Once upon
a time, a Welshman called Russell T Davis revived Sci-fi classic Doctor Who and
then got bored of it and passed on his baby onto a much better writer, Steven Moffat.
After diddling his thumbs and wondering what to do, he remembered he had
Torchwood living in his basement so he decided to dust it off and spend some
quality time with it. It caused fan orgasms across the fan base and I was
particularly excited.
Jack and
Gwen were going stateside with new characters. Oooh, new team and characters?
Fair enough. Would have liked it to stay in the UK, but who cares, it's
Torchwood! The series that even one fan wondered if it was
better than its relative (fair enough, it's a good argument). When the time finally came and it
was back on our screens, I eagerly sat down in front of the TV and put my feet
up, I was genuinely excited. However,
what I then watched wasn’t Torchwood at all, but rather some Americans getting
a bit dramatic with Jack and Gwen tagging along as guest stars.
The
premise of this latest series is posing the question “What if no one can die?”
Now, if you’re a philosophical turd, you’d be loving this one with the morals;
what is and what isn’t murder, what we should do with the “dead” and where we
should store the coffin dodgers. Of course, this isn’t right – everyone
immortal? Really? Surely not! So it’s up to Jack Harkness, Gwen “I’m Welsh, not
English, you bitch” Cooper and some Americans to try and find out what’s caused
it.
Given this aired two days before the 9/11
anniversary, can't help but think this was a bit inappropriate.
In this
series, the regulars are back: Jack is here to kick some alien arse and change
his sexuality for the billionth time, and Gwen, now with a sprog called Anwen,
returns with her loveable but common husband, Rhys. The glamorous CIA shows up
to help out with Rex and Esther being turned to help Torchwood, Rex is your
typical tough black man with a pistol yelling “DAMN” and Esther is a book-smart
lady and obviously fancied the pants off Rex.
Jack and
Gwen’s chemistry was still there which was a staple of Torchwood UK as well as
a running joke with Gwen’s “Oh aye, I’m Welsh, you see” moments. Problem with
this, it got stale after the second episode and every time she sprouted the
lines, I slumped into my chair and cringed like I was watching The Only Way is
Essex cast recreate Hamlet.
Good to see Katya from Neighbours getting
some work even if she has her neck snapped.
A big
star on the bill was Bill Pullman playing Oswald Danes, something I thought was
a great addition to the cast. He played a convicted child murderer and
paedophile (or pedophile) sentenced for death but of course survived this
because of the whole not dying thing. Turned out that was his ticket to fifteen
minutes of fame and was seen as a prophet and given a platform to speak out of
his arse. Over the series he could have been used a bit more other than to be
used as the "This is a monster, hate him" character and rather
something else. Den of Geek suggested that he could have been used as "a chance to take
a good, hard look at how the media makes heroes out of the wrong people" which I thoroughly agree with and
should have been there instead of the pointless filler in some episodes.
For a
Sci-fi series that’s premise is kicking alien arse with guns and swearing, I
feel quite let down. Not only do we not
see what the Blessing is until the ninth episode, but there is no real alien
threat. When we learnt that the category ones were off to be cooked in furnaces,
I thought “Oh right, so I guess an alien gang are cooking our humans to fuel a
giant laser or something, I suppose?” and was adamant that this was going to
happen. But, throughout the series we saw one alien and that was it. I don’t
think I’m alone on this; I’m sure others felt a bit cheated.
'ey up, Jack's Gaydar sense is tingling.
What
seemed to trouble this series the most was its length - it was too long. Ten
parts (rather than five like with the previous) made the series seem to go on
for an eternity with just one main plot and sub-plots that could have been
easily condensed into less time. The episodes could have been shorter, with
BARELY ANYTHING HAPPENING in each one, including the finale. (I’m sure a few
hardcore Torchwood fans have already been busily ripping out the filler and
shortening the series.) In my mind a good series is like a bowel movement.
Short and satisfying is the way to go, any longer and you’ll end up shooting
out your internal organs.
The big
reveal of the cause of all this was a big disappointment, the anticipation, the
hype and mystery surrounding it made you hope that this was going to be
something that was going to save the series and somehow produce a decent
finale, but no. After nine episodes, we found out that the Blessing was a
vagina running through the centre of the Earth. A vagina. A vagina moderating
the world's life expectancy. Crikey, I felt like I was told the meaning of life
was to create a cheese and pickle sandwich. But seriously, how was this not
discovered before? If you have a miles long vagina running through the Earth,
surely someone should have seen it? Even the Silurians didn't spot it and so
they're either blind or the writers are a bit dim.
I'm sure a giant tampon would have solved this
whole malarky.
Considering
this was effectively a reboot (no RTD, it was one), the format could have been
a lot better. Why wasn’t there a return to the single episode plots of Series 1
and 2? If this series was introducing a new audience of Americans, it would
have been a lot better to do a slow, easy episode to ease the new viewers into
the series rather than throwing them into the story, telling you who’s who and
telling you to sit down and watch. Children of Earth was a great 5 part serial,
but I always wanted to see a return to the one shot episodes that we, the
proper Torchwood fans wanted, not some new viewers who have to stick on
subtitles every time Gwen says anything.
So I felt alienated. A lot. Going back to previous point of it being a bit
open so the Americans could gasp what was happening, it really did feel like
having to explain how to use a computer an alzheimer's patient. The scenes I liked most
were the scenes back home in the UK because you at least were familiar with the
surroundings and way of life, whereas in the US it felt like being on Mars with
the knowledge you have of the planet is off Wikipedia.
Will we
see more of Torchwood? No, I personally hope we won’t. Sure it’s set up for
another series with the “lol Rex is immortal” thing, the three families who own
Jack and this “Plan B” setup, but we’ve just seen ten weeks of uncertainty and
episodes of "urgh" and "meh”. If you want to have something
continue for another series, at least make it good. Terminator Salvation had
that problem, it was a anticlimactic film which was the supposed stepping stone
for future instalments, but that's down the drain. I suppose RTD is praying for
a miracle for this to be picked up again.
(..sorry.)
