Torchwood - Season 1 & 2

Synopsis: Torchwood is a spin-off of the recently ressurrected british sci-fi series success Doctor Who. It follows former Time-agent Jack Harkness and his team of alien-hunting and supernatural mystery solvers, which is called Torchwood. They're headquarter is situated in Cardiff in Wales right beside a rift in space-time which causes weird things to happen and also works as a sort of gateway for alien creatures and forces to come through.

Outside the government and beyond the police, Torchwood is the first and last line of defense against all kinds of threats connected to the rift. Jack Harkness is the team leader with a mysterious background who after some adventures with the Doctor suddenly discovered that he can't die. With this new "ability" he fights off all rift threats along with doctor Owen Harper, computer expert Toshiko Santo, organizer Ianto Jones and last, but not least, former police officer Gwen Harper.


Review: Torchwood season 1 was a big disappointment for me. On the outset it had the very interesting and popular character of Capt. Jack Harkness from Doctor Who as the team-leader for the secret organization called Torchwood. Torchwood specializes in hunting down aliens and solving other supernatural mysteries. How can you not make that entertaining?

The biggest reasons for the first seasons failure was that John Barrowman, who was a delight to see as the charming, brave and adventurous Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, was reduced to a brooding, hotheaded and boring character who spent most of his time standing on rooftops scowling over the city. Then they portrayed every other character on the team as despicably as they could. Nobody trusted each other and they spent more time arguing than actually working. The last main reason for my disappointment was the small scope of the show. It's set in Cardiff and even though they got an explanation with the rift it's just not a very exciting place, at least not the way they portray it, even if there are several aliens and monsters running around. Since the setting was a result of the small budget I won't complain too much about it, you have to work with what you got.


Torchwood was supposed to be more adult themed than its parent show Doctor Who but it isn't enough to just make it dark and throw in some "adult" scenes here and there. The stories have to be good and interesting too. There were some episodes, like “Countrycide”, “Cyberwoman” and the season ender, that managed this, but even those included several disappointing elements like weird logic and completely out-of-character moments. The others mainly consisted of plots with small threats that could have been solved easily if the team didn't constantly go around backstabbing and/or sleeping with each other all the time.

The show deserves credit for trying to do its own thing and there are many moments here and there that are interesting, but overall season 1 of Torchwood was much to write home about. It wasted most of the potential it had.

So what about season 2? Well, for once the characters work as a team more often than not and Capt. Jack was used a bit better while the stakes of the plots were upped a bit. Overall I have to say that it was better. The introduction of Capt. John (James Marsters) and further exploration of Capt. Jacks past was interesting and a few appearances of Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) coupled with the twist given to the character of Owen Harper really helped a lot. There's still some weird logic every now and then, but the characters work much better, both alone and as part of the team. The season ender was really good too, although the main villain was a little disappointing. The special effects on Torchwood are used sparingly, but they look good enough and manage to wow you when they want too.


The shows become more consistent, but it still works as a b-movie guilty pleasure kind of show. A good Torchwood episode really doesn’t compare well to episodes of other similar sci-fi shows like the X-Files. My main reason for continuing to watch it is the connection to Doctor Who and my hope that one day Capt. Jack might become as entertaining on Torchwood as he is and was on Doctor Who. It’s not really John Barrowman’s fault, since he does a good job with what he’s given, but a problem that stems from the change of setting.

The rest of the cast do relatively good jobs too. Burn Gorman, in particular, gets to show off a bit in the second season as the Owen Harper character gets a new outlook on life. Gareth David-Lloyd’s Ianto Jones seems like an interesting guy, but apart from a moment here and there he isn’t given the chance to show it. The same can be said for Naoko Mori, who plays Toshiko Sato. They do good jobs, but are mostly hidden away in the background doing very little, especially in the first season. Eve Myles gets enough time and opportunity to show her skills, but more often than not she just comes off as whiney and a little boring. She’s the “audience character”, but I wish they would pull her back a little as some of the other characters seem much more interesting and deserve some more screen time.

Summary: It's hard to avoid the large gap in quality between Torchwood and Doctor Who, when the shows are so closely linked. However Torchwood is trying to do its own thing and seem to be getting better at it after the very rocky start. It's got a very b-movie sci-fi thing going and is entertaining at times, but it still needs quite a bit of work in my eyes.

6 / 10