So the plan was to blog about each episode but this is proving to be impossible to keep up with so I thought with Torchwood I could blog about each season as a whole which gives me time to catch up. The only problem with this is that as the first season of Torchwood comes to an end it is interuppted by the Doctor Who Christmas episode of 2006 and the beginning of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Therefore this blog enty covers only the first 11 episodes of Torchwood Season 1 and the final 2 episodes will be covered separately. It's so nice when a plan comes together.
As a spin off Torchwood is a little bizarre. Doctor Who is primarily a family show and therefore you would expect that any related spin offs would be equally family friendly but this is far from that! This is an adult show in every sense.
The first episode sees a normal police office, Gwen Cooper getting lured into the world of Torchwood when she witnesses the team bringing a corpse back to life in order to quiz him about his killer. Plenty of swearing here which feels really jarring when you think this is related to Doctor Who. It's interesting to note though that Captain Jack never swears which I've got to think wasn't an accident. They couldn't really have Jack swearing like a trooper here when he'd been clean mouthed in Doctor Who.
Speaking of Jack, its here that we discover that Rose has really screwed him over when she brought him back to life at the end of The Parting Of The Ways. Now he is immortal, demonstrated rather successfully when Suzie goes rouge and ends up shooting Jack through the head, only for him to stand up again! He tells Gwen that he is hoping his problem will be solved when he finds "the right kind of doctor".
The second episode takes the adult nature of the show to further extremes where we have a sec crazed alien possessing a young woman and making her have sex with as many men as possible causing them to dissolve into dust whilst she feeds off their orgasmic energy! All this from the same show that brought you The Macra Terror, good grief!!
It seems very much like the writers know the limits have been taken away from them and so they have gone absolutely crazy! But its almost like leaving kids alone with a jar of sweets, they will eat them all and make themselves sick without a parent there telling them when they've had enough. I'm not sure that that metaphor makes sense, I'm very tired!
Captain Jack has a mysterious severed hand which is stored in a bubbling jar of liquid... I wonder whose hand that is..
I guess I should have mentioned exactly who the Torchwood team are. First we have Captain Jack, we already know who he is. We then have Gwen who is the latest recruit to Torchwood and its through her that we discover all about this crazy world. Then there's Owen who is the doctor of the team and to be honest is a bit of an arsehole. It doesn't take him long before him and Gwen are having an affair whilst Gwen's poor boyfriend Rhys doesn't even know what her new job entails! Then we have Toshiko who is probably the most sympathetic character. She is the computer expert and harbours unrequited feelings for Owen, more fool her! The final member of the team is Ianto. His role seems to be pretty much as Jacks personal assistant. Oh and he has a half converted cyber girlfriend who he is hiding in the basement. We've all done something daft like that.
The series is set in Cardiff, where the rift in space and time as first mentioned in The Unquiet Dead is dumping a load of alien junk into the city.
Many people said that Russell T Davies had a "gay agenda" when writing Doctor Who. Now that is utter nonsense. It's just that as a gay man himself he was obviously more willing to include a character that reflected his view of the world. In Torchwood, this is turned up to 11! Jack is omnisexual (he will do anyone and anything!) but every single team member has a gay kiss at some point in this series. And that's great to be honest. One day we will hopefully live in a world where these things won't even be an issue. But I should get off my soap box now.
I must admit to enjoying these episodes more than I expected. It made a nice change from Doctor Who whilst still holding on to some of the same ideas so as to at least feel slightly familiar.
Oh and one more piece of information. Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who. I've done my work and now you leave this blog a wiser and better person.
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