Well having enjoyed the latest season of Doctor Who, albeit with mild upset that they wasted the Master’s re-appearance and got rid of Freema, I decided to catch up on Torchwood – the X-Files/CSI esque spinoff series. I’d seen the finale episodes before, and felt a bit disappointed that it seemed to rip ideas wholesale from Buffy so hadn’t gone back to see the early ones. I mean – evil old creepy guy, sharp knives and rifts that mean the end of the world… hmm. All we needed was Captain Jack to have a fake sister and it was Season 5 Buffy all over again.
Anyways, having gone back to watch it from the start I can only say that it is much much better than I thought. There’s a great mix of strong character development, realistic behaviors and weird alien stuff – not to mention disturbed humans. It was also interesting to see how far they took Jack’s ‘pansexuality’ (shagging trees anyone?). They may not have had the first on screen male on male kiss, but they certainly have the first male on male kiss between a time traveller and the dead guy he took his name from… I guess that would have been hard for him to become his own grand-father that way but they might have found a way.
Stand out episodes for me were Random Shoes and Countrycide – but they work best within the context of the overall story ark. Russell T Davis and colleagues have learnt some tricks from Joss Whedon for creating emotional scripts, and added some of their own. Definately a must see for scifi/fantasy fans, and maybe even for those of us who aren’t that geeky.