Some thoughts about Torchwood

[SiHart]

I found myself buying the new Radio Times with its Torchwood cover today. Oh this looks quite exciting I thought to myself and I'm quite looking looking forward to it... but for the life of me I couldn't understand why.

I've never quite known what to make of Torchwood. I think there's huge potential in the series but aside from the odd glimpse of some magic, it hasn't come anywhere close to meeting that potential. It's a series I enjoy when it's on, but it's not one that I've ever felt like rewatching since it's first run and indeed there's probably still one episode from the first series I haven't seen.

I think the main problem is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. It comes across as a bit schizophrenic at times- caught between wanting to do alien invasions and psycological dramas and being adult and being an adolescent idea of what being adult is and it hasn't ever decided where it should be pitched so it changes from week to week. In many respects season 2 was a huge leap froward from season 1, but it still didn't feel like it'd quite got there.

I'm hoping it will find its feet as its own show rather standing in the shadows of all the other shows its wanted to be before.... we'll see.

But what do you think?

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

I actually quite like Torchwood, but I wish it would actually move further away from Doctor Who instead of closer. Season 1 wasn't perfect, but I think overall I preferred it to season 2 - the latter was slightly less 'edgy' (if that's the right word) and seemed to be far more similar in style to Who. I know there's the link of Captain Jack, which is both a blessing & a curse, but I really hope that (a) it gets a fourth season; and (b) now that Moffat's in charge of Who, RTD (or whoever) gets on with Torchwood on its own merits, and severs its links with Who.

Torchwood still managed to have a wide range of stories in both seasons, so that you never quite knew what you were going to get each week, but for a 9pm show it could have gone further I think. I don't mean the F-word, which pops up from time to time but just seems so false, and I don't mean blood & gore (Cyberwoman had that in spades, but it was such a rubbish episode). But just, for example, something a bit more moody (a la Waking the Dead for example) but still with its own style & identity. The 'pre-watershed edited versions' for season 2 were a big mistake (IMHO) because effectively that means they're planning to tell a story where anything excessively violent/scary/rude is superfluous, because the story can function perfectly well without it. That's surely a huge (and bizarre) handicap for any TV show.

I'm looking forward to next week, though, and I hope it's worth the wait.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Hi Si - I think you've hit the nail on the head for me with Torchwood there. Some episodes have been awful, but some not too bad at all. But it is a bit messy. The first season was plagued with a few too many "Gwen don't touch that switch ... whoops you've let out the monster of the week".

One issue I have with it though is it's a spin off of Doctor Who. One of the fundamental tennants of Doctor Who is his revulsion of guns and violence. But in Torchwood, they're trigger happy as hell. I think Jack shoots his load off more times than in contemporary shows like X-Files or Fringe.

[Andrew Curnow]

Just going back to this, post-CoE. I'm sure I read somewhere that RTD would like to carry on with Torchwood, but to have more crossovers with Who. IMHO, that's the worst possible thing they could do - CoE seemed to make really good inroads into establishing 'a world of its own' that it can only be diluted by mingling with Who.