Torchwood Series 1-4 (2006-2011) - Review
Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Burn Gorman & Naoko Mori
Written By: Russell T Davies & Chris Chibnall (Head Writers)
Directed By: (Various)
Certificate: 15
In
terms of its connection to the Doctor Who universe,
Torchwood is quite a significant show. The first
attempt at a spin-off since 1981's K-9 & Company,
Russell T Davies's Torchwood saw the Doctor Who
universe significantly expand, and for the first time, try to
appeal to a more adult audience as opposed to a family-friendly one.
However, as the show would prove over a space of six years, if
there's one thing it lacked – it was consistent quality.
One
rainy night, South Wales police officer Gwen Cooper sees a mysterious
group briefly bring a dead man back to life. From this moment on, her
life is turned upside down and she finds herself working for the
secret organisation Torchwood. From their hidden base underneath
Cardiff Bay, Torchwood protect the city and in some cases, the world,
from alien threats that find their way to Earth through a rift in
space and time. Led by the immortal Captain Jack Harkness, the
original team includes Gwen, Ianto, Owen and Toshiko. All of them
have their own secrets, needs and desires, and have to balance the
task of facing constant new threats, dangers and defending the Earth,
with living their own lives.
Being a spin-off show, Torchwood obviously has connections with its parent show, Doctor Who. In fact, it links together and connects so well, that it works in Torchwood's favour. For example, our main character is no stranger to Doctor Who, with Jack having travelled with the 9th Doctor and Rose, the Cardiff rift has already been established, and the second series even sees a guest appearance from Martha Jones. In Doctor Who's Series 4 finale, the Torchwood team even show up with various other characters to help defend the Earth. All this helps Torchwood to feel part of an even bigger universe, with plenty of crossovers with its parent show and its other spin-offs. But even with this working in Torchwood's favour, it still needs to be able to stand on its own two feet, and as the production team would prove, this is something it's certainly capable of. Now for the purposes of this review, I'm going to structure things a bit differently. Due to its varied quality and the very different feels of each series, it might be unfair to look at it all together, so I'm going to look at and judge Series 1 and 2 separately from Series 3, and the same applies to Series 4.
With that out of the way, the first two series of Torchwood start off with a engaging and interesting team of characters. Of course, most will be familiar with John Barrowman as Captain Jack, who since we've last seen him has lost the ability to die. Jack gets his time to shine in a more adult-oriented show, and is definitely suited to this format. It feels as though his character has been let off a leash and we can finally get to see the full extent of his escapades. The rest of the original Torchwood team is comprised of new characters, and the first we are introduced to is PC Gwen Cooper. Gwen comes across as likeable, yet no-nonsense character and is easily one of the best things about the show. For a long time she also serves as something of a conduit between the team and the audience, and we are often put in her shoes for the first few episodes. Ianto endures some pretty good character development over the first two series, especially in the episode Cyberwoman, where he starts to make the change from a humble tea-boy to a fully-fledged member of the team. The character I really found myself relating to, and who is also my favourite among the original line-up was Toshiko. Both Jack and the audience can see how brilliant Toshiko is, not just with technology but also at dealing with alien threats, yet she remains softly-spoken and lacks self-confidence. It's these qualities that for me, make her easily the most multi-layered and complex character in the team. The only real weak-link of the team is Owen, who with the exception of his role in Out Of Time, often ends up coming across as quite selfish and unlikeable. (Spoiler Warning!) Ironically, it isn't until he gets killed and brought back mid-way through Series 2 that his character starts to become more interesting and likeable.
The production design of Series 1 and 2 have some mixed results, but generally the practical effects come across a lot better than the CGI work. It's clear that the majority of the budget went into the creation of the Torchwood Hub, which is a massive and intricately detailed set, that still feels as though it could genuinely be found underneath Cardiff. But while the money spent on the hub has paid off, the effect its had on many other special effects hasn't been all that great. While the practical work often looks great such as the make-up on the Weevils, and the designs of the Cyberwoman, the Blowfish and the Sleeper Agents, the CGI rarely looks as good. Computer creations such as the Sex Gas, the fairies in Small Worlds and the “Meat Alien” look quite cheap and questionable for such a high-scale production. However, let's not forget that things like CGI and special effects should only help to tell a story, and while not great, there's no effects here that actually detract from some truly brilliant episodes. While a certain number of episodes can be called bad or just mediocre, there are still some that truly stand out. In Series 1, some of my favourites included Cyberwoman, Countrycide, Out Of Time and Captain Jack Harkness – these episodes either established and carried on stories from Doctor Who or gave us time to get to know more about our main characters. These kinds of episodes happened more often in Series 2, with entries like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Sleeper, Something Borrowed and Adrift – all of which were either just pure fun to watch, with plenty of action or simply heartbreaking. The Series 2 finale, consisting of Fragments and Exit Wounds was also brilliant, and its interesting to think that Jack's brother and Captain John Hart managed to provide a better finale, than Abaddon the Destroyer managed to in Series 1. While I won't spoil it here, I will say that events that took place at the end of Exit Wounds were one of the few moments where I legitimately cried at something on television.
However, the biggest problem of the first two series of Torchwood is that it is simply trying far, far too hard to flaunt the fact that it's an adult-themed series. I remember reading an interview with Russell T Davies where he explained how much of a relief it was for the Doctor Who production team to be able to properly use gore, sex and violence. While I understand this eagerness, it's clear at times that the show's writers have let this new creative freedom get to their heads. When the second ever episode of your show ends up using the Sex Gas Monster, which has sex with people before killing them, the show becomes a parody of itself, and rather than feeling adult, it instead feels juvenile. Another aim of Torchwood was to explore ideas about sexuality, and not to make the sexuality of any of the main characters entirely clear. While this is a welcome and admirable approach, it does lead to some very poor and unconvincing relationships among our main characters. The relationship that springs to mind the most is Toshiko and Mary's in Greeks Bearing Gifts, which felt like one of the most forced and out of character relationships ever seen.
It isn't until the third series, Children Of Earth, that the show becomes mature enough to tackle darkness and adult themes properly. While the first two series were definitely mixed bags, the third series … became one of the best dramas ever to grace UK television. The leap from mediocrity to the five-part third series, Children Of Earth, is astonishing, and I can't begin to cover everything that makes this series one of the best ever made. For one thing, almost everything in this series is about as dark and twisted as anything in the Whoniverse has ever managed. I don't mean that it's a series filled with intense gore and violence – while blood and violence is there, it's used sparingly. Instead, the series is dark because of how it highlights the worst in the human race; yes we have the alien 456 orchestrating our actions, but it's the impossible situation and our response to it that makes the series so dark. (Spoiler Warning!) Children Of Earth sees an alien using children for drugs, the world's governments actually working with that alien, to the Torchwood team being forced to go on the run across England and Wales, and even features the tragic death of one of the show's most beloved characters – this is how you write an adult show!
The writing throughout Series 3 is at one of the highest levels possible, with each of the five episodes being exceptionally paced and well-written. Given how well this series is paced, and that all five episodes were originally broadcast in just one week, I can't begin to explain how exhilarating this series was on a first watch, and by the ending of just the first episode, I was left with goosebumps from what I'd seen. (Spoiler Warning!) The action never stops, with one of the best sequences of the series being the Torchwood hub getting blown up, and seeing Gwen and Ianto's attempts to escape whilst having to fight off government soldiers. This is followed by even more hard-hitting sequences involving the team's attempts to break Jack out of a concrete cell, before eventually confronting the 456 at the MI5 building. By this point, this was the biggest Torchwood had ever got, and despite the fact that we left Wales for the first time, it still maintained its unique Torchwood-like feeling.
All these elements and more make Children Of Earth not just one of the best sci-fi drama series ever made, but one of the best mini-series ever to be broadcast, and certainly stronger than anything Doctor Who or The Sarah Jane Adventures managed to produce in 2009. I literally cannot find any fault with it, at least not anything of any remote significance. It's exhilarating, intriguing, explosive, heartfelt, gritty and tragic throughout, with every one of the characters going through some kind of moral dilemma or change over the course of the series. Whether it be the terrible sacrifices Jack has to make, Gwen having to cope with pregnancy, Lois Habiba deciding whether or not to help the Torchwood team or the devastating things that John Frobisher has to face, it's impossible not to be invested in each of their stories. It's probably worth mentioning that special credit has to go to both Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi for their roles as supporting characters Lois and John. These two characters both have a very important part to play in the series, and both actors knock it out of the park with their performances.
Being a spin-off show, Torchwood obviously has connections with its parent show, Doctor Who. In fact, it links together and connects so well, that it works in Torchwood's favour. For example, our main character is no stranger to Doctor Who, with Jack having travelled with the 9th Doctor and Rose, the Cardiff rift has already been established, and the second series even sees a guest appearance from Martha Jones. In Doctor Who's Series 4 finale, the Torchwood team even show up with various other characters to help defend the Earth. All this helps Torchwood to feel part of an even bigger universe, with plenty of crossovers with its parent show and its other spin-offs. But even with this working in Torchwood's favour, it still needs to be able to stand on its own two feet, and as the production team would prove, this is something it's certainly capable of. Now for the purposes of this review, I'm going to structure things a bit differently. Due to its varied quality and the very different feels of each series, it might be unfair to look at it all together, so I'm going to look at and judge Series 1 and 2 separately from Series 3, and the same applies to Series 4.
With that out of the way, the first two series of Torchwood start off with a engaging and interesting team of characters. Of course, most will be familiar with John Barrowman as Captain Jack, who since we've last seen him has lost the ability to die. Jack gets his time to shine in a more adult-oriented show, and is definitely suited to this format. It feels as though his character has been let off a leash and we can finally get to see the full extent of his escapades. The rest of the original Torchwood team is comprised of new characters, and the first we are introduced to is PC Gwen Cooper. Gwen comes across as likeable, yet no-nonsense character and is easily one of the best things about the show. For a long time she also serves as something of a conduit between the team and the audience, and we are often put in her shoes for the first few episodes. Ianto endures some pretty good character development over the first two series, especially in the episode Cyberwoman, where he starts to make the change from a humble tea-boy to a fully-fledged member of the team. The character I really found myself relating to, and who is also my favourite among the original line-up was Toshiko. Both Jack and the audience can see how brilliant Toshiko is, not just with technology but also at dealing with alien threats, yet she remains softly-spoken and lacks self-confidence. It's these qualities that for me, make her easily the most multi-layered and complex character in the team. The only real weak-link of the team is Owen, who with the exception of his role in Out Of Time, often ends up coming across as quite selfish and unlikeable. (Spoiler Warning!) Ironically, it isn't until he gets killed and brought back mid-way through Series 2 that his character starts to become more interesting and likeable.
The production design of Series 1 and 2 have some mixed results, but generally the practical effects come across a lot better than the CGI work. It's clear that the majority of the budget went into the creation of the Torchwood Hub, which is a massive and intricately detailed set, that still feels as though it could genuinely be found underneath Cardiff. But while the money spent on the hub has paid off, the effect its had on many other special effects hasn't been all that great. While the practical work often looks great such as the make-up on the Weevils, and the designs of the Cyberwoman, the Blowfish and the Sleeper Agents, the CGI rarely looks as good. Computer creations such as the Sex Gas, the fairies in Small Worlds and the “Meat Alien” look quite cheap and questionable for such a high-scale production. However, let's not forget that things like CGI and special effects should only help to tell a story, and while not great, there's no effects here that actually detract from some truly brilliant episodes. While a certain number of episodes can be called bad or just mediocre, there are still some that truly stand out. In Series 1, some of my favourites included Cyberwoman, Countrycide, Out Of Time and Captain Jack Harkness – these episodes either established and carried on stories from Doctor Who or gave us time to get to know more about our main characters. These kinds of episodes happened more often in Series 2, with entries like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Sleeper, Something Borrowed and Adrift – all of which were either just pure fun to watch, with plenty of action or simply heartbreaking. The Series 2 finale, consisting of Fragments and Exit Wounds was also brilliant, and its interesting to think that Jack's brother and Captain John Hart managed to provide a better finale, than Abaddon the Destroyer managed to in Series 1. While I won't spoil it here, I will say that events that took place at the end of Exit Wounds were one of the few moments where I legitimately cried at something on television.
However, the biggest problem of the first two series of Torchwood is that it is simply trying far, far too hard to flaunt the fact that it's an adult-themed series. I remember reading an interview with Russell T Davies where he explained how much of a relief it was for the Doctor Who production team to be able to properly use gore, sex and violence. While I understand this eagerness, it's clear at times that the show's writers have let this new creative freedom get to their heads. When the second ever episode of your show ends up using the Sex Gas Monster, which has sex with people before killing them, the show becomes a parody of itself, and rather than feeling adult, it instead feels juvenile. Another aim of Torchwood was to explore ideas about sexuality, and not to make the sexuality of any of the main characters entirely clear. While this is a welcome and admirable approach, it does lead to some very poor and unconvincing relationships among our main characters. The relationship that springs to mind the most is Toshiko and Mary's in Greeks Bearing Gifts, which felt like one of the most forced and out of character relationships ever seen.
It isn't until the third series, Children Of Earth, that the show becomes mature enough to tackle darkness and adult themes properly. While the first two series were definitely mixed bags, the third series … became one of the best dramas ever to grace UK television. The leap from mediocrity to the five-part third series, Children Of Earth, is astonishing, and I can't begin to cover everything that makes this series one of the best ever made. For one thing, almost everything in this series is about as dark and twisted as anything in the Whoniverse has ever managed. I don't mean that it's a series filled with intense gore and violence – while blood and violence is there, it's used sparingly. Instead, the series is dark because of how it highlights the worst in the human race; yes we have the alien 456 orchestrating our actions, but it's the impossible situation and our response to it that makes the series so dark. (Spoiler Warning!) Children Of Earth sees an alien using children for drugs, the world's governments actually working with that alien, to the Torchwood team being forced to go on the run across England and Wales, and even features the tragic death of one of the show's most beloved characters – this is how you write an adult show!
The writing throughout Series 3 is at one of the highest levels possible, with each of the five episodes being exceptionally paced and well-written. Given how well this series is paced, and that all five episodes were originally broadcast in just one week, I can't begin to explain how exhilarating this series was on a first watch, and by the ending of just the first episode, I was left with goosebumps from what I'd seen. (Spoiler Warning!) The action never stops, with one of the best sequences of the series being the Torchwood hub getting blown up, and seeing Gwen and Ianto's attempts to escape whilst having to fight off government soldiers. This is followed by even more hard-hitting sequences involving the team's attempts to break Jack out of a concrete cell, before eventually confronting the 456 at the MI5 building. By this point, this was the biggest Torchwood had ever got, and despite the fact that we left Wales for the first time, it still maintained its unique Torchwood-like feeling.
All these elements and more make Children Of Earth not just one of the best sci-fi drama series ever made, but one of the best mini-series ever to be broadcast, and certainly stronger than anything Doctor Who or The Sarah Jane Adventures managed to produce in 2009. I literally cannot find any fault with it, at least not anything of any remote significance. It's exhilarating, intriguing, explosive, heartfelt, gritty and tragic throughout, with every one of the characters going through some kind of moral dilemma or change over the course of the series. Whether it be the terrible sacrifices Jack has to make, Gwen having to cope with pregnancy, Lois Habiba deciding whether or not to help the Torchwood team or the devastating things that John Frobisher has to face, it's impossible not to be invested in each of their stories. It's probably worth mentioning that special credit has to go to both Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi for their roles as supporting characters Lois and John. These two characters both have a very important part to play in the series, and both actors knock it out of the park with their performances.
With
the immense success and popularity of Children Of Earth, work
began on producing a fourth series, with a similar one-story format
to the last series, but double the length at ten episodes. This
series was entitled Miracle Day, and for the first time was
produced by both the BBC and the American network Starz, and saw the
Torchwood team relocate to America. First things first, one of the
things working in Miracle Day's favour was another great
premise – that suddenly no-one on Earth can die and the
consequences this brings. It's a fascinating idea and had the
potential to make for even more great sci-fi. The series even started
off looking promising with a solid opening episode, reuniting Jack
and Gwen, introducing new characters to potentially join the team and
even featured the fantastic helicopter chase sequence on the beach.
Miracle Day was undeniably the most ambitious series of the
show, going global and visiting Wales, England, America, China,
Buenos Aires, etc. The partnership between the BBC and Starz also did
some great things for the look of the series, with a clearly
increased budget, and every location and set-piece looking truly
cinematic.
Unfortunately,
these are the only positive things I can say about Miracle Day,
as there's very little else that works here. For one thing, this
series just doesn't feel like Torchwood anymore. Part
of the joy of Torchwood was its Welsh setting, and
before it came about, I couldn't really name any other sci-fi series
that were based in Cardiff. While Children Of Earth could get
away with moving the team to England, Miracle Day's decision
to move to America wasn't a good one. Seeing the Torchwood team
working so heavily with CIA makes the show feel so much more generic
and the kind of thing that we could get from 90% of other television
shows. Not even the new characters introduced in this series are
particularly likeable or memorable. Over the course of ten episodes,
CIA agent Rex Matheson doesn't change a single iota in any way, and
is generally unlikeable with moments where he just becomes annoying.
There's nothing else to his character other than being the template
never-give-up secret agent. Meanwhile, the characters of both Oswald
Danes and Jilly Kitzinger … are literally some of the most
pointless characters ever written. As the series went on, I found
myself asking: Why are they here? What have they got to do with this
story? Despite superb performances from Lauren Ambrose and
particularly Bill Pullman, we never get a clear answer to these
questions – they literally have no purpose here, and often it feels
as though they just happen to be in the script. The strongest new
character here is definitely Esther Drummond, but even then, she
isn't anything to rave about. While it is nice to see her gradually
become more confident in herself, she still ends up feeling quite
forgettable by the time the series is over.
Miracle
Day's biggest failing is fairly
easy to pick up on – it's just too long. Overall, the series is ten
hours long, being double the length it needed to be and just can't
hope to provide a satisfying pay-off to all that build-up. Rather
than being spread over ten weeks, Miracle Day could
have worked a lot better at just five episodes long. Just look at the
events that take place in Episodes 5 and 6 – they take place in
exactly the same locations, the Overflow Camps and Episode 6 deals
with things that took place in Episode 5. These two episodes could
have easily been merged into two! There are even episodes that see
the entire plot grind to a shuddering halt, specifically Episode 7,
which might have worked as a stand-alone story, but here literally
nothing happens to advance the Miracle Day plot, or at least not
anything that justifies the use of a full fifty-minutes. Not to
mention, Miracle Day ends
up focusing far too much on the consequences of the Miracle rather
than who or what caused it. I understand that the consequences are
the more interesting part of the story, but the eventual reveal as to
what caused the Miracle at the end of the series is wholly
disappointing.
It's
difficult and frankly unfair to sum up Series 1-4 of Torchwood
as a whole, because of how
much each series varies in terms of quality and format. For that
reason, I'm going to partially break my own rules and judge each
series separately. The first series of the show makes for a generally
enjoyable watch, but ends up being bogged down by some occasionally
questionable production values and trying far too hard to be an adult
series, instead ending up feeling juvenile. The series reaches its
peak with episodes like Cyberwoman,
Out Of Time and
Captain Jack Harkness but
reaches its low-point with episodes like Day One and
Random Shoes.
While similar, Series 2 fares slightly better thanks to things like
better development of certain characters and a fantastic finale. This
series also boasts some brilliant episodes such as Kiss
Kiss, Bang Bang, Sleeper,
Something Borrowed,
Fragments and
Exit Wounds.
With Children Of Earth,
the series transcends to become one of the best mini-series ever
created, and I'd honestly recommend watching even if you don't like
Doctor Who or
Torchwood –
it is that good
and worth watching. Miracle Day sadly
brings the series back down and does some pretty serious damage to
it. Unlike the fast-paced and tightly scripted Series 3, Miracle
Day instead feels more generic,
weak and slow-paced to the point of boredom. While not quite the
atrocity that many would make it out to be, Miracle Day
isn't far off, and is probably
the reason why we may never see a fifth series of the show. Still,
Series 1 and 2, and especially Series 3 are definitely worth your
time...
Series 1
6/10
Series 2
7/10
Children Of Earth
10/10
Miracle Day
Miracle Day
5/10
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