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The WHO Spin-Off TORCHWOOD Reviewed!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
Scramble up the words “Doctor Who” and you get “Torchwood.”
A TV show, it sounds like “Men in Black” with Britishers and a much smaller budget. Like “Who,” it’s scripted by “Queer As Folk” mastermind Russell Davies.
Here’s “Jerome Crustacean”:
Hi,
Longtime reader, etc.
Last night there was a special advance screening of Torchwood, the new Doctor Who spin-off, in Manchester and I was there.
The basic premise of the show is that there is a secret organisation, Torchwood, who work outside the Government protecting against alien threats and scavenging any technology left behind. They are led by Captain Jack from Series 1/27 of Doctor Who, whom we last saw being resurrected by a superpowered Rose and abandoned in the 50th century.
The episode we saw last night was the first one and it did all the jobs a pilot should do - introduced the set-up and the characters and added enough mystery to make you want to keep watching.
The action in the episode is all from the POV of Gwen, a WPC in the Cardiff Police Force who witnesses Torchwood briefly resurrect a murder victim one night and then becomes obsessed with them and tries tracking them down, to eventually be recruited into their ranks.
The cast are all very good and Davies' script is full of his trademark humour and is more adult in nature than Who. There's more blood and swearing and the teaser for future episodes implies more sex too, so much more like Davies' other adult dramas.
My one criticism would be the music which, although good, does become repetitive and intrusive. Every time someone does some running the same music blasts from the soundtrack and almost drowns out any dialogue.
I'm trying to keep this spoiler-free, but I will say that there is a revelation about Jack which should make things interesting and there are some nice visual and dialogue references to Who which some may spot.
9 p.m. Sunday. BBC3.
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Longtime reader, etc.
Last night there was a special advance screening of Torchwood, the new Doctor Who spin-off, in Manchester and I was there.
The basic premise of the show is that there is a secret organisation, Torchwood, who work outside the Government protecting against alien threats and scavenging any technology left behind. They are led by Captain Jack from Series 1/27 of Doctor Who, whom we last saw being resurrected by a superpowered Rose and abandoned in the 50th century.
The episode we saw last night was the first one and it did all the jobs a pilot should do - introduced the set-up and the characters and added enough mystery to make you want to keep watching.
The action in the episode is all from the POV of Gwen, a WPC in the Cardiff Police Force who witnesses Torchwood briefly resurrect a murder victim one night and then becomes obsessed with them and tries tracking them down, to eventually be recruited into their ranks.
The cast are all very good and Davies' script is full of his trademark humour and is more adult in nature than Who. There's more blood and swearing and the teaser for future episodes implies more sex too, so much more like Davies' other adult dramas.
My one criticism would be the music which, although good, does become repetitive and intrusive. Every time someone does some running the same music blasts from the soundtrack and almost drowns out any dialogue.
I'm trying to keep this spoiler-free, but I will say that there is a revelation about Jack which should make things interesting and there are some nice visual and dialogue references to Who which some may spot.
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The Who is a much better British Export than Doctor Who. For a second I thought we were talking about Quadrophenia.
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I like Captain Jack and I like Doctor Who, personally prefer Christopher Eccleston since he's the one who finally sold me on old Doc Who... but still it could be interesting. Oh an FIRST... for the first time ever.
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I like Captain Jack and I like Doctor Who, personally prefer Christopher Eccleston since he's the one who finally sold me on old Doc Who... but still it could be interesting. Oh an I was so close to being FIRST... for the first time ever.
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especially when it does things like those two posts above. Fantastic... I love how I just hit Post Comment once and pop! there they are. Similar, but different. Slightly...
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Oh well. No biggie. It'll be interesting to see if it lives up to they hype. Especially since you can see the groundwork being layed in the latest season of Doctor Who. Funny about mixing up the letters of the name. Personally, that's what I thought all that "Bad Wolf" stuff was about last season. I kept trying to figure out what old Doctor Who villian's name could be spelt with those letters.
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was awesome. I had my doubts about this show, but after seeing the trailers its starting to look REAL interesting. I'm also excited about there being crossovers, which you know whill happen ala Buffy and Angel.
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It looks like Torchwood has a device similar to Johnny Alpha (Strontium Dog of 2000AD)capable of resurrecting the dead temporarily. Very handy if you need to question the corpse about who killed them.
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makes me think of Simon Pegg, who please god, should be brought back as another character or the same one in Who or Torchwood. He kicked so much ass in the Alpha Audio Books and was an aweosme baddie.
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Or does he just show up in the 21st like nothing happened and nothing is ever said? Either way, I'm looking forward to October 22nd...plus a few hours for uploading.
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and lets Doctor Who be the family show it should be.
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Absolutely agree. My son is only four and is absolutely mad about the Doctor. It took some doing for him to get over the fact that Doctor #9 is now Doctor # 10, but I nearly shed a tear when he one day came up to me and said EXTERMINATE...EXTERMINATE in a high pitched squeal. And don't get me started with the fact that he draws circles within circles within circles on a page, then draws an oblong box in center of it all, mimicking the opening credits sequence of the Tardis in flight.
He's young, but he loves Doctor Who, and I'm glad that it's a family show with the right about of shivers and chills in all the right places. I'd hate to see it get racy or inappropriate in any way shape or form.
That being said, I'd like to see some more adult content in Torchwood. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Being the U.S., any suggestions where I'll be able to get a download of it?
--G -
Thats funny. I need to pay more attention. I love the new Dr. Who and I'll give this a try. They've been referencing Torchwood all season so far like with the Bad Wolf shit last year.
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...is there anything in this "review" that we didn't already know from all the spoilers floating around the internet for months? I guess I took "I'm trying to keep this spoiler free" to mean, "I haven't really seen this so if I avoid mentioning any specifics, no one will know and I'll look really cool for having pretended to get an advance look."
Just sayin'... -
its been known for around 2 and a half years that torchwood was an anagram of dr who as they production company used this name during filming of the first serise it is a cool name and i do hope the spin of that starts on sat 22 is good as i have high hopes that this will be good as r t davis isnt hand cuffed with making tv for kids so he can be his usual saucy self when writing :-)
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So, Torchwood is going to be just as bad as Doctor Who with the music? I can't understand half of what the actors in WHO are saying anytime there is music playing. They seriously need to hire a good sound person on that show who understands that dialogue is more important than bad music. That's my chief complaint about the show.
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Anyone notice that the Rob Zombie CD they are pimping at the top of the page isn't available according to Amazon until 2025? WTF?
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...which airs on Sci Fi about six weeks from now, unless there are repeats. Apart from being just a horribly sucktastic episode (and don't let anyone who thinks it was "innovative" try to Jedi mind-trick you otherwise), there's a heavily implied oral sex reference at the end...using an animate piece of concrete no less. And no, I'm unfortunately not making that up. Judge for yourself if it's appropriate for your son or not, though.
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was awful. And sadly that was the one that they used the kids made up monster from the contest in, the one with the oral sex reference. NIIICE.
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Oct 19, 2006 12:25:08 PM CDT
"anything in this review that we didn't already know?"
by mockingbird girl
Well, yes... we now know that someone actually LIKES the show. Giving an opinion is the whole POINT of a review, right? And some of us are happy there are no spoilers... :-)
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Wasn't there a mention in a previous post that Sarah Jane Smith would be in a spinoff? Will there be a third show in the Whoniverse?
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Wasn't there a mention in a previous post that Sarah Jane Smith would be in a spinoff? Will there be a third show in the Whoniverse?
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So does Capt. Jack go back and forth between men and women? Or both at once? Seriously, though, I loved that about his character. Definitely an interesting subversion of the genre. And on DW it was playful, not the angst of say, the Dax symbiant on NextGen/DS9.
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was like the vacation episode for David Tennant and Billie Piper. They were barely in it.
I did like that Shirley Henderson was in that episode though. She's cool.
And little kids don't really have any concept of oral sex, so I doubt they'll know what's going on. At least, I hope they have no concept of it... -
Puerile, I know.
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IMDB has the Sarah Jane Smith spinoff listed for 2007. Could this perhaps somehow be the same show?
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I heard that her spinoff would be directed toward kids, thus would not be Torchwood. K9 would be in the her pilot only, and an animated series with K9 may be coming too.
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They are spinning-off the Doctor for all it is worth. The Sarah Jane spinoff is yet another one. There's also going to be a k-9 cartoon (which apparently the bbc doesn't own k-9, so i guess technically, it isn't a spinoff, but the person who owns the character taking advantage of the doctor's popularity)
. . . Torchwood is supposed to be much more adult (on at 9 instead of 7 I think?) . . . I would imagine that Sci-Fi would have to separately negotiate for Torchwood . . . here's another review: http://torchwoodtv.blogspot.com/2006/10/oh-my-god.html -
*Ultraviolet*, as in the British series by Joe Ahearne, and not the sucktastic film of nearly the same name from last year. Since its not available on R1 DVD, feel free to check it out on the Torrents. 6 episode (mini) series with Jack Davenport (James Norrington of *Pirates of the Caribbean*). Think a more somber British version of *The X-Files* dealing exclusively with the "leeches", aka vampires. I rewatched it last weekend and it was funny to hear in the first episode about mankind's future serving as a "battery farm" and this was out before *The Matrix*. Of course.
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If you scramble the words, "Doctor Who", you get "Who Doctor". However, if you rearrange the LETTERS in "Dr. Who", you can get "Torchwood". I thought that the premise of the show seemed interesting when they presented the idea, but so far I haven't seen any footage. Hopefully it will be as entertaining as the latest incarnation of the "Dr. Who" franchise. I absolutely loved Christopher Eccleston, and I was terribly sad to see him leave the show. David Tennant is doing well, but it's tough to start a series and lose a lead actor every season. Will Tennant stick around? Will the new assistant be here in another year? I hope so, because I don't think the series could survive such constant disruption. By the way, I don't like the new "Dr. Who" website. I liked the old one much better.
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Actually, if you rearrange the letters in DR. WHO you get WHOR'D. However, if you rearrange the letters in DOCTOR WHO you can get TORCHWOOD. If you're going to be pedantic, check for your own fucking mistakes.
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The spinoff that wasn't, although i would personally like to see more Billie Piper:
http://tinyurl.com/qapxe -
...so passionately are the folk the story is about. Hits a nerve, obviously.
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The music in the new series of Who is absolutely awful. Overly bombastic without any consideration for subtlety. I really hope they get someone new with an understanding on how to underscore a scene effectivly with music, instead of bashing our ears with tacky, cliched cues that often destroys any mood that may have been there. It's a shame to learn that Torchwood's music is sounding similar. Sometimes "Less is More".
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The BBC will have three series:
Doctor Who aimed at family audience.
Torchwood aimed at adult audience.
Sarah Jane Investigates aimed at kiddies. -
That is not a fair assessment of "Love & Monsters" critics. The objections are the mischaracterization of the Doctor and the ending. The doctor allowed Elton's girlfriend to live as a stone slab when he had previously and afterwards mercy killed people who had been cyberized. It makes no sense he would be cruel enough to make her live as a disembodied head. Secondly, the final sex life joke gave off the impression she was not much more than a se toy. I thought the similar appearance between Eleton's mother and Jackie was rather disturbing as well considering he tried to shag her. I do not see any of these objections being unreasonable or prudish.
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Okay, so the Torchwood screening was actually in Cardiff, not Manchester (my boss was there), and this review doesn't reveal anything about the show that wasn't already known from advance publicity and this week's Radio Times article. As such, I don't reckon the reviewer was actually there. Or, they need to brush up on their UK geography.
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There was 4 screenings for Torchwood 1x01, Cardiff, Glasgow, London and Mancester.
they all happened on the same night at the same time, so I can see where there could be some confussion.
on another note, I can't wait. :D
Phe -
That was a well-done, unique character trait for a side character in the Who plot-arc. But I don't think that would play well in the long-haul for a main character/star of the show...even in the supposedly more open-minded UK. Sorry, I just don't think they'll risk the "Ugghh" factor that could cause a big bloc of the audience not to like the star. I'm betting that they won't necessarily pretend he doesn't/didn't swing both ways, but they'll play it down; a few jests here for a while, but then even that will 'peter' out...and I don't ever see there being any actual homoeroticism/relationships..though they never exactly did much of that w/the Doctor on the hetero side, either!
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If you're right, then fair enough - it just struck me as very strange that there might have been other screenings on at the same time that the official press launch was going on in Cardiff. They haven't done anything like that with the Who launches, to my knowledge, hence the fact that something struck me as being potentially fishy (I say "potentially" because I did qualify "fake review" with a question mark!)... And, like I say, despite the spoiler tag I don't think there's a single bit of info in the review that isn't already widely known.
Nice to see some coverage for it, though - although I think the vibe around it seems to be far less MiB, and a bit more "X-Files meets Angel"... -
...really need to stop being full of themselves and watch something else instead...like "The Girl in the Fireplace," for instance, so you can comprehend what a good DOCTOR WHO episode is supposed to be.
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The oral sex joke was fsckin' funny, but maybe a little out of place in a Doctor Who episode. Still made me laugh, though.
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Tonight's episode here in the States is the best episode of NewWho since the revival. It also punches highly on the all-time greatest episodes. Although I would not say that its better than "The Caves of Androzani" or "The Deadly Assassin". However, it does deserve to be voted into that pantheon and of course Moffat deserves to win another Hugo Award. Which reminds me, it was so great of SpikeTV NOT to show a clip from *Doctor Who* at the Scream Awards despite it having been a nominee for best television series. They showed clips of every other series that had been nominated; those tools.
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are the people Shatner made fun of on the SNL Star Trek convention sketch. That was infinitely more cruel, and incredibly funny. We don't have a problem being made fun of, we just have a problem with shit, and Love & Monsters is shit.
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No. Why did the Doctor act uncharacteristic and not mercy kill the girlfriend?? Elton & his girlfriend are happy together, despite being a paving slab! They even have a sex life to some extent. Unlike cyber conversion, she's still HUMAN despite appearances. Why wouldn't the Doctor try and save her? What this very clever piece of TV shows is that life doesn't always end up the way you hope, it can be totally unpredictable and unable to be resolved in a normal sense, and no matter what we do we are all going to lose friends and family along the way. So find joy where you can and with whom, even if it is with like minded ELO fans.
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I am not ignorant in the slightest, though i suspect the "8" in your screen name refers to your age. living as a disembodied head is no different tha being Cyberized. In fact, it is worse because the new Cybermen had no emotions. Elton's girlfriend is well aware of what happened to her. She was not particularly happy about it. in fact, she says something along the lines of, "It's quite peaceful," as if she is resigned to it instead. The Doctor was cruel to do this to both of them.
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Not just normal crap but disappointing crap. Bad dialogue, bad plots, bad acting. Oh sweet Baby Jesus that was 90 minutes of my life that I will never see again and I feel cheated.
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Well, I quite liked it. The first episode had a very Ultraviolet vibe (with a touch of X-files) and the Who references are there for the fans, but unobtrusive for casual viewers like me. I like the fact that the whole Jack backstory is already known to viewers but a mystery to the rest of the characters, too.
That said, the production did feel a bit cheap and very BBC in places, but I wasn't expecting anything different, really. And the plots are fairly obviously just "adultised" Doctor Who plots, aren't they.
Still, not a bad couple of debut episodes. I'll definitely try and make sure I catch the next few. -
The music isn't quite as bad as the Doctor Who stuff (nto great though) and the first episode seemed like one of those obligatory introductions you have to sit through before the good stuff so I'm glad we got a double-bill to start off with. And the adult stuff seemed sometimes thrown in a bit just to distance itself from Who. That said it was entertaining, the Jack backstory has been nicely dealt with (or rather not) and his dedication to the Doctor's hand was cool, gives the hint that his main reason for working at Torchwood is to find a way back home, or at least to the Doctor. Rest of the characters seem fairly stock but the BBC did well to promote the Suzie Costello character in all the promo material so that her twist worked. But for the show to really work it needs a bit more darkness - giving the show an edge will make it more adult, not just using the word fuck and a plot about a sex-crazed alien.
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...really needed to be better than that. Apparently Who gets a Get Out of Jail Free card for being a kids show or whatever, so we just pretend it's not crap, but I'm halfway through the second episode of Torchwood and it is, I'm sorry to say, just really, really bad. The fact that both this and Who get glowing write ups in the media simply highlights the dire condition of UK television drama. Documentaries, good. Drama, almost always dire beyond reckoning. Remember Threshold? Axed. Torchwood is a zero budget version of Threshold written by a GCSE drama student in their lunch break. Embarassing.
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I liked what I saw, which was episode 1. C'mon torrents, don't fails me now! One thing is for certain, even in standard definition, the show has a sharper image than *Doctor Who* since this series is shot natively on HD and not DigiBeta. Can't wait to report back on episode 2. And is it my imagination or is a "replica" of the TARDIS Console Column from the TVM smack dab in the center of the Torchwood HQ? I'll have to look at it again... The Doctor's hand in the jar was cool, if not a little Timothy Zahn'ish.
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Wasn't the TARDIS Console Column, although it sorta evokes it a tad.
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I can't take this show seriously.Too many funny things to mention(intentional or otherwise).Weevils wobble but they don't fall down,I hope it comes in handy in the season Finale..Only Slack security at Torchwood moved things along.They should go all the way and bring BJ pavement woman in to keep an ear to the streets Huggy Bear style.Americans will laugh at this programme.I'll laugh with it for now.That was the Doctors hand?,how did he get that?.That was a nice touch but I didn't see it till I read Sambrooks post.I watched the last 5 minutes of Prime Suspect tonight just to see what the makers would do,that was a fitting ending.Cartman the bounty hunter was funny this week too.
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I came at it with extremely low expectations, and it did exceed them. In particular I thought the direction and production design were fantastic (who'd have thought aerial views of Cardiff would ever look so glamorous and interesting), and the picture stood out even on my distinctly non-HD tv. I felt it was just different enough and quirky enough to maintain my interest and differentiate itself from the thousands of other paranormal shows out there. The acting was well above what I've come to expect from British drama too. On the other hand I thought the second episode was pretty tasteless and cringe-making, and now that's out of their system I hope the writers won't go there again for a while.. A greater problem was that I found it difficult to engage with some of the lead characters, who can come across as completely amoral and self-absorbed. By the second episode, though, I think they'd started to address this. But I'm glad that British drama is now finally starting to close the gap with the US.. By my reckoning we're only about 14 years behind..
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While it's by no means the best Sci-fi out there, it was still entertaining enough to enjoy. I don't think I was expecting it to be much different than a Doctor Who episode, and except for some adult material it wasn't any more complex. The Who bits are clever, I think Sara Jane would be a nice addition to the show, and the whole bit with the hand was funny.
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This is what happens when people continually tell you you're brilliant. You start tossing out any old crap. The last 10 minutes of the first episode were AWFUL.
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I hope that I didn't waste my time by sending in a review of episode two. Studio 60 was broadcast in Canada after Torchwood was shown in the UK and those reviews are already up. Hopefully Herc will put the Torchwood reviews up soon because I'd like to read some other full reviews. Anyway, the first two episodes are largely getting-to-know-you stuff. John Barrowman is a charismatic lead but some of the other characters aren't fully-developed yet. Just ok so far but shows potential to improve.
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I will be tuning into BBC3 again next week.
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Looks like I wasted my time sending in a review for episode 2. A shame that Herc hasn't put up reviews for the second episode because I would have liked to have read some other full reviews.
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three things wrong with this
1 its filmed in cardiff
2 its full of welsh people
3 its filmed in cardiff with lots of welsh people
and what WTF was with that pterodactyl?oh yeah we just leave it loose in the lab here,except when capt.jacks having one of his "standing on top of buildings"moments in which case we just let it out in populated areas??? -
he could play him as a younger version of himself in a movie! This show can only get better...
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