30 Days of Torchwood: Day 3 Favourite series...

[fajrdrako]

The 30 Days of Torchwood meme:

Day 03: Favourite Series.

The first one.

I watched it with all sorts of criticisms and quibbles. I hoped second series would be better, with fewer plots based on the characters creating their own troubles, without episodes like "Random Shoes", where the story was just fine except it wasn't about Torchwood, and barely featured Captain Jack.

In retrospect, it had some wonderful and imaginative episodes. "Captain Jack Harkness" was my favourite, being one of the few really romantic things I've seen on television; but there were so many really good characters throughout the first season, not just the Torchwood gang: Yvonne at the police station, hapless thief Bernie, Mary the alien sex killer, Lisa the cybergirlfriend, the liberated-before-her-time Diane Holmes, Bilis Manger, the victimized Weevils... and good settings, good SF stories.

And second series had its great moments, but it didn't have any episode that struck me with the emotional force of, say, "Cyberwoman" or "Captain Jack Harkness". It had certain themes I hated - like Tosh's attraction to Owen - and Owen's change of character from sparky to nice not only made no sense to me, but wasn't consistent. It was even worse after he died - the first time. Motivation made less sense to me, the stories were more nihilist and depressing than they needed to be. There were some great characters, again - Beth, Adam, the space whale, Tommy, and I think every single one of them came to a sad and bad end - except Captain John Hart, whose story wasn't resolved at all. Not that I think it should have been. I'm hoping to see him again.

And Martha! One of the best characters in the Doctor Who universe, who arrived with such a splash, and then whimpered away to nothing. I understand that they couldn't keep her around because Freema Agyeman wanted to go to Law and Order UK; what I don't understand is why they wasted such a great character by still keeping her in the story for a while, doing nothing. She should at least have been sleeping with Jack.



More to the point, throughout series two, I thought the plots were weaker. They either lacked continuity - for instance, Jack loved Owen in "Dead Man Walking" but was coldly indifferent to him in "A Day in the Death" - what sense does that make? Or Tosh, so brave and mature in the first season, acting thirteen years old around Owen? Maybe I'm just miffed because I'd rather she got another girlfriend - or wish that her unresolvable pash had been for Gwen.

And though there was some darn good science fiction is series two ("Sleepers", "Meat" and "Reset" in particular) there was a lot of very lame fantasy. Dead Owen fighting Death in a dark robe was, for me, the lowest point. Sadly, there were other low points - like meeting Jack as a boy in "Adam", and he wasn't the interesting or charismatic kid. Skrull impostor, perhaps?

Series three had some of the best writing I've seen on television, but the story went from depressing to new levels of "let's kill ourselves now and get it over with". Torchwood - Jack especially - should have been much more effective; we needed more scenes of them being heroic, and fewer scenes of politicians being vile. It had some brilliant characters, and some wonderful scenes. I'm not saying I didn't like it. I'm saying it... devolved into something that wasn't particularly entertaining by the end.

So: Series one was best. It made me feel the most. It made me fall in love with the characters even when I was screaming at them for being stupid.