Torchwood

Title: Torchwood
Seasons or Series: 4
Episodes: 41
Year: 2006-2011
Studio: BBC Studios
Created by: Russel T Davies

Premise:

“Torchwood: outside the government, beyond the police. Tracking down alien life on Earth, arming the human race against the future. The twenty-first century is when everything changes. And you’ve got to be ready.” – Captain Jack Harkness

Torchwood follows Torchwood Three, which’s headquartered in Cardiff, Wales. Torchwood is an Institution created by Queen Victoria after an encounter with the Doctor (this is a spinoff of Doctor Who btw). The Torchwood Institute is to protect Britain from extraterrestrial and other-worldly threats. The team in this show have to protect Cardiff, Wales from alien and otherworldly threats that come from “the rift”. “The rift” is a weakness in space and time through which people or objects could pass from one location and time to another. Torchwood Three has to monitor the rift and control and seize what comes through it. Torchwood Three is led by the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness who just recently recruited former Police Officer Gwen Cooper to the team. The show follows their adventures.

My Thoughts:

I’m just going, to be honest here: I loved this show! For me, this was the show that stood out to me the most throughout 2020! If I had a show of the year for 2020, it would be this show! I love this show from beginning to end!

This show had almost everything right with it: stories, characters, great action scenes, great aliens, great plots and it even has great lore to it as well (The Torchwood Institute itself is a mystery and it creates some really interesting lore)!! The characters even make mistakes and to me that’s ok! This show does not have The Doctor who can explain everything to them and has all the answers. It’s just a bunch of humans who don’t know what they are dealing with and they have to figure out together how to defeat the threat they are facing. One of the best things that I loved about this show is that it had more of a focus on the human condition: existentialism, the nature of human life, corrupting nature of power. It can get really deep.

For the first two seasons, it was more of a monster of the week type formula. Although Season 2 does have the monster of the week formula, there is a story arc going on throughout that season. From Season 3 onwards, they ditched the monster of the week formula for a more serialized approach with one main story arc per season. Surprisingly I really liked both approaches and show just how good this series is.

The show also seems to pay attention to its continuity. As all the episodes do matter in this show. Something that I feel it’s parent show Doctor Who could learn from, as it seems now they retcon the show whenever it suits the showrunner. The show has some of the best LGBTQ+ Representation, I have ever seen on a TV show.

The only real criticism I have about the show is that some of the episodes in Season One were pretty weak. Now I don’t hate Season One, as it did have a lot of stand out episodes. The problem was they were just trying to find its feet and for that reason, it was weaker. Episode 2 of the series was probably the worst episode in the entire series! However the show does get better as it goes on.

Regardless, Torchwood was my favourite show that I watched in 2020. And the interesting thing is that even though the show has not aired on tv since 2011, the show still continues! Through audiobooks that have been released through Big Finish Productions. And they are just as good as the TV series! I have a few of the Audiobooks, so expect a review of some of them in the future!