Torchwood: Children of Earth

I meant to blog something about this after it aired, but didn’t get round to it. So when Leah needed a quick review I thought I’d write something on it:

Review: Torchwood – Children of Earth
This five part miniseries, shown on consecutive nights over the course of a week, was a new format for Torchwood, the Dr Who spin-off series, bringing it to BBC1 and prime-time viewing for the first time after 2 seasons of relative obscurity in the listings. The teaser trailer pulled in large numbers of viewers for a slice of well-scripted, intelligent sci-fi written for the Spooks generation, where half the battle is fought against your own government.
The series really delivered, however, on the premise behind Torchwood as a series – this was Sci-fi for adults, with a decidedly different tone from Dr Who’s more family-friendly happy endings. As the series progressed it became clear that simple heroism wasn’t going to be enough to save the day, and the characters were left to make the second-best and last-resort choices that this sort of story usually doesn’t show people making. John Barrowman’s Captain Jack has never seemed more morally ambiguous, and the story went to extreme lengths to demonstrate that a man who cannot die can, in consequence, suffer a good deal more than any normal human being should. Gratifyingly, however, his suffering was not allowed to exonerate him from blame for the horrific choices he came to make.
Ultimately, as the subtitle suggests, this was a story about children. How we protect them, what value we place upon them, the things we sacrifice for them and the reasons we might make a sacrifice of them. The biggest underlying question was whether it is ever right to treat them as objects (whether that be drugs, ‘units’, or transmitters). Any TV series, Sci-fi or otherwise, that starts seriously exploring those issues is worth watching. The more so if, admirably, it refuses to close them with a ‘happy ever after’.

Angels & Demons

We’ve been doing an occasional film & discussion group at church, and we did Da Vinci code recently, which was fun, and gave me an excuse to get history nerdy and point out where things went far adrift of reality. Anyway, as A & D was just being released in the cinema we took a group to go and see it. I’ve been reading the book too. Well, the film was fun (and actually hangs together better than Da Vinci Code – once again the preposterous plot is ably assisted on its way by a very capable supporting cast) but I’m now unsure whether it’s worth meeting up for a discussion of it. There just doesn’t seem to be much to discuss from the film. As presented, the whole science & religion thing is distinctly downplayed, the Illuminati are a bit of a red herring, and the Catholic church do kind of what you’d expect them to do in the circumstances (with the exception of one character, the weirdness of whom is fairly central to the story). All in all, the church come fairly well out of it – given the feather-ruffling caused by Da Vinci Code Brown presents a suprisingly humane and sympathetic church here.

So, a bit of fun with not much real food for thought. That’s what I thought, however, until I finished reading the book. Now, I’m not a huge Dan Brown fan, and I feel at this point obliged to have a rant about his novels, so you may find it easiest to skip to the next paragraph when I’ve got this off my chest. He does just enough research to make the inaccuracies he includes very plausible to the innocent reader, and as a natural sensationaliser of history he tends towards the most entertaining and shocking interpretations of events. And (especially in the case of TDVC) the images he is presenting will linger long in people’s minds. The blue-tinted ‘history’ images from that film, depicting events that never happened will have an impact on the popular imagination that will not easily be undone. Just when Pagans were starting to concede that the myth of the Burning Times was exactly that, Dan Brown firmly underlines it in people’s minds. He’s also not the greatest writer. Robert Langdon has more than a touch of Mary Sue about him. He’s a good-looking sophisticated, witty, wealthy, Harvard professor with a world-wide reputation, seems to attract sexy smart women, and is also incredibly physically fit and a former champion swimmer… Then there’s the fact that Brown appears to only have one plot: academic is murdered with arcane symbols on his body, leaving a smart and sexy orphaned daughter to accompany Robert Langdon in following a series of clues in which they are hampered by a policeman who looks like a bad guy but turns out to be a good guy, and helped by a guardian angel who looks like a good guy but turns out to be the bad guy who has manipulated the whole thing. Oh, and they dodge some really weird psycho assassin on the way. I can only guess that it was to avoid making the overlap too obvious that Hollywood chose not to make the love interest the victim’s daughter this time, and made the assassin a conventional hitman for hire rather than a sadistic descendant of the cult of Hassassins (that and the fact that no-one wants to add a murderous muslim character just for ‘colour’ these days).

Anyway, I wasn’t overly impressed by the book as a piece of writing, but I did find the handling of the science/religion thing a lot more interesting than they chose to present it on screen. Although the villain is clearly nuts, he has a definite grasp of some interesting tensions between the church and modernity, understood in a more subtle form than is normally the case. The science/religion debate is often presented as being simply a clash between competing world-views, between rationality and superstition or faith and godlessness depending on your position. Commendably, Brown steers clear of this. He makes much of the fact that the two have never been entirely separate. Vetra is priest and scientist, seeking to prove God’s existence with science. And Janus is not a stereotypical advocate of religion alone. He embraces technology and progress. His issues are more subtle (though disturbingly he still feels drawn to take extreme measures to fight for them): the rate of scientific progress being allowed to outstrip growth in moral reflection, and a scientific mindset that encourages a search for answers even when reverent appreciation of mystery may be more appropriate. His problem is actually one of pace: the sense that the rate of scientific progress is pushing human beings beyond their ability to morally develop, that we are literally rushing in where angels fear to tread. This is a not uncommon feeling. Setting aside the trappings of the thriller (not many people feeling like this decide the answer is to provoke a war between science and religion by killing a few cardinals and threatening to blow up the Vatican), this is something well worth exploring.

It is certainly true that the pace of scientific and technological progress is accelerating. Moral codes and legal frameworks struggle to keep pace with scientific development that sometimes raises genuinely new questions: eg what is the moral status of life created from human genetic material but which is not in itself capable of becoming human life? It is likewise true that as a species we seem to find inventing ways to destroy easier than inventing ways to heal or create. Environmental issues as well as the legacy of warfare have left us very aware of the consequences of immoral and thoughtless applications of science in our world. In many ways the whole ‘modern world slipping further away from morality’ idea rings true. But there are some hidden assumptions in this line of argument, however congenial it may seem. Not least of these is that science is not permanently wedded to the idea that there is a single comprehensible answer to everything.

So, there’s probably something to discuss, but only if people have read the book, and to be honest I’m not sure I could in all conscience force people to do it…

And another thing… (The trouble with working women)

I’m clearly on a roll here. Thought I’d jot down a few reflections on a brilliant two part documentary on BBC2 I managed to catch most of: The trouble with working women. Managed to pull off the neat trick of wading into hugely controversial waters, remaining light and entertaining, and raising really important thought-provoking issues, even if ultimately I’m not sure they were the ones the programme makers thought they were raising. It turns out that the trouble is less with working women, and more with working mothers. To conclude, as they did, by reflecting on whether women can ‘have it all’ and concluding it was all about women multi-tasking where men focused just on career seemed a step back from the level of reflection they’d actually achieved during the documentary, where one of the most acute questions posed was why female surgeons seemed to rise to the top of their profession at the expense of a family life, whereas the top male surgeon they interviewed spoke candidly about the anti-social hours he worked yet had a large family. The unspoken answer to the question seemed to be ‘yes, you can have it all, as long as your wife is prepared to run around like a headless chicken keeping all the balls in the air while you do it’.

The whole thing was full of suprising convention-challenging moments. The things that stayed with me were one of the founders of Spare Rib noting that they got it badly wrong because none of them had children; the suprisingly reactionary founder of the women’s refuge movement asking why we’re obsessed with senior executive posts when trying to evaluate whether we have equality in society or not; and the female executive of a small business stating tat she wouldn’t hire women of childbearing age because they’re inherently risky- likely to disappear on maternity leave, and that business would fight paternity leave provision tooth and nail because they need men of that age to continue to be predictable at being in work irrespective of having a family.

I was left wondering if the real issue was parenthood and why it is that women are socially conditioned to be the ones left holding the baby when the music stops. Can things change? Yes, with enlightened employers like the one they showcased, which basically takes the line that their staff are their prime resource and selling point to the customer, so staff retention is a high priority. On that basis they offer 9 months paid maternity leave, encourage flexible working, reduction of hours to work around childcare commitments, and do all of this with no negative impact on promotion prospects. The female executive they spoke to said when she was promoted to her current post she was pregnant and working part-time. Now if only we could encourage the church to put it’s money where it’s mouth is and follow best industry practice…

And as with the fight for equality for women within the church, I suspect focusing on top jobs and glass ceilings really misses the point. The issues that effect most women are bullying and harrasment and institutional issues connected with maternity leave and childcare. Counting how many women bishops there aren’t misses the point.

Mark

Fairtrade Clergy Shirts: initial review

Well I received my shirt from butler and butler just a week ago now and I have to say that I am VERY impressed! After a bit of a disaster with another company whose shirts were just HUGE despite being made to measure (and yes I lost weight but not THAT much!) and the buttons will not stay closed despite the shirts being large on me even after I paid more to have them adjusted (cheap and nasty buttons) I was feeling doomed to always look like a man. However the shirts from Butler and butler fits will, it does not have huge shoulders and the cotton suprised me lots! Often fairly traded cotton is thin and would wear fast but this stuff is lovely cotton. It feels excellent in quality.

SO the shirt fits well, it’s good quality both fabric and buttons and it is very affordable! I will be ordering some more! I’ll add a pictures asap.

Here are the pictures.  I wish I hadn’t put weight on over Christmas! I blame the MIL’s visist