Torchwood: Seasons 1-3

 

Torchwood

Seasons 1 - 3

When I wrote my first post about Torchwood, I had only watched about three episodes, and I was fascinated with the sexuality portrayed in the show.  There are two main relationships in the show, one hetero- and one homo-sexual, and the characters displayed bisexual tendencies quite often.  After watching all three seasons, I'm still impressed.  But it's not the only reason I adored the show.

Torchwood, a spin off of Doctor Who, is a BBC program about Captain Jack Harkness (and team) fighting irregularities in time, aliens, and other out of the ordinary events and people.  I suppose the show is most similar to the X-files: Harkness is the true believer Mulder and Gwen his skeptical Scully counterpart; the two have that unresolved smoldering attraction issue, although not to the extent of Mulder and Scully and it's not as frustrating as Mulder and Scully either.  For me, Torchwood is the "right kind" of science-fiction; the stories are sci-fi in nature, but character development is not sacrificed for the sci-fi gadgets and creatures.

The themes addressed in the program are intriguing and mature: sex and death being the most prominent.  I've already talked about the sex, but what about the death theme you might ask?  Well, it's not really pretty.  Death is rather existentialist in the world of the show.  Those who have died and come back (gotta love it) report a great absence, darkness, and something moving in the abyss.  No pretty white lights, heavenly gates, or vast libraries (personal hope).  Death is some scary stuff on the show.

The first two seasons of Torchwood were set up like your typical series, individual shows for the most part self-contained.  Season 3, on the other hand, was a five part miniseries that views like a five hour movie.  And it's bloody fantastic I might add.  My mother and cousin watched Season 3, Children of Earth, without knowing that it was an actual television series.  They just thought it was a stand alone, and even without the background knowledge of the show, they had no problem watching it and loving it.  Even if you don't want to watch all three seasons, you should watch Children of Earth.
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This counts for the 42 Challenge, but I'm very unsure of how to count it.  I believe the challenge allows for individual episodes rather than seasons, but I'm not reviewing individual episodes so....