The spin-off of Doctor Who starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness. I was very excited for this show because I love Captain Jack and severely missed him in series 2 of the flagship show. My expectations were not lived up to. In fact, after flying through the first two series of Who, it took me many, many months to get through this.
Doctor Who is billed as an all ages show. It may get a little dark and scary from time to time, but not terribly so. Torchwood is not an all ages show, at all. It is the Doctor's universe, but with sex, violence, and a darker setting. I don't think it translates all that well. It might stem from they were trying too hard in the beginning. An orgasm alien? C'mon.
I will say this, the continuity nerd in me loves the series premise. The time rift opened in Cardiff in the Doctor Who episode "The Unquite Dead" is the main catalyst, sending strange things through it and attracting aliens to its power. Torchwood Three is located directly beneath where the TARDIS landed in the episode "Boom Town". To top it all off, Gwen Cooper is played by the same actress who portrayed Gwenyth, the servant girl that sacrifices herself to stop the Gelth from coming through the rift in 1869. Very cool stuff. If only they put as much thought into the story as they did to the connections to Doctor Who.
After a good opening and then a few plodding stories, things do pick up with more hits than misses in latter half of the season. "Coutrycide" was a very creepy episode that kept me on the edge of my seat through most of it's running time. Being isolated in the country and picked off one by one is a successful horror trope for a reason. And that was an episode that had nothing to do with the rift and was just crazy people in the woods.
While the episode to episode stories didn't lift off for me, I still enjoyed the over-arching character work for the season. When travelling with the Doctor, it's about having adventures. Sometimes there's a melancholy or darker aspect to whatever is happening, but mostly it's about fun romps. This series takes a harder look at what dealing with this kind of stuff day in and day out would do to a person. More importantly, in Gwen's case, what having to keep all these crazy, and amazing, and scary things from a loved one would do to a person.
The next episode to really grab me and give me hope for the future of the show was "Random Shoes". I suppose you could call this a Jack-light episode that focuses mainly on Gwen trying to solve the mystery behind the death of Eugene, a fan of Torchwood. It felt more focused than what had come previously and had an uplifting ending instead of the usual downer endings (or bitter sweet endings, if you're lucky).
Thankfully, it closed out very strongly. The pseudo two part ending of "Captain Jack Harkness" and "End of Days" were easily the highlights of the series. Jack and Tosh being trapped in the past gave us some great backstory about Jack and let Barrowman really work the acting chops in his interactions with the original Captain Jack. I'm also glad it let Tosh in on a little of Jack's secrets. I hope the team learns more and more about him as time goes on so they can gel more and become more cohesive. Of course, after Owen shoots him and his revival after taking on Abaddon, they all know he can't die. Jack's a good leader most of the time, but his secrecy about himself leaves him too far detached from his team. They turn against him in the finale because they are being manipulated but also because they're not sure if they can fully trust the man who won't trust them with anything.
The first year of a show can sometimes take a while for things to fall into place. It started out rough, but finished strong. Torchwood isn't a great show, but it's also not bad and has some potential moving forward. I'm curious where they go in series two. But first, series three of Doctor Who! I got chills when Jack heard the TARDIS at the end, can't wait to see him with the new Doctor.
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