'Morning after' reaction post to Torchwood 3.5

[unfeathered]

Like a lot of people, it seems, I feel let down and betrayed by CoE ep 5. Okay, I didn't expect everything to end up perfect, but I did expect my Torchwood team to save the world. And they didn't. They might have killed the baddie in the end, but they left thousands and thousands of kids and their parents traumatised and the world, presumably, in political turmoil. The world would not be the same afterwards, which means they did not save it.

I don't actually have a problem with the character of Jack sacrificing his grandson to get rid of the aliens. That's fine; it's the sort of thing Jack *would* do. What I *do* have a problem with is the fact that the writers decided to make it *necessary* for him to do it. Because that didn't have to be the story. They could have had him save everyone with just the other children singing. And then we could have actually smiled at the end, a little.

The same with Frobisher and his kids. That storyline was unnecessary too. God knows, there was enough angst in this episode without having to watch him lose all hope and go home to kill his family and himself. Especially knowing that it was unecessary because of course all the children would in fact be safe.

As for the scenes of all the school children being herded into buses by scary soldiers while their teachers and parents looked on in anguish, and of the kids staring out of the bus windows crying, and of them all standing there inside a circle of soldiers looking tiny and scared, and of the soldiers breaking into people's homes and carrying off their kids, and their parents (and Andy - loved that!) fighting back and inevitably getting crushed, and Rhiannon and her bunch of kids running for their lives being chased by fucking scary soldiers, watching the soldiers catch up with them... Those images are not leaving my mind any time soon.

This episode should have come with parental warnings: do not watch if you have children. (Especially children who look like Stephen.)

And even at the end, there was no hope. Somehow, six months had passed with no indication of what had been happening - how the world had changed, if the government had changed, if Gwen had been still trying to save people in lieu of there being an actual Torchwood to do it - and Jack's back for two seconds and then he runs away! What is he, the bloody Doctor? Again, yes, in character (for how he was a couple of thousand years ago, anyway) but was it really necessary? Couldn't we have at least had the hope that the two/three of them were rebuilding Torchwood again?

One tiny moment of glee in the midst of all that gloom - Jack's wristband! Thank god for that!

But what now? Is Doctor Who going too deal with the backlash of what's happened here? Both to the world, and to Jack? Because if it doesn't, then I'm going to find it hard to believe they're the same universe.