd never seen any other show go there, and I respected that, still do.

But when it's this bad? Stay away, my friend, stay away. It's too harrowing. I honestly don't know how I'm going to get up in the morning and go back to living my life, and television shouldn't do that to you.

[shadings.livejournal.com]

Oh god. We were right to be worried, weren't we? But I never expected anything like this. I was a little worried, yes, but now that I've watched S3, I think I should have been fucking TERRIFIED. Because this is not what I thought was going to happen at all. I was all excited for my cracky little cheesy show, and that wasn't what we got. We got an entirely different show, big and epic and occasionally awesome and really ridiculously awfully heartbreaking and bleak and depressing. I don't know what to say. That's not my show. That's not what I liked Torchwood for. I'm feeling like shit, I'm feeling like I'm not going to ever feel better. I feel like I should never have watched this. I am just so emotionally exhausted and tearing up every other second. I wish I was never invested in this show. Because it's been great, but in a way, it's also let me down. I didn't sign up for this.

Everything changes. Yeah, what an understatement. Holy shit.

I just. I'm falling apart right now. It's not even Ianto's death. I was getting over that. And then ep 5... I just. I don't know. It was just so hopeless and oh god, JACK, just seeing him like that... my heart is in pieces. Torchwood was never like this. Why do they have to do this to us? I loved it, but at the same time... I wish it wasn't so.

If they make a S4, I don't even care if it's not epic like this. Because they can't top this anyway, and it'd be stupid to try. If they make an S4, I want it to revert to something like S2. Cracky and small and more light-hearted. Not so ambitious. I would love it so much more. But it could never be the same again, could it? Not after this. Not without Ianto. (I'm still secretly hoping that they bring back Ianto in S4, but I know that isn't very likely.)

God, I want some new canon right now. Doctor Who, Torchwood, I don't care. WHEN IS NOVEMBER COMING, DAMMIT, I WANT MY DOCTOR WHO SPECIAL. >:( Can't believe S3's already over. What a ride. So totally unexpected.

[talkingtothesky]

I'm feeling like shit, I'm feeling like I'm not going to ever feel better.

I'm so sorry, bb. I feel like that too.

I was starting to grieve for Ianto too. I was gonna get over it eventually. But you know what it was? It was Jack. Seeing Jack break, finally, irrevocably, terribly - that broke me. I wasn't even that distraught after S2, and Tosh and Owen died, because Jack hugged Gwen and Ianto close to him and said "Now we carry on." And because he was holding on, I could carry on believing that together the three of them would make it all okay.

God, I want some new canon right now.
I do as well, if only to have something to focus on other than THIS. But on the other hand I feel like I ought to turn my back on the Whoniverse and just...disconnect for a little while? IDK. I'm too emotionally invested. And everything about DW is changing soon too, and I was willing to go with that, because I love this show and trust the writers to know what they are doing. But if DW decides to break me again later this year, and it's even a fraction as harrowing as this was, that trust is rapidly going to disappear, and that makes me even sadder because I felt sure before this that I had signed up forever.

But yes, oh what a ride. :P

[sadera992.livejournal.com]

*wails* they killed the show!!

[talkingtothesky]

They killed the show as we knew it, yes. But THE WHOLE SHOW was not just Ianto and Janto. I've had time to think about this and I disagree with what I said last night...I want, more than anything, a S4.

Why? Because I'm fascinated to see where they'd go from there. I want to see Jack working through all this shit and finding some way, eventually, to cope.

I know, I know, I'm a glutton for punishment. I've gotta be crazy to want to come back for more when I feel so beaten and betrayed.

But you know what? I love this show so much that I'll let it break my heart over and over again. And I also love it because it breaks my heart.

And I'm so glad there wasn't a reset. It would have cheapened everything.

[sadera992.livejournal.com]

you're insane.

there's nowhere to go now.

(and yes, the whole show was ianto and janto... for me anyway)

[talkingtothesky]

I know I am. :)

I thought that last night as well. Now I'm not so sure.

And that's okay. I understand that. And I'm really sorry. *hugs*