Revisiting Torchwood: first impressions
The first in a new weekly series of themed Torchwood look-backs, Andrew remembers the Cardiff team's arrival on screen...
Before Children of Earth - even before Wilfred Mott - came Torchwood. It was a brand new Doctor Who spin-off, the first one made for television since 1981's K9 and Company.
Unlike K9 and Company, words like 'dark', 'wild', and 'sexy' were being used to describe Torchwood. For Russell T Davies this was a chance to create drama in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a post-watershed audience, based loosely on an idea he'd developed before becoming the showrunner of Doctor Who. After making that a hit, he was able to realise his ambition, but due to the prohibitive workload involved he was forced to delegate responsibility. Enter Chris Chibnall.
Torchwood would proceed unevenly under their supervision. Initially unsure of itself, it wasn't until its second series that the storytelling became more assured and confident. Then Children of Earth came along and everything changed once again. Post-Miracle Day, Torchwood's fate now rests in the busy brain of Russell T Davies.
It was hard to predict such a situation from Torchwood's pilot episode, Everything Changes. It introduced us to a group of unpleasant, awkward people that are apparently the embodiments of darkness, wildness and sexiness. PC Gwen Cooper witnesses them at work, and her investigations lead her to an underground chamber crewed by aloof, distant smart-arses with an impressive array of personality problems. It's a slow, awkward journey into their world, and the supporting characters (Gwen's boyfriend Rhys, most of the Cardiff police force, the Weevils) are all vastly more likeable and interesting than all the secret special people with their oh-so-clever in-jokes. Gwen is the audience identification figure here, a stubborn and determined force whose presence forces the team to adopt a new approach to policing space/time flotsam and jetsam. On initial broadcast, the episode is a solid if unexceptional start. It shows promise amidst glaring problems that, viewing the episode now, seem more apparent with hindsight.
The lift onto Roald Dahl Plass is brilliant though, and for once a secret base beneath a major city landmark seems to be a celebration rather than a novelty. It's instantly iconic, turning an already-impressive piece of architecture into a cut-price Cloudbase or Tracy Island; not only is it a real location you can visit, but now it's a secret headquarters. Bonus. And Torchwood know how cool this is. They do, however, think pretty much everything they do is mint, so it could just be coincidence. Where this misplaced confidence has come from it's hard to say, because in many respects they're incredibly bad at their job.
The major early problem with Torchwood, the fictional organisation, is that they're the least enigmatic paranormal investigators ever. They have a massive great car with 'TORCHWOOD' written on the side, order pizza under the name of their secret organisation, and all of them swagger-saunter everywhere. This includes just after they drive as ostentatiously as possible through a police investigation in order to resurrect a dead body. Gwen notices something's awry, and decides to investigate. It's hard to separate my knowledge of what happens next from the potential in this premise, but at the time it seemed like an interesting if familiar setup. It's basically the function Rose fulfils in the 2005 series of Doctor Who, to humanise the flawed genius.
Despite the promise of Gwen shaking up and challenging Torchwood's ways, the most interesting characters are the ones we don't see much of. Ianto is, at this point, the only enigma left. Tosh has the endearing trait of using stolen alien tech to speed-read Dickens, but she also comes across as a sociopath when describing what'll happen to the unfortunate medical orderly who gets to be the first 'Phwoaar-we-can-show-blood-and-spunk-and-guts-and-stuff' death victim of the series.
Owen's character comes across as so slimy that about fifty percent of series two is geared towards making him into a likeable human being, and even this only just salvages him from an audience's first impression. Captain Jack, now that he's in charge of his own show, gets to deliver the big speeches about how great humanity is and run around in a big ol' coat so as not to draw attention to his secret organisation by doing anything so stupid as to stand atop a selection of tall buildings - seemingly chosen for their backdrops - with said big ol' coat billowing out behind him, all dramatic-like. Fortunately Cardiff's CCTV department don't tend to look upwards at any point.
There are several stylistic touches in series one that would be jettisoned as soon as everyone realised they were pointless: aerial shots of Cardiff, the aforementioned standing on top of buildings in big ol' coats, and gratuitous insertion of alternative rock music as a bonus credibility boost.
Critics were also divided on Torchwood after the opening set-up and go of Everything Changes and Day One. Taken on its own, the aggressively stated explicit content seems to drag things down somewhat, being so in-your-face that the interesting aspects of Torchwood almost go unnoticed. As a pilot, though, it sets up the series well and has the hook of seeing how Gwen's arrival will alter things.
Next week, read about what series one of Torchwood did right.
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Actually, as far as pilots go, Torchwood started really strongly. Perhaps because of it's "welcome to the underground', Men In Black-ish tone.
Unfortunately, it quickly became less BPRD and more 90210...
Gratuitous, unnecessary sex scenes(gay and straight) that serve no purpose to the bad story-lines....they're just stuck in because RTD needed a vehicle for that. And, for some reason RTD was obsessed with cramming the fact that he's gay down everyone's throat. It gets tired after awhile....Every episode has it!! Who cares if you're gay - move on with the story!
The Captain Jack in this series bears little or no resemblance to the character from Doctor Who. In Who, he was charismatic, funny and sure of himself......all these traits are missing from this Capt. Jack.....how could anyone not notice this? Apart from Gwen, there are no characters in this show even worthy of caring about. Season 1 of Torchwood was terrible IMO. Children of Earth was amazing. It's hard to believe that this joke of a season is the same show.
To think that this group of ass-clowns could run a secret organization is an even bigger joke!!
This show should have never been made part of the Whoniverse....it should have just been a standalone show!
Again, this is just my opinion.
I quote://... based loosely on an idea he'd developed before becoming the showrunner of Doctor Who. //
And that's exactly Torchwoods problem. Excalibur the show mentioned above was meant to be a show about a young police women and mother fighting aliens. The BBC wouldn't buy that one for what ever reasons. Along came Doctor Who and the chance to give the beloved character Jack a spin off.
But ask yourself is it still Jack's show? Is it still a team of everyday people in Cardiff fighting aliens from an underground base? Nope when Russel T Davies took over the show again, after letting other people run it for the first to seasons, he did everything to turn it into the Gwen Cooper Show, a (former) police women and now mother fighting aliens. Sounds familiar?
Anyway, I loved the old Torchwood, the weevils and the blow fish, I love Cardiff, have visit the town many times. You'll still find people taking pictures on the invisible lift, or the tourist office, which has become a shrine for the character Ianto. This shrine is now even part of the Doctor Who tour you can book.
The first episode? My, I love it from the "..at least I won't get pregnant." line of Jack. Back then Torchwood was never outstanding television, but it had charm and was funny and you got the feeling that they didn't take themselves to serious. Perfect way to relax after a long day at work. Sadly with the new, bigger and better, trying to copy cat the X-Files version that was lost and the show lost me.
If I remember correctly the real sex scenes weren't before Miracle Day, before that it was only stuff you'll find in every pre watershed soap opera. I liked the idea of a "gay" (technically Jack's omnisexual and Ianto bisexual) couple within the team, it was different, esp. since it also wasn't based on the usual "will they/won't they" tension every second show out there has. And Gwen? Well here's one viewer who wouldn't have cared if Suzie would have finished her off in the very first episode...oh if only they would have keep Suzie. Such an interesting character. Gwen on the other hand is pointless and boring if you ask me.
I hope you will give the episode "Out Of TIme" a mention. It was the best episode of Torchwood ever, better than many Doctor Who episodes.
Thank you. I was never fond of Gwen either. Her annoying, whiny husband was worse. Also...homo/bi/hetero...who cares? Just tell a good story with interesting characters spouting clever dialogue, if some of the characters fancy men, women, aliens, vegetables - or all of them at once...great, but don't dwell on it, just make it part of the character and leave it there.
For all that, I really liked Torchwood and was hoping it would get even better. But, the last season set in the US wasn't Torchwood for me.
Tbh I never really saw those scenes as hardcore sex scenes, like I said most pre watershed soap operas have worse, but then I have to admit that I also totally forgot about the Owen/Diane scene. It has been a while since I watched TW. And I haven't watched Miracle Day (my boyfriend has though), but remember them advertising it with "OMG come and look we have the gay-sex-freak-show", which was, to me, a huge turn off. I enjoyed the relationship Jack and Ianto had, they were a couple, yeah, but they never made a fuss out of that, until Children of Earth. If I want to watch a show for gay sex scenes, then there's always Queer As Folk. I used to watch Torchwood for the aliens. Having, later on, two guys as the leading couple was only a nice plus that made a difference to all the other shows out there.
I might be talking too soon, but for Torchwood Series 5 I would like Queen Liz II to reboot the Torchwood Institute and make it a proper organisation again. Maybe in co-operation with the CIA, so the Americans from the Starz! network don't feel left out. Aren't there to be some Torchwood buildings like a piramide and a certain space mission to a black hole in the future (DW:Impossible Planet/Satan Pit)? You need some organisation for that. Not to mention that you could take on the Three Familys far better as a legit organisation.
Series 1-3 were fantastic.. but it should have ended at Children of Earth before the horrid Miracle Day could be forced on the fandom. Can I please have some Retcon? Bring back the original team and format or don't bother.