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shadowkat[This is sort stream of consciousness, rambling take on what I've seen so far and my impressions. Filled with typos and misspellings - in particular character names. If that bugs you, please skip. I won't fix them all. It is not meant to be an essay, just a sort of rambling journal entry. When I write an essay - I do take the time to google names. When I write a ramble - I don't. Weird I know.]
Saw the first four episodes of Torchwood: Children of The Earth mini-series and am quite impressed. This may be amongst the best sci-fi miniseries that I've seen in quite some time. Particularly impressed with the range and importance of the female characters in this series. Russell T. Davies demonstrates that you can create strong, multi-faceted, non-sterotypical female characters that are not mere eye-candy in a science-fiction epic. (JJ Abrhams, please take notes. This is what Star Trek should have included and one the many reasons why the British Doctor Who and Torchwood tv series leaves Trek in the dust.) There are so many female leading characters that I can't decide which ones are my favorite - a rarity.
I adore Lois, Gwen, Alice and even the counter-terrorist agent assigned to kill Jack Harkness, who discovers what is really going on. Plus Ianto's sister. Well-rounded, three-dimensional, curves, and realistic looking women, not Hollywood models that you see on fashion magazines in sex kitten outfits. They wear slacks, they wear skirts, they can fight, they are vulnerable. And they are the leads. Jack and Ianto are in some respects second fiddle in this series, we see most of the action through Gwen's eyes and it is Gwen who remains the emotional centerpiece.
The story itself is tight. The plotting pitch perfect. And it evolves directly from the characters with no missteps. It is, however, like most science-fiction, a horror tale.
If you think about it - most science fiction and fantasy stories are horror. Sure they may have romance threaded within them, but in most cases they are horror morality tales - depicting a nightmarish what-if scenario. I have changed in my tastes. I am finding as I grow older, that I like the horror genre more and more. I find it oddly comforting. Not all horror, the slasher flicks and torture porn still repulse me. And try as I might, zombie films, books, and tv shows...don't hold much appeal outside of turning my stomach. I don't deal well with gore. Much prefer pyschological horror to gory horror. Give me Stanley Kubrick's The Shining over 28 Days or Day of the Dead. Or John Carpenter's Halloween over Wes Craven's gory Nightmare on Elm Street.
The only problem with horror is - that your characters are usually tortured and often die in horrible ways. Also it's not horrific if you don't care or love the character who died.
Character death doesn't bother me that much. I'm immune. Probably a side-effect of watching day-time soap operas and reading X-men comics - which kill off favorite characters frequently and without batting an eyelash. I more or less expect it and have gotten really good at predicting it way before it happens. Last season, Season 2, Torchwood, RTD killed off my favorite characters on the series. Tosh and Owen. I wasn't that crazy about any one else, except for maybe Gwen and Rhys. BSG also killed off my favorite character. As did Angel.
Did I whine? Did I complain? No. Well not really. Why? Because it furthered the storyline and made sense. It worked. And it was the story the writer wished to tell. If they had chosen to kill off Harry Potter at the end of that series- I would have been fine with it. Particularly since the story is to a degree a horror tale.
At any rate, this is a rather lengthy explanation as to why, it did not bother or surprise me that much that they killed off Ianto. I'd say OMG they killed Ianto! Except, last season they killed off Tosh and Owen, for crying out loud. Also, sort of saw it coming. They needed to kill off a major character. Personally? I'm just relieved they didn't kill off Gwen or Rhys, who were my other two favorite regulars. Also, wasn't to be honest that much of an Ianto fan to begin with. Captain Jack had more chemistry with Captain John and Owen, in my opinion. (So no, it's not because I had problems with their relationship, I didn't. It actually was the only thing I liked about Ianto. The problem with Ianto was he didn't seem to have much to do outside of being Jack's love interest, which I'm sorry after a while gets a bit stale.) I won't miss him. And his death gave weight to the storyline, as well as progressed both Gwen and Jack's arcs. Jack makes a great speech about sacrifice, then proves when Ianto starts to die that it's all a bit of bs. "I take it back," he screams at the 456, "we'll sacrifice the children, just let him live." It's tragic. Jack as inadverently lived long enough to reap the rewards of his decision decades ago. A decision he had made with the best of intentions.
There's so much to talk about regarding this miniseries. On so many levels. Which is why it is so good. That's what good sci-fi does, it plays with your head, makes you rethink your views on things.
Here: we have the moral philosophy which we've heard before, many times on Doctor Who, voiced by a somewhat self-righteous Jack Harkness...who as we've seen has betrayed it.
"An injury to one is an injury to all. When we realize that, we are at our best."
Ianto shrugs it off and says, we won't trade the children to save ourselves. But I wonder if he or the politicians or even the 456 understand why we shouldn't? Perhaps the 456 actually do see why. After all they are literally using the children to sustain themselves, living in a symbiotic relationship with them. Not unsimilar to the hitchhiker that Ianto and Jack extract from inside the dead man on Day One. Stating - that the man died happy, paralyzed, but happy, and no pain. Just as the children are living. Sustained. Living longer than their natural life-span. We aren't hurting them.
But we can't spare 6 million or even 60 children. The female politician with her justifications and rationales - doesn't seem to get it. You don't know who will be the next Albert Einstein or Marie Curie or Barack Obama or Mother Teresa. No more than you know what stranger may save your life by pulling you back from crossing in front of a bus, or might get you a job, or help you get to the hospital. If that person is removed...your path may take a tragic turn. We can't see all the variables, all the shifts in time, all the possibilities, and we can't see how each person affects the time stream. Removing one is akin to removing a strand from an intricately woven tapestry - the tapestry unravels.
Nor can we choose who to give by class, education, race, or gender - because as history has shown, these catergories do not necessarily determine who will become a doctor, a thief, a killer, or a savior, etc. To assume such a thing makes us an ass. And an arrogant one at that.
But, the justifications and rationalizations by the politicians, supporting as they see it the only alternative available - are realistic. It makes sense. The 456 are right when they state - well you yeilded before when only 20% of your population was at risk, how many would you yeild if your entire population was at risk? You have a history of putting yourselves above others, putting your race's survival above everything else. And we can use that against you.
It is a dilemma. In Star Trek - they state : "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.." while in Doctor Who and Torchwood - they state, "An injury to one is an injury to all". Finding the flaw in Spock's logic. We are connected to one another. Our actions no matter how small do affect the lives of others. We just can't see how, our perception is far too limited in scope.
Captain Jack had no clue that his actions in 1965 could lead to Ianto's death, his grandson's captivity, and the crisis currently at hand. He thought that he was averting a crisis at the time, that he was saving the world. He put the needs of the many above the needs of the few.
And here, he's beginning to see what that means. Ianto's death brings it home to him. If Ianto had not died, I'm not sure Jack would have realized the true gravity of his actions in the past and now. It also continues to emphasize the horror of Jack's immortality. He can't die, but he can watch all those he loves die in various ways. It's something that is hard to understand until you've actually witnessed it - I witnessed it through my Granny's eyes - she had seen her husband, her daughter, her daughter's husband, both her sisters, and both their husbands, as well as friends and relatives die before her - she could not bear it any longer.
When is it my time, she used to ask. I see the same weariness in Jack Harkness as he talks to his adult daughter, Alice, keeping his distance. Because it is painful to get too close. Which is of course what happened with Ianto...he got close, but...kept parts hidden. As he tells Ianto, I've lived a long time, done far too many things to tell them all. And yes, they do come back to haunt him.
The politicians interestingly enough have no problems sacrificing other's children, it's their own and their families own that they can't. They aren't selfless. The right thing, the only thing that would make what they are doing just would be to sacrifice their own children first. And if they can't do that, then not to do it at all. People by and large, aren't knowingly self-less. We tend to protect our own above all else. But, that does not mean we aren't capable of self-less acts of courage - often without thinking. Gwen's act of courage regarding Tim McCleeand - the half-crazed man with a scared boy forever trapped inside.
Or Lois Freemore (sp?) - the PDA's act of courage - stepping up, going undercover for Torchwood, and taking a stand against the politician's at great risk to her own life.
Or Ianto's in pressing Jack to stand against the 456 even as he draws his last breath.
Sure, the trade seems simple enough. And as one politician puts it - coupled by the 456's arguments, it makes perfect sense. A Child dies every second of disease, in an accident, etc.
What difference does this make? Or as the politician states - it is population control. Just one child from each family. Think of it, we'll have over a billion before too long, we are depleting our resources...
And I remember thinking - so they are doing a culling. I hate to say this but similar justifications to the ones used in that room have been used to do similar things. The Holocaust. The Killing Fields. Sarajevho. Rwanda. The Trail of Tears. The Indian Wars.
Slavery in the US and abroad. Ethnic Cleansing. All you need do is google genocide and you'll see the statistics and then read the justifications. Even before these...there was human sacrifice - it exists in fairy tales, the Bible, all mythologies, and religious texts.
From Abrham sacrificing Jacob to the first born son being killed of each and every Egyptian in Egypt. The Greeks did it. The Romans. The Mayans. The Aztecs. The Celts. The Christians - worshipping their god crucified on a cross. The Jews. The Muslims. It is a constant. As one of the characters states in Day 4, just like old times, sacrificing a group of virgins to angry gods.
And...the reasons, all pretty much come down to - it is for the greater good. Except they forget, we don't know if the person we are sacrificing could be the very one who saves us all, who makes the world better somehow.
And who is God? Is God present? Doctor Rapesh (sp?) tells Gwen that one of the people who committed suicide did it because of an alien visitation. She felt insignificant. She'd been a devout Christian her entire life. But when she saw the alien, she felt science had finally won. That she was unimportant, insignificant, not much more than a grain of sand. And I remember thinking, what an egotistical and self-centered view. To worry about your own importance to such an extent. To believe that God's existence is based on that alone?
Isn't the vasititude of the universe proof that God exists? The fact that there are a multitude of species who think nothing like us? Why, I wonder, do people feel this need to personify God and to project themselves onto what lies beyond? Why are we so convinced that whatever lies out there thinks or acts or deducts like we do? And why do we believe God is anything like us or anything close? Seems sort of arrogant and egocentric to me, somehow.
Also, how do you know a grain of sand is insignificant? There may be a world living on that grain, impossible to see with the naked eye. To only believe in that which you yourself can see, touch, hear, perceive or understand - seems to be to be the height of egoism. I think we are limited in our preceptions, our minds are incapable of comprehending what lies outside of us. If we were to see the face of God, we would lose our minds ourselves. We've barely scratched the surface in understanding how we tick and what makes us tick, let alone anything else.
What I adore about sci-fi series like Torchwood is that the writers appear to get that. Doctor Who certainly gets that across. When Donna Noble gets a bit of The Doctor's brain or ability, her mind almost melts. She can't handle it. The knowledge is too much.
It's a big difference between American Sci-Fi and British Sci-Fi, and I'm wondering if the reason may be similar to the difference between Japaneses Sci-Fi and American? America is still a young country, built by the refugees and immigrants and miscreants and outcasts of others. Britian is ahead of America - it had been a super-power. The most powerful country on earth for quite a long time. And it is, if you think about it, quite an accomplishment considering how little in landmass and population. Goes to show you, size doesn't matter as much as one might think. From roughly the Elizabethan Age through the Victorian, England ruled the world. The Sun Never Set on The British Empire. That's the reason 80% of the world speaks English, and not, dare I say, with an American or Australian accent. But they lost their grip during the two World Wars, I and II. During that period of time, Japan was a super-power or came quite close to it. A force to be reckoned with. Then something happened. It happened in 1942, and it happened on Nagaski and Hiroshima. America dropped the atomic bomb and the world trembled. Now the British Empire is no more. Oh it exists in fragmented bits and peices. But mostly, it is reaping what it sowed, with immigrants from its many colonies flooding its shores. It has learned that conquest, imperialism, and colonialization aren't quite what they are cracked up to be. It has learned the hard way - that force can back-fire.
The country that once defined jingoism, now looks upon the Americans with much the same look a grandfather may bestow upon his grandson...who is making the mistakes he once made, with weary eyes.
Perfect examples of this difference in views can be seen by comparing Star Trek by JJ Abhrams to Doctor Who and Torchwood by Russell T. Davies. One is a fun roller-coaster action film that says little, like most of the American blockbusters to date, with the possible exception of the Dark Knight and maybe Iron Man. While the other is a dark cautionary tale, nightmarish in tone, and filled to the brim with political allegory.
I think one of the best things about the information age is the world has grown smaller. We no longer have the excuse to ignore each other. We get to see what is going on outside of our small backyard. And get inside the head of someone half a world away. As a result, we can learn from one another's mistakes. Torchwood plays with this idea. How England's isolation has hurt it. Not sharing information with the rest of the world. Setting itself apart.
Hiding what it has done. As a result it is the epicenter of the 456 and considered by the 456 to be little more than middlemen filled with self-importance. Our nationalism is our own enemy, it seems to be saying. Patriotism is good and well, until it becomes an obsession.
Like I said, so many things to talk about and I haven't even seen the conclusion yet. Going off to do that now. Then to bed.
Saw the first four episodes of Torchwood: Children of The Earth mini-series and am quite impressed. This may be amongst the best sci-fi miniseries that I've seen in quite some time. Particularly impressed with the range and importance of the female characters in this series. Russell T. Davies demonstrates that you can create strong, multi-faceted, non-sterotypical female characters that are not mere eye-candy in a science-fiction epic. (JJ Abrhams, please take notes. This is what Star Trek should have included and one the many reasons why the British Doctor Who and Torchwood tv series leaves Trek in the dust.) There are so many female leading characters that I can't decide which ones are my favorite - a rarity.
I adore Lois, Gwen, Alice and even the counter-terrorist agent assigned to kill Jack Harkness, who discovers what is really going on. Plus Ianto's sister. Well-rounded, three-dimensional, curves, and realistic looking women, not Hollywood models that you see on fashion magazines in sex kitten outfits. They wear slacks, they wear skirts, they can fight, they are vulnerable. And they are the leads. Jack and Ianto are in some respects second fiddle in this series, we see most of the action through Gwen's eyes and it is Gwen who remains the emotional centerpiece.
The story itself is tight. The plotting pitch perfect. And it evolves directly from the characters with no missteps. It is, however, like most science-fiction, a horror tale.
If you think about it - most science fiction and fantasy stories are horror. Sure they may have romance threaded within them, but in most cases they are horror morality tales - depicting a nightmarish what-if scenario. I have changed in my tastes. I am finding as I grow older, that I like the horror genre more and more. I find it oddly comforting. Not all horror, the slasher flicks and torture porn still repulse me. And try as I might, zombie films, books, and tv shows...don't hold much appeal outside of turning my stomach. I don't deal well with gore. Much prefer pyschological horror to gory horror. Give me Stanley Kubrick's The Shining over 28 Days or Day of the Dead. Or John Carpenter's Halloween over Wes Craven's gory Nightmare on Elm Street.
The only problem with horror is - that your characters are usually tortured and often die in horrible ways. Also it's not horrific if you don't care or love the character who died.
Character death doesn't bother me that much. I'm immune. Probably a side-effect of watching day-time soap operas and reading X-men comics - which kill off favorite characters frequently and without batting an eyelash. I more or less expect it and have gotten really good at predicting it way before it happens. Last season, Season 2, Torchwood, RTD killed off my favorite characters on the series. Tosh and Owen. I wasn't that crazy about any one else, except for maybe Gwen and Rhys. BSG also killed off my favorite character. As did Angel.
Did I whine? Did I complain? No. Well not really. Why? Because it furthered the storyline and made sense. It worked. And it was the story the writer wished to tell. If they had chosen to kill off Harry Potter at the end of that series- I would have been fine with it. Particularly since the story is to a degree a horror tale.
At any rate, this is a rather lengthy explanation as to why, it did not bother or surprise me that much that they killed off Ianto. I'd say OMG they killed Ianto! Except, last season they killed off Tosh and Owen, for crying out loud. Also, sort of saw it coming. They needed to kill off a major character. Personally? I'm just relieved they didn't kill off Gwen or Rhys, who were my other two favorite regulars. Also, wasn't to be honest that much of an Ianto fan to begin with. Captain Jack had more chemistry with Captain John and Owen, in my opinion. (So no, it's not because I had problems with their relationship, I didn't. It actually was the only thing I liked about Ianto. The problem with Ianto was he didn't seem to have much to do outside of being Jack's love interest, which I'm sorry after a while gets a bit stale.) I won't miss him. And his death gave weight to the storyline, as well as progressed both Gwen and Jack's arcs. Jack makes a great speech about sacrifice, then proves when Ianto starts to die that it's all a bit of bs. "I take it back," he screams at the 456, "we'll sacrifice the children, just let him live." It's tragic. Jack as inadverently lived long enough to reap the rewards of his decision decades ago. A decision he had made with the best of intentions.
There's so much to talk about regarding this miniseries. On so many levels. Which is why it is so good. That's what good sci-fi does, it plays with your head, makes you rethink your views on things.
Here: we have the moral philosophy which we've heard before, many times on Doctor Who, voiced by a somewhat self-righteous Jack Harkness...who as we've seen has betrayed it.
"An injury to one is an injury to all. When we realize that, we are at our best."
Ianto shrugs it off and says, we won't trade the children to save ourselves. But I wonder if he or the politicians or even the 456 understand why we shouldn't? Perhaps the 456 actually do see why. After all they are literally using the children to sustain themselves, living in a symbiotic relationship with them. Not unsimilar to the hitchhiker that Ianto and Jack extract from inside the dead man on Day One. Stating - that the man died happy, paralyzed, but happy, and no pain. Just as the children are living. Sustained. Living longer than their natural life-span. We aren't hurting them.
But we can't spare 6 million or even 60 children. The female politician with her justifications and rationales - doesn't seem to get it. You don't know who will be the next Albert Einstein or Marie Curie or Barack Obama or Mother Teresa. No more than you know what stranger may save your life by pulling you back from crossing in front of a bus, or might get you a job, or help you get to the hospital. If that person is removed...your path may take a tragic turn. We can't see all the variables, all the shifts in time, all the possibilities, and we can't see how each person affects the time stream. Removing one is akin to removing a strand from an intricately woven tapestry - the tapestry unravels.
Nor can we choose who to give by class, education, race, or gender - because as history has shown, these catergories do not necessarily determine who will become a doctor, a thief, a killer, or a savior, etc. To assume such a thing makes us an ass. And an arrogant one at that.
But, the justifications and rationalizations by the politicians, supporting as they see it the only alternative available - are realistic. It makes sense. The 456 are right when they state - well you yeilded before when only 20% of your population was at risk, how many would you yeild if your entire population was at risk? You have a history of putting yourselves above others, putting your race's survival above everything else. And we can use that against you.
It is a dilemma. In Star Trek - they state : "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.." while in Doctor Who and Torchwood - they state, "An injury to one is an injury to all". Finding the flaw in Spock's logic. We are connected to one another. Our actions no matter how small do affect the lives of others. We just can't see how, our perception is far too limited in scope.
Captain Jack had no clue that his actions in 1965 could lead to Ianto's death, his grandson's captivity, and the crisis currently at hand. He thought that he was averting a crisis at the time, that he was saving the world. He put the needs of the many above the needs of the few.
And here, he's beginning to see what that means. Ianto's death brings it home to him. If Ianto had not died, I'm not sure Jack would have realized the true gravity of his actions in the past and now. It also continues to emphasize the horror of Jack's immortality. He can't die, but he can watch all those he loves die in various ways. It's something that is hard to understand until you've actually witnessed it - I witnessed it through my Granny's eyes - she had seen her husband, her daughter, her daughter's husband, both her sisters, and both their husbands, as well as friends and relatives die before her - she could not bear it any longer.
When is it my time, she used to ask. I see the same weariness in Jack Harkness as he talks to his adult daughter, Alice, keeping his distance. Because it is painful to get too close. Which is of course what happened with Ianto...he got close, but...kept parts hidden. As he tells Ianto, I've lived a long time, done far too many things to tell them all. And yes, they do come back to haunt him.
The politicians interestingly enough have no problems sacrificing other's children, it's their own and their families own that they can't. They aren't selfless. The right thing, the only thing that would make what they are doing just would be to sacrifice their own children first. And if they can't do that, then not to do it at all. People by and large, aren't knowingly self-less. We tend to protect our own above all else. But, that does not mean we aren't capable of self-less acts of courage - often without thinking. Gwen's act of courage regarding Tim McCleeand - the half-crazed man with a scared boy forever trapped inside.
Or Lois Freemore (sp?) - the PDA's act of courage - stepping up, going undercover for Torchwood, and taking a stand against the politician's at great risk to her own life.
Or Ianto's in pressing Jack to stand against the 456 even as he draws his last breath.
Sure, the trade seems simple enough. And as one politician puts it - coupled by the 456's arguments, it makes perfect sense. A Child dies every second of disease, in an accident, etc.
What difference does this make? Or as the politician states - it is population control. Just one child from each family. Think of it, we'll have over a billion before too long, we are depleting our resources...
And I remember thinking - so they are doing a culling. I hate to say this but similar justifications to the ones used in that room have been used to do similar things. The Holocaust. The Killing Fields. Sarajevho. Rwanda. The Trail of Tears. The Indian Wars.
Slavery in the US and abroad. Ethnic Cleansing. All you need do is google genocide and you'll see the statistics and then read the justifications. Even before these...there was human sacrifice - it exists in fairy tales, the Bible, all mythologies, and religious texts.
From Abrham sacrificing Jacob to the first born son being killed of each and every Egyptian in Egypt. The Greeks did it. The Romans. The Mayans. The Aztecs. The Celts. The Christians - worshipping their god crucified on a cross. The Jews. The Muslims. It is a constant. As one of the characters states in Day 4, just like old times, sacrificing a group of virgins to angry gods.
And...the reasons, all pretty much come down to - it is for the greater good. Except they forget, we don't know if the person we are sacrificing could be the very one who saves us all, who makes the world better somehow.
And who is God? Is God present? Doctor Rapesh (sp?) tells Gwen that one of the people who committed suicide did it because of an alien visitation. She felt insignificant. She'd been a devout Christian her entire life. But when she saw the alien, she felt science had finally won. That she was unimportant, insignificant, not much more than a grain of sand. And I remember thinking, what an egotistical and self-centered view. To worry about your own importance to such an extent. To believe that God's existence is based on that alone?
Isn't the vasititude of the universe proof that God exists? The fact that there are a multitude of species who think nothing like us? Why, I wonder, do people feel this need to personify God and to project themselves onto what lies beyond? Why are we so convinced that whatever lies out there thinks or acts or deducts like we do? And why do we believe God is anything like us or anything close? Seems sort of arrogant and egocentric to me, somehow.
Also, how do you know a grain of sand is insignificant? There may be a world living on that grain, impossible to see with the naked eye. To only believe in that which you yourself can see, touch, hear, perceive or understand - seems to be to be the height of egoism. I think we are limited in our preceptions, our minds are incapable of comprehending what lies outside of us. If we were to see the face of God, we would lose our minds ourselves. We've barely scratched the surface in understanding how we tick and what makes us tick, let alone anything else.
What I adore about sci-fi series like Torchwood is that the writers appear to get that. Doctor Who certainly gets that across. When Donna Noble gets a bit of The Doctor's brain or ability, her mind almost melts. She can't handle it. The knowledge is too much.
It's a big difference between American Sci-Fi and British Sci-Fi, and I'm wondering if the reason may be similar to the difference between Japaneses Sci-Fi and American? America is still a young country, built by the refugees and immigrants and miscreants and outcasts of others. Britian is ahead of America - it had been a super-power. The most powerful country on earth for quite a long time. And it is, if you think about it, quite an accomplishment considering how little in landmass and population. Goes to show you, size doesn't matter as much as one might think. From roughly the Elizabethan Age through the Victorian, England ruled the world. The Sun Never Set on The British Empire. That's the reason 80% of the world speaks English, and not, dare I say, with an American or Australian accent. But they lost their grip during the two World Wars, I and II. During that period of time, Japan was a super-power or came quite close to it. A force to be reckoned with. Then something happened. It happened in 1942, and it happened on Nagaski and Hiroshima. America dropped the atomic bomb and the world trembled. Now the British Empire is no more. Oh it exists in fragmented bits and peices. But mostly, it is reaping what it sowed, with immigrants from its many colonies flooding its shores. It has learned that conquest, imperialism, and colonialization aren't quite what they are cracked up to be. It has learned the hard way - that force can back-fire.
The country that once defined jingoism, now looks upon the Americans with much the same look a grandfather may bestow upon his grandson...who is making the mistakes he once made, with weary eyes.
Perfect examples of this difference in views can be seen by comparing Star Trek by JJ Abhrams to Doctor Who and Torchwood by Russell T. Davies. One is a fun roller-coaster action film that says little, like most of the American blockbusters to date, with the possible exception of the Dark Knight and maybe Iron Man. While the other is a dark cautionary tale, nightmarish in tone, and filled to the brim with political allegory.
I think one of the best things about the information age is the world has grown smaller. We no longer have the excuse to ignore each other. We get to see what is going on outside of our small backyard. And get inside the head of someone half a world away. As a result, we can learn from one another's mistakes. Torchwood plays with this idea. How England's isolation has hurt it. Not sharing information with the rest of the world. Setting itself apart.
Hiding what it has done. As a result it is the epicenter of the 456 and considered by the 456 to be little more than middlemen filled with self-importance. Our nationalism is our own enemy, it seems to be saying. Patriotism is good and well, until it becomes an obsession.
Like I said, so many things to talk about and I haven't even seen the conclusion yet. Going off to do that now. Then to bed.
