Torchwood: Series 3, Episode 3 – “Children of Earth: Day Three” (2009)

The 4-5-6 have finally arrived on earth.  Goodness knows they like to make an entrance – you don’t possess all the world’s children and make them speak in unison when you want to slip in quietly.  If they had their way, they’d address the entire planet, but that’s one item on which they can’t call the shots.  All diplomacy is going on behind closed doors, doors that Torchwood can’t get through.

 

For those who don’t watch Torchwood, let me give you an idea of the action of this episode:  a gang of shadowy, gross-looking aliens riding a pillar of fire down from the sky isn’t even the biggest moment.  Translation?  There’s a lot going on – more on the secrets from Britain’s past, plenty of creepy kids being creepy, and a pretty shocking revelation about one of the Torchwood team.

 

Of course, with Torchwood on the outside desperately trying to look in, the 4-5-6 problem is in the hands of the British government.  The only trouble:  everyone remotely important isn’t about to touch this thing with a ten-pole foot.  So, while the prime minister, UNIT, and an international panel of political players watch a live recording from a safe distance, John Frobisher is the one marching into the lions’ den.

 

This is where PC really starts getting a chance to sink his teeth in.  He’s just pitch-perfect in all his scenes with the 4-5-6 – he’s clinging to ambassadorial scripts and protocol, but his face and his body language tell you the tension is ready to snap him in half.  His expression when he realizes the prime minister is sending him in again is quietly devastating, and all the what-a-great-honor-this-is rationalizing can’t make him any less terrified.

 

Also, there’s a phone call between Frobisher and Jack that reaffirms my belief that we should’ve seen Torchwood interacting with the Home Office before all of this starting going down.  Even something brief at the start of CoE, something to show what Frobisher and Jack’s relationship is like, what the Home Office thinks of Torchwood.  Scenes like this one would’ve been greatly improved by seeing even a glimpse of their history.

 

Warnings

 

This episode starts off the very dark subject matter that’s just going to get darker through the rest of series 3.