♦With reservations, I recommend Torchwood: Children of Earth, the BBC miniseries (technically a season of Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood) that aired recently on BBC America and is available on iTunes. It’s a suspenseful and unusually pointed dramatization of some ethical quandaries, but despite many believable and affecting performances, is not so impressive in its development of character or in its actual exploration of the dilemmas it poses. Yet it’s quite refreshing to encounter science fiction focusing more on ideas than on action. Further, in part by leaving the agenda of the aliens mysterious until near the end of the narrative, the writers create a milieu of foreboding that is intense and yet murky. The more viscerally suspenseful elements, deriving mostly from violence, chases, surveillance, and the like, are achieved through conflict among the human characters; this was an interesting and in some ways satisfying approach. On the other hand, while the aliens were not made into cartoonish villains—they have clear motivations—they serve more as objects of fear than as agents with complex motives and experiences. Alien psychology is an inherently interesting topic and we don’t see it explored here.
♦I missed a couple episodes of Nurse Jackie but I caught Monday’s. I like the direction things seem to be taking: Jackie is experiencing greater difficulty negotiating her relationship issues, parenting role, and drug issues. I’m thinking, now, that it was important to show her intelligence, caring, and competence in the early episodes, so that the challenges she is facing now would seem consequential. She has something to lose.
♦The Dollhouse season one DVDs, of course, are out. I loved “Epitaph One” but I have reservations about it as well. That, however, will have to wait for later in the week.
