Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen
Genre: Sci-Fi
Release Year: 2006
Since there isn't any decent cult TV shows running at the moment, we've had to resort to reviewing old stuff!
Torchwood is a spin-off of the long-running cult series Doctor Who (look! it's an anagram! crazy). The main cross-over point is the character of Captain Jack Harkness (Barrowman), who first appeared in the Who episode "The Empty Child". Torchwood is alot more mature than Who and aims at an older audience.
It's a pretty simple story; Harkness runs a top-secret alien-investigating team call Torchwood. They are top-secret, and investigate aliens. Oh, and they operate in Cardiff, which is kinda nifty, because aliens don't seem to land anywhere else on the planet.
Torchwood really varies. It has the ability to create fantastic pieces of television (such as "Countrycide" and "Combat"), but often falls flat on it's face (exhibit A - "Cyberwoman"). On the most part, the acting is superb and the majority of the series is well-written.
For example, take episode 10 of this series "Out of Time". In the episode, the team find a group of three people who have accidentally flown through the rift from the 1950s. The episode has a very different feel to the rest of the series, as the team don't have to deal with an impending alien threat. It swings from moments of intense emotion to scenes of comedy (at one point, the lost souls from the 50s struggle to negotiate an automatic door). The episode was brilliantly written by Catherine Tregenna and included fantastic guest stars Louise Delamere, Mark Lewis Jones and Olivia Hallinan.
And then there's the bad episodes. I mentioned "Cyberwoman" earlier. In the episode, it turns out one of the team, Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) has been hiding his girlfriend in the basement of the Hub, who has been half converted into a cyberman at the battle of Canary Wharf (Doctor Who, Series 2, Episodes 12 and 13). She then turns nasty, and we are treated to a very clunky script, and some awful fake crying on David-Lloyd's part.
And then there's the ugly. "Random Shoes". Don't even watch it.
In general, the regulars are very good at their roles. Barrowman plays a very convincing arrogant boss and Myles holds her own as the newcomer to the team. But for me, Burn Gorman steals the show for me with his portrayal of Owen, a reckless player who gets in a bit of a mess towards the end of the series. His performance is engrossing, and the way his character develops through the series is very exciting. Oh, and there's some woman called Toshiko (Mori). Not sure why she's there.
Overall, Torchwood shows alot of potential in its first series to become a great cult hit. But it's a bit hit and miss. Hopefully this is sorted out for the second series.
Tom :)
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