Critic Reviews
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Torchwood: Children of Earth is one of the TV events of the year, and anyone with a taste for serious dark fantasy is encouraged to strap in for the thrilling, chilling and unnerving ride.
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There's plenty of action, suspense and sci-fi stuff in Torchwood: COE, but what makes it an unmissable event is how well it sets up its dilemma--a classic conflict over whether the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few--and how maturely it deals with both the morality and the politics of the premise.
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Amid the emotional crescendoes of the final hour (which the cast pulls off beautifully), in the pell-mell race to the finish line, there is some rushed storytelling and there are more than a few gaps in logic. But aside from those issues, Children of Earth is, as the Brits would say, bloody brilliant.
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Extraterrestrials are communicating through the young. But what do the visitors want? The answer and mankind’s response transform Children of Earth into an epic that should bring Torchwood to a wider audience. (The miniseries, a high point for summer television, will be available on DVD July 28.)
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This first episode has brief nods to the deaths last season of two series regulars--Owen and Toshiko--and it acknowledges advances in the relationship between bisexual Jack and Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd). But more than anything it's a propulsive action-adventure.
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Smart, tense, intellectually provocative and, perhaps most of all, unpredictable, this is popcorn TV of the highest order--even if the final act doesn't entirely measure up (albeit not for lack of trying) to the splendid opening installment.
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It's a conclusion that seemed to me both contrived and honest, if that makes any sense, and it left me disturbed, though not, as Doctor Who often has, a sobbing wreck.
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It is genuinely creepy--party "X-Files," part "Close Encounters," with fine performances all around.
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With British accents and a refreshing dash of homoeroticism, it works nicely for a midsummer binge.
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It's five nights of stimulating and ultimately disturbing television, and I'd like nothing better than to have more people to talk with about it.
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Though it rushes a bit through its final episode, Torchwood: Children of Earth is big in a way that very little of TV aspires to anymore. Until we see what kind of late charge "Mad Men" will have when it returns in mid-August, this is the most exciting television of the summer.
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Despite these quibbles, Children of Earth is still good fun, if not good, exactly.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 61 out of 77
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Mixed: 6 out of 77
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Negative: 10 out of 77
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Sep 18, 2010
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ScottVanLSep 1, 2009
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msJul 29, 2009Just watched the run last night off iTunes -- makes Daleks and Cybermen look like buckets of sunshine by comparison.