Torchwood

I loved science fiction and fantasy books and movies in my youth, but I've fallen away from the genre in the last several years. My partner Don, on the other hand, still loves SF, especially on TV. He is a big fan of shows like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, and Doctor Who, and I'm sure if I were an enthusiastic fanboy, he'd probably watch many more (Stargate Atlantis, Farscape, etc.). I did follow Firefly, and I've dipped my toes in the rest, but to no avail. Most of the problem isn't really the content, but the form--the hour-long drama which I have such problems with (but that's for another post).

Don's latest fave series is the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood, about a group of "Men in Black" types who battle extraterrestrial baddies (and have been since the era of Queen Victoria). The group is led by a handsome omnisexual hero, Captain Jack, played by the hot gay actor John Barrowman, and when I heard that season 2 began with a big make-out scene between Barrowman and James Marsters (formerly Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, another one of Don's favorite shows), I thought, maybe this is an hour-long SF series I can get into. Alas, we got the Season 2 boxed set but I could only struggle through two and a half episodes before my usual TV drama malaise crept upon me, so I have enlisted Don to review the boxed set:

DON: At the core of the new Doctor Who general franchise--that is, the new Doctor Who series and its spin-offs The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood--is a gimmick: the writers continue to build complexity through internal allusions, cross-over story arcs, and guest spots. This provides a lot of fan satisfaction, but it also makes the parts of the franchise, let alone the individual episodes, increasingly inaccessible to new-comers. That's why when Mike lost his way in Torchwood: The Complete Second Season, I offered to pinch hit. He's not a Doctor Who fan, and no one who isn't already invested in the general story franchise is going to find much to appreciate in this DVD set.

The season begins with a lighter tone than what ended last season. Jack is back; there's some entertaining fisticuffs and sexual titillation (including some man-on-man snogging); teammates are put in jeopardy and then rescued. But as with the first season, the trajectory is toward the grim and, I'm sorry to say, toward the maudlin. Jack is mopey because Gwen is settling for marriage to Rhys; Tosh is mopey because Owen doesn't notice her, and at one point (because an alien has messed with their memories), Owen is mopey because Tosh doesn't notice him. It's nice when Martha Jones shows up for a couple episodes and she doesn't seem to be moping at all. Meanwhile, we keep getting dark but unspecific hints about the horrors to come in the 21st century when "everything changes."

More of the episode plots hinge on time travel or Jack's immortality, which has an appeal beyond the standard "catch the alien" mission of Torchwood. During the series, Owen is killed and then resurrected, and his immortality provides something of a contrast with Jack's. The season ends, as I mentioned, in maudlin excess, but it does clear the way for some new blood and fresh inspiration in Season 3.

The DVD set, from BBC and Warner Home Video, is packaged well, the individual discs set into hard, clear pages that flip like the pages of a book. There seems to be a recent trend to put all special features together on a separate disc, as with the Pushing Daisies set. This is probably cheaper and easier to produce, but it makes it inconvenient to watch a particular episode then watch its extras. Still, for the fan who had probably decided to buy this set anyway, it's a solid purchase which she won't regret.

MICHAEL: Don doesn't mention the actors, who are mostly satisfactory, but my particular favorite is Gareth David-Lloyd, at right, who also shares a kiss with Barrowman during the season. He got that "cute Brit" thing going on, as opposed to Barrowman who is a drop-dead handsome Scot. I also liked Naoko Mori, who plays Tosh. The effects are decent, but the writing is a bit sloppy, but that could just seem that way because I jumped cold into the middle of the series.