Post
by Adam J Purcell » Tue Oct 24, 2006 8:01 am
I don't know about all this music stuff but I thought Torchwood was pretty good. Certainly not excellent, at least not yet, but pretty good.
Of the first two I find I preferred the opening episode. It may have been slower than 'Day One' but it just worked better, for me. Again they did the Rose trick of showing the first episode through the eyes of the outsider. That worked well in Rose and here. It wasn't nearly as cheesy as I feared, even the Monty Python blood from the hospital porter wasn't nearly so bad in the episode as it looked in the promos!
Not sure about the killing off of Costello. I suppose it had the desired effect, it took me a couple of seconds after she shot herself to realise that they wouldn't be bringing her back from the dead (for the series, not just two minutes). Second in command gone, leaving room for Gwen to come into Torchwood. It was neat from that point of view, almost a little too neat. It may be a bit early in the run but it doesn't feel like she's left a gap in the team. If you spend basically your entire time with a group of only five people you'd expect the loss of one of them to have an impact on the group. Haven't seen that so far. Anyway, it was amusing to have a guest star on all the promo publicity along with the regulars! Who knows, maybe we will see her again. I think it would have been more effective if they did a proper Spooks on her, though, and kill her off in a later episode. End of just the first episode cheapened it a bit, I think.
Torchwood certainly has a style of its own, very different to Doctor Who. It might be a bit strange to see Captain Jack back in the safe, family friendly, TARDIS after 13 episodes of Torchwood. That will probably limit what they can do with the character a little - he can't become a swearing ultra-violent moron and return to Doctor Who like that. Maybe that's why he seems a bit constrained compared to the Jack we met in 1941. Still, some interesting things to find out about him yet. Just who are the Time Agents, anyway? Why isn't the Doctor running into them all the time now? Will the Doctor's severed hand turn evil?
The Angel parallels are quite noticeable. As Tallorder mentioned, the nightime city shots could almost have been lifted directly from Angel. The whole concept of a small gang of demon/alien hunters protecting the city from an influx of unpleasant creatures that the general population know nothing about is also just about identical. Heck, even the central character is 'undead' and effectively immortal. All we need are occasional references to Rose the Dalek Slayer and we are there! This isn't necessarily a bad thing and doesn't mean Angel and Torchwood will be that similar in practice (just look at how different Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine turned out, despite the basics starting out almost the same).
I don't mind the Angel parallels (and they can easily be overstated) but I was a little disappointed that the 'Day One' premise was so hackneyed. I've seen the same story at least once before, in the Outer Limits (which went further to have the infected woman actually go topless in a couple of scenes!) I doubt it was a deliberate lifting but I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Nonetheless it was quite a decent episode. I think they were trying a bit hard to stamp the series 'adultness' (more so than even the aforementioned Outer Limits episode, I thought). I think it will calm down now though, they've made their point - this isn't Doctor Who.
A good few unanswered questions, including (possibly) why does Jack stand on the edge of high rise buildings? Style or substance? Time will tell!
Naturally I will be tuning in next week (and, I'm sure, getting the DVDs!) A good start, much promise, hopefully it will strengthen over the run rather than weaken.