I’ve got it from the library for a week so I think I’ll wind up watching it again. It sure got to DVD in a hurry. Wikipedia states it just aired in July. Gone are the days of waiting nine months or more for a show to be buyable. Love it.
Anyway, without revealing too much plot (Wiki’s got the whole thing, though), I think what I liked best about it were the ethical conundrums everyone faces when the alien race known only as 456 comes to Earth and demands the collection of ten percent of the world’s children. To show their refusal to accept a fraction of that, they release a quick acting virus in the MI5 building which kills everyone and make it clear that they could kill everyone in the world should their demands not be met.
One minor flaw in that plan that occurred to me – isn’t Earth the only planet with humans on them? Given what it turns out they need these kids for, it would be akin to a meth addict blowing up the only lab in town. Then where are you going to get your fix, dummy? Unless their first visit in 1965 was for the purpose of something like a wine tasting party. Get a taste of humanity, see how it compares to other species out there, come back for more later if earthlings turn out to be best in the universe.
Yay us.
So, the ethics here. Aliens come demanding children. Again. A precedent was set back in the ’60s when it was agreed to give them twelve children in exchange for what they claimed was a cure to a strain of the flu. The humans involved were led to believe that these kids would be granted eternal life, which I guess made it okay. Now, the PM of Great Britain graciously kicks responsibility down a peg and makes a civil servant the diplomatic go-between for Earth and the 456. This poor bugger is the one who has to tell the PM, the Americans and the UN what’s what.
Then all the talking heads get their heads around a talkie table and debate their choices. The 456 have demanded 10% of kids from every country so which British kids should go? It’s eventually decided to base the choice on standardized ratings for schools and the worst schools “win”. To encourage participation in this venture, they lie to the country, claiming the kids are getting inoculations. Then they’ll lie to the country again when the aliens take the children away, and claim they had no idea that would happen.
(I found myself wondering if in the States some fundie group would mistake the mystery of children speaking in unison as the angelic host speaking through children, and choosing children to be first to walk into the holy light of rapture. Then after all the fundie parents joyfully sent their kids up to be the equivalent of alien crack, the truth would come out that they’d been wrong…)
Even if they did allow these aliens to take so many kids this time, there’s no reason to believe they’d never come for more. Add to that all the secrecy and lies required to pull it off – millions of kids in one fell swoop? How did anyone think they’d collect all those kids without the truth getting out? Craziness.
Of course, the heart goes out to this poor civil servant who’s been given this really shitty task. He’s worked there for years, keeping his head down, doing his job and what reward awaits him? The PM informs him that he’s going to be the political face on this and his kids are going to be televised on the way to school…
The heart also winds up going out to Captain Jack Harkness. He’s the only one still alive who gave those kids to the 456 the first time they were here and he’s not going to let them leave the planet with millions of children now. Especially since he knows what’s planned for them.
Jack also knows he has the means this time to stop them, but to do it requires a painful sacrifice on his part. He has to risk killing a child he loves in exchange for the chance to save the lives of millions of strangers.
He can’t not do it because the alternative is unacceptable.
Isn’t that the basis for a thought experiment or something? Can you do a horrible thing if it will stop something even more horrible from happening? Could you live with yourself if you do? If you don’t?
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