Torchwood
2006-ongoing British television series, made in Wales, created by Russell T. Davies.
Spin-off of Doctor Who, named after the anagram used as Doctor Who's fake working title, which became the name of a fictional institute within the series, and thereafter the subject of the spin-off.
Characters
- Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman
- Gwen Cooper, played by Eve Myles
- Owen Harper, played by Burn Gorman
- Toshiko Sato, played by Naoko Mori
- Ianto Jones, played by Gareth David-Lloyd
- Suzie Costello, played by Indira Varma
Captain Jack Harkness is the main cross-over character between Doctor Who and Torchwood, although the Torchwood character Toshiko Sato may or may not be the same as the Toshiko Sato (played by the same actress) who appeared in a 2005 episode of Doctor Who. An alien species which first appeared on Torchwood also showed up in the pilot for The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Series Overview
Torchwood follows the misadventures of the Cardiff division of the Torchwood Institute, whose nominal job is to protect the Earth (and the United Kingdom, specifically) from alien influences. However, several episodes focused on problems largely caused by the team's own corruption and/or incompetence, and other threats indigenous to Earth, which rather went against this purpose, and the series as a whole suffered from a very inconsistent tone and approach to genre throughout its first season.
The series is notable for giving every one of its regular characters bisexual traits or kisses with both male and female characters, although this sexual fluidity often came across as the result of exploitative or poorly thought-out narrative choices, such as the use of a non-consensual aphrodisiac, played off as a joke in the very first episode.
Torchwood has two regular female characters: Gwen Cooper, a former Cardiff police officer, who was recruited into the team in the first episode for no obvious reason, except that she'd discovered their existence, and Toshiko Sato, a computer specialist.
The third female member of Torchwood Cardiff was the second in command, named Suzie Costello, but she had killed herself by the time the first episode was over, having been exposed by Gwen Cooper as the serial killer the team had been tracking. She had been murdering random people in an attempt to learn how to resurrect them with a piece of alien technology. The character had been advertised in the media as a regular, and so her death was meant to be a shocker.
She returned in episode 8, "They Keep Killing Suzie", in which it was revealed that she had masterminded a complex plan (involving brainwashing and multiple murders) to bring about her own resurrection with the same alien technology. The mechanism that revived Suzie began draining the life from Gwen Cooper, and to save Gwen's life the rest of the team had to find a way to kill Suzie all over again.
Episodes
- Episodes in bold were written and/or directed by women.
Season 1
- "Everything Changes" (22 October 2006)
- "Day One" (22 October 2006)
- "Ghost Machine" (29 October 2006), written by Helen Raynor
- "Cyberwoman" (5 November 2006)
- "Small Worlds" (12 November 2006) directed by Alice Troughton
- "Countrycide" (19 November 2006)
- "Greeks Bearing Gifts" (26 November 2006)
- "They Keep Killing Suzie" (3 December 2006)
- "Random Shoes" (10 December 2006), written by Jacquetta May
- "Out of Time" (17 December 2006), written by Catherine Tregenna & directed by Alice Troughton
- "Combat" (24 December 2006)
- "Captain Jack Harkness" (1 January 2007), written by Catherine Tregenna
- "End of Days" (1 January 2007)
External Links
- IMDb info for Torchwood
- The BBC's official Torchwood webpage
- BBC Wales's Torchwood webpage
- Torchwood.org, BBC website for the fictional Torchwood Institute