Alien Escapades In Cardiff

I don't think anyone, when the intention to bring Doctor Who back was first announced, would have put bets on the Doctor Who TV series putting such a big stamp on Saturday evening TV, and within the space of two years generating two spin-off shows: The Sarah Jane Adventures for a younger audience, and Torchwood for an older audience. It's Torchwood we are interested in, because I'm pretty sure if you'd pitched a TV series about a rift between dimensions, featuring a secret organisation, looking into mysteries surrounding aliens and weird scientific anomalies in Cardiff you'd have been looked at like an idiot a few years ago.

Still, 2006 was the year we were successfully introduced to Torchwood, and alien escapades in Cardiff.

A Production Like No Other

If there was anything Torchwood had right from the start, it was the high production values. Nothing says this more than the main Torchwood set, which is just amazing. It's exciting to see a science fiction TV series produced by the BBC to actually have a set of that size, quality and potential, in terms of direction, realised and put up on screen. If Doctor Who can claim one thing, it's that its success finally showed the BBC that science fiction product has to look as good as your historical dramas or your contemporary series, despite the presence of aliens, monsters and whatever else. An adult science fiction series that looks cool, on British TV, who'd have ever imagined it? The likes of which hasn't been seen since Ultraviolet.

It's the detail that sells the production, like the Torchwood SUV, it's just a car, but it works. It looks cool, and the way all the characters can sit in it and have their individual screens...great. It's visual, has a bit of flare, and is sort of iconic, an image you associate with the series. Then you have Jack's outfit, which is both classic, out of time, yet not totally out of place in the modern setting either (though his odd historical gun does sort of drive you mad after a while). Even the fact all the characters wear earpieces for their phones works, a bit like the X Files on steroids in the way it uses the potential of constant communication to get characters interacting and the stories flowing.

The production of the show is so well done, you even begin not to care that the whole series is set in Cardiff. It even makes you want to visit Cardiff and you begin to actually appreciate the panning shots of the city, and the various bits of architecture. In a way, just like Spooks sold you on the idea that a slick, American-style show could be done with London as a backdrop all those years ago, for me, Torchwood does the same for Cardiff. It doesn't matter if it's set in Cardiff, that drifted away by episode three or four.

It's not the same for everyone, of course, but then some of those same people who have a problem with the issue also watched seven series of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, which had the main protagonists save the world from a small Californian town every season (and on some pretty basic sets when you look back on it). I call that double standards.

The Cast of Five

If Torchwood belongs to anyone, it belongs to John Barrowman (Jack Harkness) and Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), with Burn Gorman (Owen Harper) giving them a run for their money and Noako Mori (Toshiko Sato) and Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones) putting in steady support work.

As I've said previously, the double act of John Barrowman and Eve Myles could single-handedly carry the series through a number of seasons. I don't mean in a romantic sense, it'd be more in that classically romantic, deep friendship and respect basis characterised by the X Files. They could truly be a Mulder and Scully for British TV, and less emotionally inhibited to boot, who'd have thought it. It's just both actors have a tremendous magnetism. They both have a strong ability to sell the stories at an emotional level. When Gwen takes home the memory wipe drug and drugs her partner so she can confess her affair with Owen only to have her partner then forget, you manage to feel sorry for her and disgusted by her actions at the same time. A difficult scene, but she carries it through. In a similar fashion, John Barrowman is excellent carrying the emotional heart of his threads in the episodes Out of Time and Captain Jack Harkness.

Burn Gorman's performance as Owen Harper, is probably the best one of the series, even though I don't want to admit it. It depends on how you view these things, as I'm maybe discounting a lot of what goes into Jack and Gwen as just natural presence. The cleverness in Owen Harper's character is there isn't actually much to like, and if you think about it too much he's a pretty despicable git, and it's not fully been explained why yet. He is callous, cutting, self obsessed and just not that emotionally grounded, which is substantially different to Jack and Gwen, both of whom are emotionally driven. Despite all this, hi character manages to be recognised as someone you shouldn't like, possibly someone you don't like, yet you watch him anyway and he stands alongside his two other cast members despite this disadvantage.

Truth be told, in the first half of the series, Noako Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd were in danger of having their characters sink into the background, this is despite the presence of the episode Cyberwoman, pretty much a signature episode for Ianto Jones. This has happened to a degree, with these two characters certainly coming across as a second tier behind the core characters of Jack, Gwen and Owen, but by the end of the series they did become more visible, and you started to appreciate them. The main problem with Toshiko and Ianto is they are closer to stereotypes than Jack, Gwen and Owen, being the technical, reserved, and to a degree cold, 'Asian scientist', and the bisexual(?), proper, pedantic and always seeing to the small things 'butler', respectively.

Straight Sex, Gay Sex And Alien Sex

One of the problematic areas in Torchwood was the sexual content, not so much because of any particular element of it, just because when it was all combined it just felt off, overdone and way too much. The idea that Torchwood would, in part, be about sex and sexual relationships and the pressure that working for Torchwood puts them under is a great idea. The idea that sex is in the show, in principle, is fine. I'm not a prude, and if Torchwood wanted to be the science fiction equivalent of This Life I'd be fine with it. The problem is, something about it just doesn't work.

Captain Jack's open sexuality is brilliant, it actually adds to his character that you know that he'll happily fall into a sexual attraction with a male, female or random alien species. It's really good that the series manages to do this in a sort of classically romantic, and personal magnetism driven sort of way, rather than the swaggering, heterosexual approach of Captain Kirk. It's a sign of the steps the modern world has taken that such a character can exist. It's also clever that, despite all this, we pretty much accept the character as predominantly gay. This fact, and any exploration of that is not a problem.

The gradual descent of Gwen's character is also well done, the loss of her connection to the real world, as she becomes lost in the world of Torchwood, and the secrets she has to keep. The fact she betrays the man she loves, out of a need to find a sexual connection with someone who shares her Torchwood world is good. That journey works quite well and it will be interesting to see how her relationship with her partner pans out in the second series.

The fact Owen isn't really that nice is fantastic, in the first episode he is essentially using an alien pheromone to 'date rape' women. True, once under the influence of the pheromone they want to sleep with him, but only because of the pheromone. He goes on to truly fall in love, after rather callously having an affair with Gwen, and that episode is one of the best in the series.

The fact sexual relationships are a part of the show can work.

The problem comes from the fact that all the elements just add up: an episode with an alien that feeds off sex, an episode with an alien inside a human host which has a same sex relationship with Toshiko as well as providing a really intense same sex snog with Gwen, the fact Toshiko gets into that relationship because she is upset that Gwen is shagging Owen, the fact Jack has sex with Ianto when they get the urge are all in and of themselves fine, the trouble is when put altogether and woven into the mosaic of the series, it just feels like it's trying too hard. It can feel like it's doing it for the sake of it, rather than it being something borne out of the drama or driving the drama (as it happens, most of it is doing that, but that gets lost somewhere).

Dealing With The Doctor Who Universe

Torchwood takes place in the Doctor Who milieu, which should be a tremendous strength, as it's very much a setting you can pull in when you need, add to when you want and pretty much completely ignore if you need to. If anything defines the Doctor Who universe, it's how malleable it is.

Torchwood inherits a number of good things from the Doctor Who show, the best one being the character of Captain Jack. Okay, he's not the same character he was in Doctor Who, but he has died, come back, and been made immortal, which combined with being a person out of place and out of time (a man of the future, but with his spiritual heart in the 40's) is going to result in some angst.

You also have the rift, the nature of which has been morphed slightly to serve the purpose of Torchwood, but who cares, probably millions of Doctor Who fans, but it doesn't bother me. The rift is just one big excuse to make Cardiff a weirdness magnet for a cornucopia of aliens, scientific anomalies and weird science, and it works well, though it could work even better. As an example, this series of Torchwood could have been defined by some death cult secret society, looking to raise Abbadon from the rift, but also playing into Jack's need to have the potential to die? Missed opportunity there.

In a way, the show even inherits Gwen Cooper from the Doctor Who universe, as while her character is unique to the show, Eve Myles played Gwyneth, in the Doctor Who episode The Unquiet Dead, the person actually responsible for 'creating' the modern rift in the 1800's. It's been confirmed it's not a coincidence that the same actress was chosen, though this link hasn't overtly become part of the series yet.

At the same time, the show has inherited some negatives from its predecessor, the main one being not the setting, but the fact it seems to be trying to be a kindred spirit of Doctor Who, while overlaying more adult things on top, such as the sex, the swearing, and more adult plots. I think the reason the sex and the swearing stand out to people more than they should, and seem slightly unnatural, is because Torchwood still seems very much like Doctor Who, in many other ways: the rift, two of the same actors, including the lead, something about the overall tone, the way it's written and the general theme of living in the moment and life affirmation continually appearing.

The other problem is that Torchwood has occasionally played very fast and loose with plot logic. I'm not a person who is normally bothered by this and I love the fact that Doctor Who is about the pure emotional heart of it all, and any sense of plot logic just exists to get to those emotional notes. The trouble is Torchwood can't work on this model, any show wanting to tell adult stories about sex, love, loyalty, death, life and whatever else through these encounters with aliens and scientific anomalies also has to back it up with a bit more mature and internally consistent plot structures. I love the Doctor Who approach, but it's very much that, the Doctor Who one, Torchwood needs to gain inspiration from another direction on this front (Ultraviolet, Spooks, X Files, Life on Mars, 24 and I'm sure numerous others).

While it's good Torchwood has the Doctor Who setting, it certainly needs to distance itself from Doctor Who themes, moods tones, writing conventions and plot structures and define it's own agenda in these realms.

Thirteen Encounters With Strangeness

It's true to say the thirteen episodes of the first season of Torchwood represent average to good TV for the most part, with the stand out episodes, in no particular order, being Countrycide, Out of Time and Captain Jack Harkness.

Countrycide was the first episode that makes you believe Torchwood may be set to amount to something great, beyond the relatively impressive pilot. It's a basic story, not embellished in any way, and the fact there is no real explanation for why the villagers are killing, torturing and eating people makes it even more powerful. They just enjoy it. This view into the depths of depravity without any alien influence or scientific anomaly, is so disturbing it drives Gwen into Owen's bed. Seriously, it's a good episode. Spooky, tense, eerie and even a bit scary. It also represented the more adult nature of the show more perfectly than any other aspect of the show, while fitting perfectly.

The stand out episode for me was Out of Time, and it came the closest to defining what Torchwood should be about. First, the episode was structured perfectly, it didn't bother with a whole act of build up, it just had the Torchwood team meet a 1950's small transport plane at a derelict airport and then ran with trying integrate the passengers back into modern life. How did they know it was coming? Who cares, that's not important to the story. Then we get a very well written, tight episode, which uses the plight of the three travellers to focus on the characters of Jack, and the fact he also is a man out of time, Gwen, and her relationship with her partner, and modern relationships generally, and Owen finally discovering love only to lose it. It was very good, and each of the guest stars was impressive.

The episode Captain Jack Harkness was just a brilliant period piece. Jack and Toshiko fall through a rift and end up back in time during World War II, in a dance hall in Cardiff. The costumes are great, and Jack's encounter with the person he stole his name from is excellent, as is the relationship they form over the episode. It was another episode that sort of pushed the 'live in the moment' theme, but it works in this context. It was also good to see that Jack gave something back to the man whose identity he stole. At the same time, this episode shows some of the small areas that let the show down, as an example, Toshiko leaves messages hidden in and outside the dance hall for the future Torchwood staff to pick up, but she leaves them in places that would either never be found or would have been found well before 2006. It's a bit weak, and while in Doctor Who you wouldn't care, in Torchwood you think it should do better than that.

A few of the episodes failed due to the Doctor Who influence, in that they felt like Doctor Who episodes, just with different characters in and a more adult veneer. The examples that fall into this category are Cyberwoman and Small Worlds. Cyberwoman is a particularly good example as it concerns itself with Ianto keeping his girlfriend in the basement, who has been half turned into a Cyberman. It just doesn't work. It primarily fails because the presence of the Cybermen just doesn't work in the context of Torchwood, or at least, not how it does here. I think this is a lesson the series should learn, despite being a spin-off, it should have its own long-term enemies, as the Doctor Who villains largely work within the whole context of Doctor Who, they come as part of the package and don't necessarily translate well.

Random Shoes is actually quite a good episode, and would have probably been very good if it had been written slightly differently. It seemed to me the episode was hinting that Gwen was potentially slightly psychic, which fits into the idea that she is in fact related somehow to the character she played in the first season Doctor Who episode The Unquiet Dead. This should have been explored more, not necessarily in a more obvious manner, but it should have had a bit more meaning. The main problem with the episode though is it's like someone saw the second season Doctor Who episode Love and Monsters and decided to basically write a Torchwood version of it, and then every other member of the production team thought the same thing. It is another version of Love and Monsters, and while it was very entertaining, and in no way bad, the similarity did weaken the episode, and some of the opportunities in the idea failed to get capitalised on.

The rest of the episodes are an interesting mix, but are at best average TV. They keep you interested, which is a good thing, but you recognise that they are delivering nothing special in the drama department. As an example, the episode Combat is essentially a 45-minute version of Fight Club, with Owen exercising his demons left over from Out of Time while investigating people kidnapping aliens to fight them in cages. Greeks Bearing Gifts is the typical episode of someone being given the ability to read minds, only to discover what people really think and learn it's a curse not a boon. They are fine, but not outstanding or series defining as other series or movies have done similar stories much better.

The final episode was also a mixed bag really, as while it was very entertaining, the way the issues of all the characters came into being to have them all decide to open the rift against Jack's wishes, you also felt the series missed an opportunity. It just seemed odd, the whole idea that someone, though we never find out much about him, wanted to open the rift so that Abaddon could come out and destroy the world, seemed a bit tacked on. The whole issue of Abaddon being an 'angel of death' with everyone dying who fell under his shadow could have been used to explore death, the nature of immortality and other themes, which would have linked into Captain Jack's immortality. Instead, we just got the massive monster rushed in at the end, which ironically did allow Jack to try and kill himself with the Abaddon's shadow of ultimate death meeting the man who cannot die.

The interesting element is, despite the average to good nature of the episodes as a whole, virtually all of them have something, a moment that is just enthralling and outstanding, and if that quality could be just kept at that level continually, the series would be genre defining with respect to British TV.

The Final Analysis

I watched all of Torchwood, and I enjoyed it overall, some of it was great and I'm looking forward to the next season. In a way though, the series still failed, but it only failed because it seemed to have everything going for it: a clutch of great actors, good writers, phenomenal production values and a rich milieu from an established show should it need it, but despite this, it ended up being satisfied with just being good, in some cases even average.

It didn't reach its full potential.

In truth, Torchwood could have been outstanding, something that could have stood up there with the best of British TV, whether it be older shows like This Life and Ultraviolet, contemporary fare like the best of Spooks or unique offerings like Life on Mars, but it just failed to reach those lofty heights. This makes Torchwood unique in that there is no one element that failed, it was more when everything came together. I believe the main issue was it just never found its own sense of identity, or if it did, it failed to communicate what that was. It came into being from Doctor Who, with the goal of being more adult, but some of the ways it seemed to express its tone was unfortunate, and at times, the Doctor Who milieu detracted from the show defining itself. It can't be a more adult Doctor Who show, it has to be its own show with the fact the setting is the same being almost incidental.

Hopefully, the second series will see the show find a more balanced model, as the concept is sound, the characters are present, I believe the writing skill is present, and the production looks great. I'm left thinking the show may be best cooling down the sex a little and letting less of it speak for itself, tone down the 'monster of the week' and try introducing another Buffy staple, the main seasonal bad guy with some sense of a seasonal arc plot, and make it serious, full of major decisions, with consequences. It's not easy being a hero, standing up and being counted, and maybe that's what it should be about. Ensure the alien and weird science threats aren't just aliens and weird science, but saying something thematically, or linked into real world problems. It doesn't have to be an exercise in preaching. Ultraviolet, similar in some ways, managed to make excellently tense stories in a similar vein using Vampires (though always called something else) to touch upon disease, mortality, abuse of power and human failings, it should be easy for Torchwood, with a much wider remit in terms of weirdness, to do the same. After all, for the more glib approach to these things, we already have Doctor Who.

Torchwood has a second season, and it has the potential to be great. Here's hoping. It just needs to find...itself.

Ian O'Rourke, as well as being the man behind Fandomlife.net, is also a fan of anything that engages his imagination, be it a book, comic, TV show, theme park, an IT Project or business change.