Torchwood Season 1 reviewed

As the U.S. premiere of Torchwood (for folks who, unlike me, didn’t resort to Nefarious Means to see it as it aired in the UK) grows near, I thought I’d write up a quick episode-by-episode review-ette with some of my imperssions of each show.

Everything Changes – feels very pilot-y, but it does the trick. We get an effective introduction to the characters, even in some cases with them barely saying a word at all. Even if you’re not a Doctor Who fan, things are set up very well, and really, there’s only one or two things this season that really require you to be a Who fan at all. The whole cast is good, but Eve Myles just knocks it right out of the park as Gwen. She’s a more instant point-of-identification for the audience than anyone else, and she’s set up with a nice normal background that we’ll continue to completely unravel by tugging at its threads all season. 😆 However, the ending is a bit abrupt – on its first UK showing, Everything Changes aired back to back with Day One, so there was less of a “full stop” in there. I also like how this installment sets up that life in Torchwood does leave its mark.

Day One – Proof, if any was needed, that this isn’t Doctor Who,Day One delves into territory that even the adult-audience Doctor Who New Adventures novels didn’t mine in the 1990s. Sometimes the result is unnerving, sometimes it’s predictably played purely for tittilation, and sometimes it’s fall-down funny. This might be an episode that makes you think that Torchwood is just going to be all sex, all the time, but it really isn’t.

Ghost Machine – oh yeah, this is where we really kick into gear. The more adult themes of Torchwood actually service the story here rather than just being a bit of a tease, and Owen gets something solid to do. I also have to praise Gareth Thomas, formerly the heroic Blake of the ’70s BBC space opera Blake’s 7, for a great guest starring role – he made me thoroughly dislike him in the course of a single hour, which I certainly didn’t expect. We also start to get some hints that Torchwood has a price tag for Gwen’s home life, something which will pay off a bit later.

Cyberwoman – an episode that seemed to be an early favorite among fans who wanted to see more Doctor Who crossover, this one follows up a bit on the second season finale of Who and establishes some stuff about Ianto, but then it goes off the rails a bit. Jack’s reactions and attitude in the latter half of this episode make more sense only after you’ve seen the third season Doctor Who episode Utopia, in which Jack says that he saw Rose’s name on the list of casualties, but that was months away from airing, and we just don’t get anything to back up Jack’s handling of it all. Which really bugs me later in the season when a relationship inexplicably forms between Jack and someone who he treats awesomely badly here.

Small Worlds – if you’re going to skip one episode of Torchwood in the first season, make sure it’s this one. An almost nonsensical storyline trundles along on sheer atmosphere alone, but once we get to the end of the story, it just completely falls apart. I get the impression that it’s supposed to be gutsy, uncompromising, no-pat-ending storytelling, but this episode is just a mess.

Countrycide – possibly the single most disturbing installment of season one, this one is some good old fashioned nightmare material, dealing not with an alien menace but with pure human evil that can’t be rationalized or reconciled away. Nor does anyone try to do so – by the time it’s time to deal with the problem or walk away, Jack does what most of the audience is probably rooting for by that point. A high point of the first season if you can stomach it.

Greeks Bearing Gifts – this could’ve been a much more interesting show with a slight shift in focus. The mind-reading thing was nothing we haven’t seen done before, but the exploitation of someone who has no social life to speak of outside of Torchwood was interesting…but sadly, that was largely submerged under the ratings-grabbing lesbian angle. Get the dads in to watch, indeed.

They Keep Killing Suzie – and just how damaged are your goods if you stick with Torchwood too long? This episode answers that in spades, and it’s one of the major high points of the season. Just when you thought they’d dealt with this particular problem, it raises its head again quite literally. One of the best lines of the season: “You’re being shot in the head. Very slowly.”

Random Shoes – a great little companion piece to Doctor Who’s second season Doctor-lite episode Love & Monsters, this episode takes a similar premise but runs with it in some slightly darker directions. This is probably as close as Torchwood gets to a family-friendly season 1 episode, which ain’t saying much. Possibly my favorite installment of the season.

Out Of Time – a nifty little character piece with no alien menace to speak of, this one takes some of our characters, points them to a less-than-literal mirror, and explores why they’ve become who they’ve become over the course of the season. A high point of the season, and refreshing for its lack of yet another alien intruder.

Combat – next only to Small Worlds in the “skip it” category. For being the much ballyhooed writing debut of Noel “Mickey Smith” Clarke, I had hoped that Combat would be something other than what it was…which is a Torchwood ripoff of Fight Club. Missing this one won’t break your heart. Or the storyline.

Captain Jack Harkness – maybe not to everyone’s taste, but a brave story anyway: a non-sensationalized gay love story. See, what with all the talk of Torchwood being a more adult series, this is along the lines of what I would’ve hoped for. Plus there’s a nifty little sci-fi mystery that doesn’t get solved by the end of the hour. Oh, man, does it not get solved. By the way, after watching this installment and Out Of Time, I quickly came to the conclusion that Catherine Tregenna urgently needs to be the head writer for this show.

End Of Days – a mighty fine slice of season closer, this. It pays off much of what’s been built up since the beginning of the season, and even gives us a giant monster stomping through Cardiff Bay. It also shows us how tenuous the group of regulars is, and what it would take to splinter Torchwood, and it all comes organically from the characters and the story thus far rather than being some hokey out-of-the-blue, out-of-character snap decision or an even hokier possessed-by-an-alien thing. And I’ll be damned if that Bilis fellow isn’t a creepy little S.O.B. – I demand a rematch in season two. All this, and a cliffhanger that you can only resolve by watching Doctor Who season 3! Now that’s how you do crossover.

Overall, season 1 is good stuff – Torchwood is a show that has huge potential. It also makes a couple of big missteps in its first year, but those only result in episodes I’ll just skip next time around, so obviously they’re not game killers. Even most of Torchwood’s most irredeemable regulars are redeemed in some measure by the end of the season, which I certainly didn’t expect from a show whose advance press went on and on about how dark and sexy and gritty the whole thing would be. Almost the entire show also has the same sense of fun that Doctor Who has – a sense of teetering on the edge of not taking itself seriously – but just expressed in more mature terms than a family-viewing-hour show would ever do. It’s a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it for those who aren’t itching to be offended by something. (Oh, and start looking for “Vote Saxon” posters near the end of the season – that guy gets around!)

Enjoy. Torchwood premieres this Saturday on BBC America.