Torchwood Season 3 - Children of the earth: Day four
Added 2022-10-23 14:00:06 +0000 UTCDecisions, decisions, decisions.....
Comments
Well.... Yes I made it trough this episode. Kinda :D
Nicologik
2022-10-29 14:22:12 +0000 UTCNico! I'm so glad you made it through day 5, I was so worried about you!
monguru (Rose Tyler fan)
2022-10-24 18:11:28 +0000 UTCThat´s a coincidence, that you watch exactly those episodes during the COVID lockdown. I am relieved though, that our politicians didn´t get the chance to decide to either sacrifice a number of children or keeping the virus on our planet. Sometimes it´s good if stuff like this only happens on TV. Oh thank you for telling me about Nicholas Briggs. That´s a very cool info :) The whole episode feels so real. But all of the child scenes make it so much worse. They picked the perfect victims for this story. Oh yes, that´s right. We had the "Trolley Problem" in "Fires of Pompeii" before. But this one felt so much harder to be honest. It´s true, there weren´t many other options to begin with. What bugged me though, was the fact that they didn´t even think about other possibilities. They could have worked with our Torchwood team and UNIT instead of doing it all on their own. Thank you for calculating the number for the Trolley problem. Wow....190 people. That makes the problem so much worse. I don´t know how to feel about that. Yes it´s true. The fact that millions of children do die every day. But the alines didn´t want those kids, the ones that would die tomorrow. But they wanted all sorts of children. Even the ones that would have a whole life still ahead of them. That is what makes the difference for me. And also the one thing is nature, and the other one is murder. Also a big difference. That´s what I would have replied to the 456. WAIT....WHAT??? There´s a shrine for Ianto, for real??? Wow that is so cool. That just gave me the goosebumbs. WOW :) Oh I just watched the Torchwood finale yesterday. Because I couldn´t find the courage to watch the Dr. Who finale. So I will watch them in the right order :) Haha that Werewolf picture doesn´t want to be there. I fixed it so many times by now, it just falls of again and again. It drives me crazy :D :D
Nicologik
2022-10-24 12:58:43 +0000 UTCOh yes, you´re absolutely right. It´s just cruel. It´s a difficult decision. I really don´t know what I would do, if it happened to me. Yes that could be a 3rd option. For me, there is almost always a 3rd option. But the politicians didn´t even want to think about one.
Nicologik
2022-10-24 12:05:03 +0000 UTCRight, there´s the second part of that "test". It´s true, that makes it so much worse. I have never thought about that. Thank you for drawing my attention to that second part. :) I don´t know what I would do, to be honest. I agree, this is what I said while watching the finale. That this would not be the final demand from them, but rather for a few years. Thank you for telling me about your thoughts. Its´a complicated topic and I don´t think I would ever be able to decide such a thing. I´m glad this is "just" a TV show, and it might never happen in reality. But if it would, I think it would be exactly how it´s portrayed in this episode.
Nicologik
2022-10-24 12:02:42 +0000 UTCDuring my Who-Universe marathon, it turned out I was re-watching exactly these "Children of Earth" episodes in 2020 during the country's COVID lockdown. A question that occurred, and you posed it too, was if a virus cure were offered to the world then would we give up 12 children to get it as they did in 1965? Interesting choice for the planet. One of the people in the government meeting room was played by Nicholas Briggs. Nicholas Briggs has been in many, many New Who episodes. He is the off-screen voice actor for all of the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Judoon, the ..., lots of things. It's nice for him to get a part on-screen now. The child in the chamber - that makes everything very real, doesn't it? I was trying to recall where I had previously mentioned the "trolley problem" in the Who-Universe. Of course it was "The Fires of Pompeii" where the Doctor and Donna had to choose between the people of the city of Pompeii and the whole world. Obviously, I know what happens in the final Torchwood episode, but just considering the dilemma presented to us as at Day Four: sacrifice 35 million children to save 6700 million people, with no other possible option. What do you do? That's a much larger ratio than sacrificing 1 person to save just 5 people - it works out as sacrificing 1 person to save 190 people. Imagine a standard trolley problem but with 190 people on the track about to be run over vs 1 person on the alternate track. If you ever decided to pull the lever to save only 5, the same calculation says you should certainly pull the lever and save 190. The 456 make the point that millions of children die annually but because it just happens in the background we choose to ignore it. Not an original thought in Who - an enemy alien made the same point in one of the Classic Who stories. Finally, there's a spot in Cardiff, for which I have avoided the general area with the location quizzes in case a little info flag popped up: https://goo.gl/maps/kUkLEp7fKhh3Zj9r9 If you have the opportunity, I would recommend watching the final Torchwood episode before the last Doctor Who special. That, of course, was the order they were transmitted. Oh, I notice that the werewolf picture has been fixed.
Andrew Vignaux
2022-10-24 08:48:35 +0000 UTCI understand that most people would change the direction of the train by switching it to a different track so it only killed one person rather than five. But if they are asked whether they would actually push a large person in front of the train to stop it in its tracks, almost everyone says no. Apart from psychopaths who can't see the problem. With the dilemma in the show, I think my attitude would be that if the aliens came back for millions after being given 11 or 12 than agreeing to the new demand would not be an end to the matter. Plus the ides of handing over millions of children seems so monstrous that I just can't imagine sanctioning it. Of course that is very easy for me to say because I am not faced with the reality that the same aliens will kill us all if we refuse. Maybe I would be swayed if it was the actual choice I was facing but the larger part of me says we should stand or fall together. As before, an incredibly tense and difficult episode to watch but as before there is more to come...
Stephen Males
2022-10-23 20:46:11 +0000 UTCSomeone wrote in a comment that Doctor Who sometimes tears your heart out. Torchwood, on the other hand (this season), chews it up and spits it out afterwards... In the dilemma, I would like to intervene, but of course I might freeze, since I have never been in such a situation in my real life. PS We were already asked a similar question at a group session, but it was easier for me to solve because I found a 3rd option... Of course, there is very rarely a 3rd option, maybe another deus in machina (Rose/Bad Wolf) solution is in order...
monguru (Rose Tyler fan)
2022-10-23 15:46:30 +0000 UTC
