There is a big danger in taking an already short television season and turning it into a single multi-episode storyarc.  If the story isn't successful – if it isn't compelling, if the character arcs aren't interesting, if anything falls out of place – one could be putting the fate of the entire series into jeopardy.  It's a gamble, a risk – a risk that should pay great dividends for Torchwood and its creator Russell T. Davies with the new Torchwood: Children of Earth five-part series which will be airing on BBC America for five nights in a row starting on Monday July 20 at 9:00pm.

Based in the same universe as Doctor Who – or Whoniverse, if you will – Torchwood is the name of a top secret government organization founded by Queen Victoria with a mandate to protect the world from all sorts of alien baddies, that is to say, the likes of the Doctor himself.  The Queen and the Doctor didn't see eye to eye, but that's neither here nor there, the upshot of it all is that Torchwood has changed a little during the intervening years and is now run (at least Torchwood Three is) by a good friend of the Doctor's, the inimitable and practically eternal Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). 

Children of Earth finds the cast slimmed down following the untimely ends of two members of the Torchwood staff, Owen Harper (Burn Gorman) and Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori), in season two.  Consequently, when the aliens come calling this time around, only Captain Jack, Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) are present to save the world from certain doom.

If that all sounds a little fantastical and ludicrous and more than a bit complicated, don't worry about it — one of the strengths of Children of Earth is that it's written so that even the uninitiated can figure out what's going on after playing a minimal amount of catch-up (or more quickly if they're sitting next to someone who has already been indoctrinated while they watch).  The upshot of it all is that Torchwood are the good guys and they're going to save the world… or die trying.  As Davies states in the press materials "…we're telling a brand new story.  It's been deliberately written so that no one will be lost – and at the same time, the faithful viewer will discover so much more about the members of the Torchwood team."

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

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