Review: Torchwood Series 1 (2006)

'Torchwood' is an adult-oriented SF spin-off from 'Dr Who', featuring Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), previously a recurring character in 'Dr Who', as the leader of a secret government organization of the title. In episode 1.1 'Everything Changes', we are introduced to Torchwood via Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), a Cardiff police constable who tails the Torchwood team back to their base after an incident with an alien. She finds out that Cardiff is the centre of a rift in space and time, and the Torchwood unit in the city is assigned to monitor and deal with incidents related to that rift.

In line with the edgier premise of the series, there's a lot of violence, coarse language and sex scenes. Unfortunately, many of the early episodes seem to be little more than an excuse to draw a reaction from the audience. For instance, episode 1.2 'Day One' has the team tracking a sex alien and 1.7 'Greeks Bearing Gifts' has geek girl Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) in a girl-on-girl relationship with an alien. In addition, the team's doctor, Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), is bisexual, and Harkness is bedding Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd), the team's administrator. It is not until episode 1.9 'Random Shoes' that the series leaves behind its adolescent focus on sexuality and starts to, um, actually tell stories.

During the course of the series, various events foreshadow the arrival of something extra nasty out of the rift. These threads are played out in the final back-to-back episodes 1.12 'Captain Jack Harkness' and 1.13 'End of Days', where a spooky time-traveller Bilis Manger (Murray Melvin) is introduced. The climatic fight between Torchwood and the Big Bad, though, is underwhelming.

Not a good start to a new series, too much effort on adolescent sexuality and angst, and not enough on telling stories.

2 out of 5 stars.