By Faith McQuinn

TORCHWOOD is a spin-off of the immensely popular BBC sci-fi drama DOCTOR WHO; so right of the bat, I think I’m at a disadvantage. I’ve never seen DOCTOR WHO, so I don’t know this world, these characters, nothing. After watching the first ten minutes of the pilot, I realized that my supposed disadvantage was really working for me.

The show opens with a murder in Cardiff, and WPC Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) shows up in the pouring rain to help investigate. All of a sudden, everyone clears out for the “special ops” team Torchwood. Gwen is confused. Who are these people? Why are they messing with the crime scene? Instead of standing by like a good little cop, she goes in for a better look and sees the team resurrect the murder victim with a metal glove that looks straight out of a King Arthur tale. From that point, we follow Gwen as she tries to learn more about Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and his “special ops” team.

The episode is completely told from Gwen’s point of view, hence my reasoning that my disadvantage became an advantage. I was on the exact same page as Gwen, and honestly, this was the only thing that kept me interested. If I had been an avid DOCTOR WHO fan, I think I may have lost interest after Gwen’s second mysterious encounter with the group. Alas, I knew nothing of the secret organization Torchwood that’s “separate from the government, outside the police and beyond the United Nations,” and every time Gwen got a little closer to finding out more, I got a little more intrigued.

After doing a little snooping, Gwen discovers Torchwood headquarters, and badly disguised as a pizza delivery girl, she walks right into their underground lair. OK, “lair” is probably a bad word to use, but I like it, so it’s staying. Anyway, in the underground lair we meet the rest of the team. There’s Captain Jack of course. There’s Owen “Doctor, thank you very much” Harper (Burn Gorman) who’s the team scientist. Toshiko “Tosh” Sato (Naoko Mori) the beautiful, albeit cliché, Asian computer wizard. Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) is the impeccably dressed clean-up man who cleans everything from pizza boxes to dead bodies, and Suzie Costello (Indira Varma), second in command and the one who’s in charge of that weird resurrection glove. They form the team who works at Torchwood 3 in Cardiff because Cardiff, much like Sunnydale’s Hell Mouth, Cardiff has a rift that let’s aliens of all sorts slip right through.


I know that most pilot episodes are for introduction. This is the time when we learn about the characters, learn a little about the world, and then we get into the real action. Unfortunately, the real action doesn’t happen in this episode until the last ten minutes or so, and it’s really not what I’d call action. I’ll give you a little spoiler--someone dies. Even that’s not a big deal, because I didn’t care enough about the character to be shocked, saddened, or happy about the death. 

Even with a lack of action, the language and one particular sexual moment would make HBO proud. According to an interview with creator Russell T. Davies, he wasn’t allowed to call TORCHWOOD the adult version of DOCTOR WHO, but I don’t see why not. Four letter words, plenty of snogging, and the possibility of a threesome get thrown around in this episode like I was sitting down to watch SEX AND THE CITY for sci-fi geeks. These adult themes might throw avid viewers of the more wholesome DOCTOR WHO, but I don’t mind a little naughtiness in my television programming.


All and all, this first episode wasn’t exactly gripping, but I’m not ready to walk away just yet. I’m intrigued by Captain Jack, the mysterious man who’s seemingly from 1941 and has an interesting secret to boot. And the rest of the team has enough quirky chemistry to keep their relationships interesting. As long as the storylines get faster paced and more intriguing, I think TORCHWOOD has some real potential.