| Created 2007..09.10 Updated 2007.09.10 |
by Robin Rowe [More
articles ]
2007.09.06
This review originally appeared in the British Weekly. Images copyright BBC Worldwide.
4 stars ****
BBC America, Saturdays, 9-10pm
A compassionate Cardiff policewoman joins Torchwood, an elite special ops team using alien technology to solve present-day crimes.
From Torchwood’s underground base concealed in plain sight deep beneath the Cardiff Millennium Center, an investigative team led by mysterious Captain Jack Harkness responds to any extra-terrestrial threat…an alien ship crash landing, an encounter with advanced technology or a homicidal alien. Torchwood is great sci-fi television. Maybe not the type of sci-fi you’d expect as a spin-off from Dr. Who. Torchwood is NCIS with aliens, a story premise more in common with Painkiller Jane or Men in Black.
In episode one of Torchwood, policewoman Gwen Cooper witnesses the resurrection of a murder victim to be questioned by the Torchwood team, changing her life forever. In episode two, a homicidal alien sex addict is on the loose in Cardiff’s nightlife. You’d feel uncomfortable watching that one with the kids. Torchwood is thankfully not as gory as you expect, but uses the f-word from time to time. "It’s bleak, brutally funny, full of all the sex and swearing that usually gets cut from sci-fi", says Torchwood creator Russell T Davies.
Davies, who also writes the new Doctor Who series, created the role of Gwen in Torchwood specially for actress Eve Myles, who appeared as Gwyneth in the first season of Doctor Who. Myles plays wide-eyed Gwen to perfection. Torchwood has minimal CGI and few alien creatures. "The series consists of one-off stories", says Davies. "But stories about the central characters are continuous throughout. Affairs between team members, traitors, sinister bosses, the misuse of their powers, and then even more affairs, so that the thirteen episodes have a shape and an arc. A dark, clever, wild, crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop-show. What else is television for?" The word Torchwood is an anagram of the words Doctor Who.
Glasgow-born John Barrowman first appeared as Captain Jack Harkness in Episode 9 (The Empty Child) of the first season of Doctor Who. "Jack’s a little bit darker and he’s a little bit angrier than when we last saw him", says Barrowman. "When Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner and I first sat down to talk about giving Captain Jack his own series, I was completely bowled over. It was a childhood dream to be a character in Doctor Who, so to have my own series was just unimaginable. I’m a grown man who gets to go to work every day and fight aliens, play with guns and kiss beautiful people – what more could I ask for?"
Torchwood executive producers are Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner. The cinematography of Torchwood is superb. DP Mark Waters’ sweeping aerial shots evoke the feeling of the Spider-Man movies. The music by Murray Gold is fantastic. Production designer Edward Thomas rethinks the Batman bat cave with a hint of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Torchwood premieres Saturday, September 8 at 9pm on BBC AMERICA.
http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/262/index.jsp