YMMV / Torchwood: Children of Earth

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The 456: really Extra Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, or just bluffing? They clearly do have advanced virology, but we never see any other technology, and the only physical defense they rely on was mundane bulletproof glass. Making all the children of Earth speak in unison isn't much more impressive than what the Sycorax did, and they were bluffing. This ambiguity only makes the story even more tragic, but left some viewers wondering if UNIT or the British government had really tried everything before surrendering.
  • Also, the 456 as a whole: Complete Monster, Blue-and-Orange Morality or Psychopathic Manchild? Or just high?
  • Or even worse, what if the 456 Ambassador was the only individual responsible for the entire incident? A junkie who'd conned the entire Human race into supplying him with children under threat of the rest of his species, who might have no idea what he was up to?! Much like the Slitheen are to the Raxacoricofallapatorians, this could be simply one bad egg in an otherwise peaceful species?!
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Most of the cast and crew felt that reducing the series to five episodes and moving it to what was widely considered a graveyard slot would result in it not being a major success. As it turns out, Children of Earth garnered very respectable ratings, is widely regarded as the best out of the four Torchwood seasons, and is considered by some to be one of Russell T Davies's finest works.
• Broken Base: Ianto's death (and/or the way it was handled) and whether Jack's actions were justifiable in context.
• Complete Monster: The Ambassador is a member of a race of Starfish Aliens called the 456 who incorporate prepubescent children into their physiology, as their bodies produce hormones that act as euphoric drugs to the 456. The children are kept as perpetually-childlike human reefers, one child shown as having been rendered hairless and immobile as a result of forty years of being used as a drug by the 456. After initial negotiations under falsely benevolent pretenses in 1965, the Ambassador returns in 2009 and bargains with the British government to take ten percent of the world's children under the threat of wiping out all humanity; to prove its power, the Ambassador unleashes a lethal virus throughout the Thames House that leads to the death of almost everyone inside, including Ianto Jones. Expressing callous disregard for the living beings it is harvesting, The Ambassador is reflective of Torchwood's darker nature and is one of the most disgustingly evil villains to ever disgrace the Whoniverse.
• Die for Our Ship: Gwen is perceived as getting in the way of Jack/Ianto, especially after Ianto's death.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Johnson earned herself quite a few fans during the run of the miniseries, to the extent where some were genuinely upset that she didn't appear nor get mentioned in Miracle Day. Said fans are usually quite happy to overlook the fact that one of the first things we see her do is casually murder Dr. Patanjali simply because he was no longer useful.
• Fridge Horror: The 456's atmosphere consists mostly of chemicals that severely irritate the skin and eyes. The children they enslave are given oxygen to breathe but are otherwise fully exposed to these gases. Even if the 456 is sincere when it says that using the children as drugs causes them no pain, they would be in constant and terrible pain from the air itself.
• Growing the Beard: The general feeling by anyone not already a long-term fan is that this is where the series not only grew the beard but then proceeded to beat up the shark until it begged for mercy. A few long-term fans were in uproar over the killing of one of the favoured if not favourite characters in the series. Others think this just makes the beard longer by living up to the Anyone Can Die reputation.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Later on Day Five, there's Bridget Spears' monologue about John Frobisher, in which she says that no matter how history chooses to remember him, he "was a good man." Earlier in Gwen's monologue, she theorizes that the reason the Doctor doesn't save humanity from every disaster that comes upon it is because he's seen how evil humans can be; "Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame." Eventually, there will be a markedly Anti Heroic Doctor who wonders if he is a good man or not in his efforts to help others, especially humans...who has the face of an Anti-Villain, a good man, who could not bear the shame and evil of one of Earth's darkest hours.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: It's impossible to take Gwen's "Where is the Doctor" angst at the beginning of Day Five seriously anymore, seeing how Peter Capaldi, cast as the Twelfth Doctor years later, is walking around playing another character.
• Moral Event Horizon: The 456 when we find out what they do to the children.
  • Prime Minister Green, when he orders Frobisher, his most loyal ally, to sacrifice his own children to the 456.
    • "I'm sorry John. I'm really very sorry...and I'm really very busy."
  • The ministers of the government choosing to protect their own children no matter what and then taken even further when they all agree to sacrifice the poor and disadvantaged children to save the respectable middle class ones. Though they still don't end being as unsympathetic as Green, since they at least admit to their bias and aren't exactly happy about their actions.

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