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"Torchwood" (2006)

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131 comments in total

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40 out of 47 people found the following comment useful :-
Better than these reviews would lead you to believe, 24 February 2008

Author: gilesyoung from United Kingdom

There seems to be an awful lot of negative comment about Torchwood on these pages and there is definitely a certain 'its not like Doctor Who' element. I love the re-vamped Dr Who, and I was a fan as a child, I grew up with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and to me he was always the definitive incumbent, until being eclipsed by both the modern incarnations. No, Torchwood is not like Doctor Who, it's a different series; I feel that the characters are very well drawn. They are a team of typical people, they do not have the solutions to all the problems they face, they get scared, they argue, they make mistakes. As far as I see it they behave exactly how most normal people would if recruited and working in a tightly knit team under stressful conditions. There is of course the Russell Davies trademark BLG sexual behaviour, but it is portrayed in a refreshing manner and very much it keeping with the general vibe of the show.

What many of the reviewers seem to miss is the fact that the show is as much about the characters as the aliens, the scripts with a couple of exceptions have been excellent, exploring human relationships and attitudes from a range of perspectives, but most importantly they have been rip-roaring entertainment.

The acting is strong, Barrowman being particularly good, but they all acquit themselves well. The casting is excellent, rather than a stable of beautiful people, they have chosen actors that look, and thanks to good writing, behave, like real people.

A couple of points;

John Barrowman's American accent isn't fake; he lived there from the age of eight.

A lot of comments regarding how derivative the series is; I suspect that Bram Stoker might consider Buffy to more that a little derivative of his work, but none the less entertaining for it.

This is an excellent series, watch more than one episode before reviewing and please try to approach it with out a particular expectation.

In summary, it is brilliant entertainment.

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107 out of 189 people found the following comment useful :-
A very decent spin off, 23 October 2006

Author: Scotthannaford1 from United Kingdom

Now - I have to draw the line at "camp" - look, this is a spin off from Doctor Who, and believe me, you can not get anything as camp as the Sylvester McCoy years....

Anyway, Torchwood is extremely good fun. We are bound to get people complaining that they let their seven year old to stay up late to watch it, and... shock horror... it has SEX and VIOLENCE! Erm yes - thats why its on after the watershed! Geez! Well, okay its no perfect, by far, and comparisons to X-Files, Men in Black etc are missing the point - as is the reviewer who commented that it was unbelievable that Cardiff would be on the edge of a rift in time and space. Okay, so its more believable for London or New York to be? Thats right, folks, Rifts check out the local house prices and amenities before popping up! Oh hang on - placing it all in Cardiff is... wow... unusual and unexpected... ohhhh does that make it original? Well, yes it does. Thats one thing people need to understand - there are accents other than "corr blimey mary poppins" and Daphne from Frasier, and there are towns and citied outside of London. Oh how I long for the episode of Dr Who based in plymouth, and wish David Prowse had voiced Darth Vader (Look, I am your favver, me lover).

Oh wow - what a tangent! Okay, the first episode was spasmodic and rather predictable (well except the serial killer being a member of staff), but the episodes have gotten steadily better and better. The latest, the Cyberwoman, with the run on from a Dr Who episode, was excellent, but with a couple of "yes, hang on a second....." points to discuss.

Anyway - Captain Jack - indestructible a la Captain Scarlet.... has the charisma to pull it off, and his squad are all well acted... yes the direction does (now and again) look like an MTV video, with all the fast moving in your face shots, but it is meant to be an in your face series.

So 9 / 10 - not a patch on the David Tennant Dr Who episodes (well except that awful Christmas special and the weird girl-drawing-people episode) but good fun!

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53 out of 82 people found the following comment useful :-
Try watching past the first episode before commenting!, 21 September 2007

Author: marcw_w from United States

To all the people that voted low, try watching past the first episode before commenting.

In general the first episode or two aren't the best due to time taken for character development. Get past that and you're in for a fun ride.

If you're looking for good feelings and happy endings, or another Dr. Who, this show is not for you.

It takes a sci-fi element and puts it in real life terms. It's a British Area 51, but they don't have all the answers, and you learn as they do. We have always been told that we are kept in the dark to protect ourselves, but this shows that even the protectors are human, with the same weaknesses and curiosities that we would all have. It's Dark and it's good.

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35 out of 49 people found the following comment useful :-
For fans of less conventional Sci-Fi, Torchwood is well worth watching., 12 January 2008

Author: efflorescencia from K-Ville

I'm an American girl who just finished watching the first Torchwood series/season all the way through. I've noticed that BBC shows seem to expect a level of quality from themselves that is lacking in many of the American shows Hollywood has given us over the past few years. British television seasons are shorter, and the phrase "quality over quantity" tends to hold true. I'm glad to report that Torchwood does not disappoint in this respect.

The closest resemblance I can think of to the ensemble cast of Torchwood would be those of a Joss Whedon series, especially the unjustly short-lived Firefly. As with those shows, the cast makes Torchwood into something more than a campy sci-fi adventure. You care about the characters not because they are unrealistically perfect superheroes, but because they are flawed, almost to the point of dislike, yet they manage to hold your sympathy. They are human, and are appropriately difficult, irrational, and occasionally disappointing, but also compassionate and strong. Reminiscent of Angel, the human team of Torchwood slowly peel back layers to expose the hidden emotions and vulnerabilities of their leader, the mysterious Captain Jack. The alternative sexualities of the Captain and some of the other Torchwood members are played up, something I personally have never seen in another show within this genre, but it never feels heavy-handed. Sexuality is regarded as natural, occurring within the characters' personal story lines without being explicitly pointed out or harped on as a plot device.

Torchwood starts off strong. The pilot (despite it's use of a slightly clichéd device to introduce the main characters) left me curious, and the next two episodes had me hooked. The high point of the season is the episode Countrycide, which is a fifty-minute long, old-school horror movie taking cues from classics like The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and coming off more effectively creepy than the remakes of both those films. Late in the season, Torchwood staggers just a bit as the story lines become more existential, more about morality and humanity with heavy themes of life and death that are at times laid on a bit thick. But it finds it's footing again by the conclusion, which is excitement ala Buffy. You can even forgive the silly looking final confrontation because the danger still feels real.

Torchwood may never reach the classic status of Doctor Who or the X-files, but it is definitely worthy of the chance to prove itself with multiple seasons and possibly become a lasting cult-hit. If you were/are a fan of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Supernatural, X-files, or to a lesser extent even Farscape or the anime series Witch Hunter Robin, all of which I was reminded of while watching, I highly recommend watching Torchwood through at least once. It should also be noted that while it isn't a necessity to have seen the new Doctor Who series to enjoy Torchwood, it does help to better understand the universe the shows are set within, and cross-references that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

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61 out of 103 people found the following comment useful :-
Doctor Who Weakly, 20 November 2006

Author: ealadubh from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Oh crumbs, it's really not working is it? I love the old Doctor Who, and happily sat through the first two seasons of the new series despite the odd flaw, misfire and under-par episode. We're halfway through this spin off series however, and despite all the attempts to fit it into Doctor Who's continuity I still have no idea what it's really supposed to be about, beyond the post-watershed teen-titillation and well'ard swearing and gore.

Beyond that, it's utter chaos - each week they shove half a dozen other recognisable shows into a blender and hope the resulting concoction will still be palatable. There is little to no consistency between each episode - the editing and direction is all over the place and views like none of the writers have the faintest idea what anyone else is doing - and the characters are unlikeable insert-random-personality-this-week ciphers with the exception of Gwen and Jack (who started off amiable but is steadily growing steadily more bonkers as the series trundles along). As an organisations, Torchwood itself is as Mickey Mouse as it gets; they seldom get the job done properly and half the trouble they manage to bring down on themselves through their own personal agendas, even managing to spawn their own serial killer(!) in the pilot episode.

Chris Chibnall's episodes are particularly atrocious and illogical to the point of insulting the intelligence; nobody has yet come up with any credible explanation as to why Ianto's brains aren't splattered against a wall - much less why he still has a job - by the end of Cyberwoman. And that's only four episodes in.

A spectacular mess.

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40 out of 67 people found the following comment useful :-
TryingTooHardWood, 28 October 2006

Author: Mark Hale (extravaluejotter@hotmail.com) from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Having watched the first series of "Doctor Who" spin-off "Torchwood", I'm hooked but also ambivalent about it, hence my average score. My wife picked up on the swearing straight away and said 'Ooh, you can tell that this was written for the post-watershed slots, can't you?'

F*&^ me if she isn't right too. Russell T Davies has written adult drama before, as well as injecting new life into "Doctor Who", but the 13 episodes of "Torchwood" sit uneasily between Family and Kids-Gone-to-Bed content. There is the odd eff and blind, a lot of mild gay/bisexual content and some occasional (tastefully shot) raunch, but the series doesn't really need it. In fact, the attempts to be "Adult" detract from the stories because they're so obviously tacked on to appeal to a "Grown Up" audience. It's a worrying note of insecurity in an otherwise assured (albeit overwrought) series and I hope that it will be addressed if the viewing figures warrant another 13 episodes.

Russell T Davies has a perfect example to follow in Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and spin-off series "Angel". Both these American shows managed to be dark and sexy without resorting to the use of bad language to show how "Adult" they were. Have a look at Buffy and make a few notes, Russell!

John Barrowman plays a troubled Jack Harkness and Eve Myles is at least a match for him as Torchwood newbie PC Gwen Cooper. The series manages the odd moment of humour, but the mood is generally dark and it's clear that the members of the Torchwood team are all lost in their own strange worlds. As Captain Jack's only real qualifications for running the Torchwood operation are "Can't die" and "Met a Time Lord a while ago", there's plenty of scope for the team to try and undermine/shoot/sleep with each other (not in that order, I hasten to add). Somehow Jack manages to ignore all the bitching and hysteria around him and concentrate on his own neuroses. He is not the happy-go-lucky Action Bisexual that we first met in "Doctor Who", to be sure. Barrowman, Myles and the rest of the cast do a good job with what they're given but the show was clearly over-analysed at the planning stage. Unfortunately "Torchwood" has lost a lot of the heart of its Time Lord counterpart in the process.

Setting the whole shebang in Cardiff is inspired, putting "Torchwood" at the centre of its own off-kilter universe, so to speak. Normally all the big, expensive, exciting stuff happens in London or Manchester or Glasgow in UK TV drama, so Cardiff is strange territory even for jaded UK viewers.

While the episodes all feature some gems of sci-fi/horror, they are let down by inconsistencies and the odd idiosyncrasy, eg:

The Torchwood pterodactyl: It's introduced in the first episode and gets to fight the Cyberwoman, then it never appears again. I didn't see it get killed, so where is it?

The Cyberwoman: Why would a bunch of implacable automatons like the Cybermen create a "sexy" hybrid with metal boobs, high heels and a visible belly button? And why didn't Ianto end up dead in a tray next to Suzy Costello? He flouts every rule of the Torchwood Institute, recklessly endangers his colleagues and gets a scientist and a pizza delivery girl killed. How did he earn a reprieve after that level of betrayal? Presumably no one else knew how the coffee maker worked?

Countrycide: Torchwood operatives are getting picked off like flies but no-one thinks about getting the police or the army (dare I say UNIT?) to go in mob-handed.

Jack and Ianto: Presumably the shock of losing his girlfriend in the Cyberwoman episode makes Ianto decide to go gay or omnisexual or whatever. Look, the chances of 2 men with homosexual tendencies working together in any field outside the fashion industry are pretty damn slim.

The Weevil Baiting Episode: Yes, we've all seen "Fight Club", thanks. Next!

Captain Jack Harkness (the original one) being gay: Jack (Torchwood Jack, I mean) changed history after having a dance with the doomed man whose identity he hijacked in WWII. Given the attitude toward homosexuality 60-odd years ago, it's a safe bet that the other servicemen in the nightclub would have dragged the original Harkness into a back alley and kicked him to death for dancing with another man in front of them.

I'll be tuning in if they make another series but I won't stick with "Torchwood" if it's as overwrought as Series 1. Russell T Davies needs to take a firmer grip on the reins of his creation if he wants it to be viewed in the same light as the new "Doctor Who".

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26 out of 42 people found the following comment useful :-
If the fate of the world hangs on these people, God help us!, 9 August 2007

Author: bethy_joy from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I wanted to like Torchwood. I really did. As a total fan of the new Doctor Who and the slick and funny scripts therein, I had high hopes. I loved Captain Jack back in season 1 of Who, and letting him have his own show sounded fun. It had so much potential. How wrong I was.

Torchwood is supposed to be a national organization that has been going on in the background since the 1800s, so why does everyone at Torchwood Three act like teenagers who cannot control their emotions. They are so busy sleeping with each other and breaking protocol that they have no idea how to deal with the aliens that are supposedly their modus operandi.

Day One was about a sex alien, and it went downhill from there. So far, Cyberwoman was the least believable. Ianto lies, betrays his teammates, endangers the world, and all he gets is a kiss from Jack? He should be fired! Gwen and Owen are sleeping with each other, but nobody cares, Tosh is totally isolated, Jack goes from manically depressed to desperately flirting with anything that breathes, and the aliens are incidental.

It's like they shoved Bones, Buffy, CSI, X-files, Days of our Lives, and just a Dash of Doctor Who into a blender and hoped really hard that what came out would be good. Then, just to prove that they were 'edgy' and 'adult', they mixed in some random sex scenes that not only do not contribute to the plot, but in some cases slow it down.

I really did want to like Torchwood. But no matter how hard I try to see the good in this (Gwen is OK, but tell me how she can be a fully fledged Police officer but not know how to use a gun??) the bad just pulls it right to the bottom of the ocean, along with all the other sludge. Hopefully in a couple of years Torchwood will nothing but a bad memory.

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38 out of 66 people found the following comment useful :-
Intelligent and Adult - I don't think so!, 4 January 2007

Author: teepee-10 from Edinburgh, Scotland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Having enjoyed the first Doctor Who series and the second one even more, I was really looking forward to this spin-off, especially as it was to be both adult and intelligent. Oh dear! What went wrong? None out of two is not good! Torchwood is supposed to be an organisation dedicated to protecting Earth from the multitude of alien nasties that are able to crawl through a rift in the space-time continuum located in Cardiff, allegedly. I wouldn't use this lot for security in a supermarket! The "adult" content - certainly not the plot - is simply swearing and sex scenes. These are thrown at the show (in the hope that they will stick) without doing much to enhance the shaky and derivative plot-lines. The acting is, at times, wooden but I suspect that has more to do with the threadbare scripts and below standard direction. Far from being adult, the swearing and sex reminds me of a naughty child, adding dubious content in order to annoy grown-ups. There is no sense of "team" in the Torchwood team. There is no sense that there ever will be... Even in the episode where the inhabitants of a Welsh village were way-laying travellers and eating them, every ten years, there was no sign of intelligent cooperation between the gang. Now, if you have been in that situation, you will know that you have to work together and cover each other's back. I wonder, when Russell T Davies was a child, did his school report card have the comments "Very disappointing - could do better" on it. Nothing has changed, Russell.

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58 out of 106 people found the following comment useful :-
This. Makes. No. Sense., 21 November 2006

Author: simondominguez from Tokyo

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If Torchwood are above the government and police, why do they scream like girls and run away at the first sign of trouble? If the head of Torchwood 1 was prepared to have Rose shot on the spot simply because she didn't know who she was, how is Ianto still alive? How did Ianto move all that rubbish to Cardiff? Why was he even hired in the first place? He plainly despises everyone for their strong AND weak points, despite their forgiving his utter failure and betrayal.

Why did Jack hire Gwen to bring a human element to Torchwood and then spend five weeks shouting at her for thinking like a human before dismissing her policing techniques at the end of Countrycide? Why doesn't she HAVE any policing techniques? "Tell me what it's like being a mentalist then." "No." "Tellmetellmetellme! Waaaaah!" Even if it were possible for Gwen to justify her fling because she has all this Daaaaaaark Aaaaaaalien Stuff that she can't share with anyone, what sense does it make to put this at the end of an episode that turned out to be nothing but normal police work after all? From the point of view of the narrative, its place in a series or an overarching mythos or even the most basic element of what we're meant to feel about the characters, Torchwood makes no sense. It makes no sense as a story, it makes no sense as a drama, it makes no sense in relation to the Doctor Who universe, it makes no sense in relation to its own mythos, it doesn't even make any sense within any individual story where they just make rubbish up for that episode.

There is not ONE oasis of calm in ANY episode where you think "Yeah, that'd happen." *Disgraceful* writing.

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71 out of 132 people found the following comment useful :-
An Insult, 13 November 2006

Author: Theo Robertson from Isle Of Bute , Scotland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

There,s no doubt that the biggest television success story of the last few years has been the resurrection of DOCTOR WHO which has captured the imagination of a whole new generation of fans , children everywhere are looking forward to Christmas because that's the day when the BBC broadcast a Christmas special and should the new version degenerate into the debacle that it was in the 1980s so what ? There's children already converted into die hard fans who will one day be working in television and like Russell T Davies will be in a position to bring back the show . In short the revamped DOCTOR WHO shows that the show is immortal and will certainly out live everyone who saw the very first episode on November the 23rd 1963

So when RTD said he was going to do a spin off show " That is both adult and intelligent " I was rubbing my hands in glee . RTD assured the world that this was definitely not for kids and was a programme that deserved to be shown after the watershed . " Great " I thought " We'll be seeing a British version of The X Files , or maybe Doomwatch crossed with Cracker " and I wasn't the only person looking forward to it as the BBC bombarded the public with the type of hype not seen since the BBC brought back DOCTOR WHO in March 2005 . So unlike the viewers who had BBC digital who saw the first two episodes on BBC Three I had to wait a couple of days later when the show was broadcast on BBC Two and I was disappointed with what I saw but the season opener for the new series of DOCTOR WHO was poor so I gave TORCHWOOD a chance . After seeing a couple more episodes I will go on record as saying TORCHWOOD is the biggest insult served up to the British television public

RTD said they'd be no cross over between the two shows which shows him to be economical with the truth . One episode featured a partially converted cyberwoman that tied in with the finale of DOCTOR WHO season two and in interviews with John Barrowmen it's heavily insinuated that the final episode of TORCHWOOD ( Which I probably won't be watching so dire is it as entertainment ) ties in with the next series of DOCTOR WHO . I take it David Tennant will be making a cameo perhaps ? Oh and let's not forget much of series two of DOCTOR WHO revolved around the setting up of the Torchwood organisation . No cross over Rusell ? You could have fooled me

And as the series goes on and on it becomes more clearer that most of the episodes are based on rejected DOCTOR WHO scripts with Captain Jack Harkness playing the ninth Doctor and WPC Gwen playing the role of Rose Tyler . Indeed the whole show feels like an entirely under developed DOCTOR WHO episode with " adult " scenes shoehorned into the half baked narrative. For instance two of the characters in the cyberwoman episode start snogging simply so that one of them can make a comment about her colleague getting an erection a couple of minutes later . It's totally bizarre because you watch this programme and it never feels like anything more than a children's show then we're treated to a meaningless sex scene or the F word which totally jars with the feel of a show that features alien technology used as a plot device to get the heroes out of a tight spot ( A sort of HARDY BOYS with lazers ) or of a cyberwoman fighting a pterydactyl

And make no mistake TORCHWOOD is a children's television programme but because there's a couple of swear words or a sex scene this means no eight year old with responsible parents will get to see it which must must break their hearts because it'd be impossible for them to ignore that Captain Jack from the first series of DOCTOR WHO is getting his own show , a show Mummy and Daddy won't let them see . I'm actually angry about this because an eight year old fan of DOCTOR WHO would love TORCHWOOD and I doubt if anyone over the age of twenty with little like of the source programme could find anything to enjoy about this show which insults the intelligence of adult viewers . You,ve broken the hearts of the very young fans RTD . Are you proud of that ?

In my review of CASANOVA I said that Russell T Davies was an extremely overrated writer but I would have given him his due as a producer after seeing the second series of DOCTOR WHO which showed the flexibility of the format . One week we saw a terrific horror story featuring the devil on an alien planet followed a week later by a brilliant post modernist comedy that was certain to wind up the fans but after seeing TORCHWOOD I've come to the conclusion that that Rusell T Davies is no more talented than John Nathan Turner , the man who effectively destroyed the DOCTOR WHO franchise in the 1980s . Thankfully the cult of DOCTOR WHO will outlast the cult of Rusell T Davies

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