#TBT Torchwood Review

First watched in: 2014

Torchwood is the made-for-adults spinoff of the popular show Doctor Who, with the simple premise of “cop show with aliens”. The Torchwood team in Cardiff is part of an organization that investigates different strange and extraterrestrial things around the area and properly makes contact and saves the day, unbeknownst to most people in the city. It’s overall pretty good.

Fans of Doctor Who will appreciate the appearance of Captain Jack Harkness as the leader of the team. Torchwood delves more into his backstory, answering questions you didn’t know you had about his life before we meet him in “The Empty Child” and after “The Parting of the Ways”. There’s also special guest appearances by Martha Jones, 10’s companion in Season 3 of DW. However, you could also watch this show without ever seeing Doctor Who. Besides the appearance of Martha and little references to the Doctor, it’s mostly a self-contained show.

The show has four seasons, technically. You could also just watch the first two seasons and call it a day. It follows the alien of the week format with a couple small running stories. There’s plenty of adult content and language that I would immediately put a flag on it and say definitely not for the PG crowd. The third season is a five-part story with an interesting premise: a potential invasion of Earth and The Doctor is nowhere to be found. How do humans react? This season does wrap up the show pretty well, but there is a continuation in the fourth season. I’ve only seen it once, and I think once was more than enough. It is a ten-part story that again presents humanity with a worldwide dilemma (no one can die) and we see the disastrous results. This season feels different than the rest of the show because it is set in America and was produced by the BBC and the American network Starz, which is where it aired.

I am more partial to the characters and situations found in the first two seasons. There’s some downright spooky episodes, as well as heartbreaking ones, but all the way through that is humor and heart. The Torchwood office just seems like a cool place to hang out: underground with a pet pterodactyl. There’s complicated relationships and cool gadgets and aliens and creatures and flashbacks. What more could you ask for in a sci-fi spinoff that doesn’t have a TARDIS?

Would I watch again? Maybe, if I’m in the right mood