Copyright © 2009 by Michael A. Burstein

Torchwood: Children of Earth
BBC America, Monday through Friday at 9<smallPMET/PT; 8PMCT
Created by Russell T. Davies
Written by Russell T. Davies, John Fay, and James Moran
Directed by Euros Lyn
Starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen, Peter Capaldi, Paul Coply, Susan Brown, Cush Jumbo, Liz May Brice, Ian Gelder, Nicholas Farrell, and Lucy Cohu.

Three years ago, BBC Wales—which had successfully brought back the Doctor Who franchise as an ongoing television program—introduced a spinoff series starring John Barrowman as a new popular character, Captain Jack Harkness. The premise of Torchwood was that Queen Victoria had set up a secret government organization to defend the United Kingdom (and by extension, the whole planet) from aliens. By the beginning of this season, the main Torchwood hub is found in Cardiff, Wales, where a spacetime rift conveniently draws plenty of action.

The point of Torchwood was to be more adult in its themes than its parent show, and on that score it succeeded. Torchwood contained more sex and violence, but it also dealt with more difficult moral dilemmas than one would find on a family program such as Doctor Who, and it never shied away from the consequences of its characters’ actions, even to the point of death.

This dark mirror to the Doctor Who universe has been moderately successful in its first two seasons. For the third season, the BBC has gone in a slightly different artistic direction. British TV seasons are usually much shorter than those of American TV shows, with only about twelve episodes instead of twenty-two. For the third season of Torchwood, Executive Producer Russell T. Davies chose to create a five-night miniseries style event, which is being broadcast this week on BBC America.

He also chose to pull no punches.

John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Gareth David-Lloyd have returned as Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, and Ianto Jones, three well-liked characters who form the core of the Torchwood group in Cardiff. The story begins with a flashback, and then the expectation that our heroes will be taking the lead in combating some sort of alien menace, but then quickly diverges away from the standard formula when another threat goes after Torchwood, apparently from within the British government itself. As for the alien menace, well, it’s out there, and from episode one they’ve made it clear that they are not to be trifled with, by taking control of the world’s children and speaking to the human race through them.

The alien race, known as the 4-5-6 (after a communication frequency they use), are returning to Earth after having paid the human race a visit only once before, in 1965. Something mysterious happened back then between representatives of the British government and the 4-5-6, involving a busload of twelve children brought to the aliens in the middle of the night. That incident, which is the flashback shown at the start of the series, is the key mystery that will cause jaws to drop when finally resolved.

The issues dealt with in this series are much darker than almost anything else to be found on television these days, let alone in science fiction television. The story concerns itself with the most difficult moral questions of them all. Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? If some are to be sacrificed for the good of others, who decides? And can people live with themselves after making such a decision?

It is a delight to see Kai Owen return as Rhys, Gwen’s harried civilian husband, who gets to demonstrate that he is just as competent as any member of the team. The series also delves into the family lives of Jack and Ianto, and we get to see that they don’t fight the good fight in a vacuum, but have people they care about and who care about them.

Two standouts in the new cast members are Peter Capaldi as Home Secretary Frobisher and Cush Jumbo as Lois Habiba, his new assistant. Capaldi plays the harried bureaucrat well and speaks volumes with his subtle facial expressions. As for Jumbo, early on she establishes Lois as someone who is more concerned with doing the right thing than playing it safe, even at great personal cost. In a way, Frobisher and Lois represent the two different sides of the poignant moral dilemma that the series posits, as they demonstrate the old adage that character is defined by decision.

The third season of Torchwood carries much of its emotional weight because it is a work of serial fiction, and the core audience has come to care for the characters. But as the five-episode series comes to an end, heroes make decisions that risk alienating that self-same audience. Davies and company are to be commended for bravely taking the story where it leads, but one can’t help but wonder if in the end it will be too much for their audience to accept. In short, where do they go from here? As powerful as the third season of Torchwood is, the answer to that question is distressingly unclear.

This is not just adult science fiction; this is a lesson in moral philosophy cast as quality entertainment, with no easy answers to be found.