Torchwood
Torchwood
TV-MA | 22 October 2006 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
  • Reviews
    Dotbankey

    A lot of fun.

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    TrueHello

    Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

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    Derrick Gibbons

    An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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    Fatma Suarez

    The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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    studioAT

    This is probably one of the most successful spin-off's from 'Dr Who', centring on Captain Jack, who was a companion of the 9th/10th Doctor.It's got a good concept to it, and is certainly well performed by its cast, including Eve Myles.It's far ruder than 'Dr Who' though in terms of sexual references and language, so parents wondering whether to let their kids move from 'Who' to this should be aware of that.Sadly 'Torchwood' went from a series to one off or mini series' before rather vanishing. It would be nice to see it back.

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    david-gillam

    First, you'd better love gay sex. I mean really love gay sex. I mean like staring at naked mens asses is your hobby; you collect Yaoi; you enjoy the Village People - type love gay sex. This isn't subtle, it isn't witty, it isn't done with any class; if it had been a woman and a man, instead of two dudes, it would have been rated "Mature" and not allowed on cable until "late-night". (or skinamax) And, apparently the everyone involved in creating the show considers it more important to each episode than the actual plot. (if you can figure out just what that is for the week)Amazing how the so-called "equality" bullsh!t always turns out to mean "obscenely lopsided double standard" in the mouth of entertainment douche bags.Second: character development. The homosexuals that created this show feel that "everyone is at least a little gay" and showing characters finding new ways to get their homo on was their idea of "development". If you think of character development in the more classical, standard definition..... yeah, none here. Its sad how one dimensional these characters are, considering how good the actors are.Jack supposedly cares about people. And yet, for over a hundred years, he repeatedly kills "a few, for the greater good". His "practicality" tends to kill almost as many innocents as the aliens he's trying to stop. Hell, at one point he even kills his own grandchild, right in front of his daughter. But we're supposed to believe that "its OK because he shed a tear" (and just one) while doing it. He tries to sleep with anything he can. especially men (hence the blatant and vulgar gay sex; no attempt to even try being witty or making it classy and no care as to the plot-relevance) The "smart girl" Tosh is completely withdrawn and socially inept, unless the plot calls for her not to be that episode. Its a crap shoot. The same sort of "Mary Sue/lawn ornament" we used to see with "Wesley Crusher" during "Star Trek: Next Generation" The Medic is a heartless bastard closer to a psychopath than anything else. Gwen the supposed cop is utterly incompetent as a cop, and as the "empathic" one, almost soap-opera-ish trying to make up sloppily for the lack of humanity from the rest of the group. Then there is the gay coffee boy, who's only real contribution seems to be being the steady piece for jack.These incompetents kill at least a half a dozen people every week, and no one in charge seems to care. Their primary mission seems to be getting in each-others pants. And again, no one seems to care. Every single one, at one point or another, breaks every rule and reg of the agency, and no one cares. If this group were really the crack commando unit they are played up to be, all of them would have been fired and executed numerous times, just in the first season. And they are all so self-absorbed that they don't notice or care when any of their teammates are troubled.Effects: heh. BBC works off a budget similar to the Sci-fi channel; cheap, pathetic, and sad. B movies are an improvement.Plot: yeah, sometimes there is one.acting: the cast does quite amazing, considering the garbage they are given to work with.I gather from reading that this is the normal style from the creator/writer/director. Which would be the reason not to let him work anymore. There's a reason that this died after 4 seasons, and ain't coming back. Everyone else is tied into better work on better projects.

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    hoytyhoyty

    Torchwood is such a disappointment.The first series had about 4 good episodes.Here they are:Everything Changes - because it's the first ep and They Keep Killing Suzie depends on it.Ghost Machine - this gave me hope that most of the series might be like this episode. But it wasn't.Countrycide - very clever I thought, particularly as the output turned out NOT to be a spacey/alien thing, it was homicidal yokels instead. Pure slipstream, and again it promised great things. These great things never arrived.They Keep Killing Suzie - really had me gripped and I thought the plot was rather clever. But, like The Talons Of Weng Chiang was for Doctor Who, it was the last good Torchwood episode ever made.Everything that followed. Every single episode. Every season. Was pure, atrocious crap.In answer to the homophobes... you don't need to be homophobic to be gratingly annoyed by all the gay and bisexual filler. Apart from just an undue drawing of attention to sex - oooh it must be an edgy series! it's got bottoms in it! - it's a throwback to the 70's:Remember in the 70's, how there was this 'gay futurism'? Robert Heinlein had all his characters (in his crap, crap stories) having sex with each other regardless of gender or familial status. Hardcore porn producers (of some quality work too!) were convinced that hardcore sex scenes would make their way in common into mainstream movies. And quite a few porn titles (on dear old VHS and 8mm) had some sexual interaction between males even if the title was a gay movie or not.And you know why? BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS ON COCAINE.Coke was uber plentiful and not super-illegal in the 70's, it explains an awful lot about that era (I do love the 70's, don't get me wrong, it's probably my favourite era - and also when the only top-notch Doctor Who's were made, concluding with Season 14).Russell T Davies is gay. Good for him. Nobody seems to have convinced him that most of the world's population isn't. It's roughly 10% of any given population, go look at the stats. So yes there is a good chance that a family member, a friend, somebody you work with, is gay. A sprinkling among the populace.So unless you are for some reason focusing on gay characters, for plot or dramatical reasons - ONLY A FEW PEOPLE WILL BE GAY. NOT EVERYBODY. And bixsexuality among males is even rarer than male homosexuality, but in the Heinlein-RTDverse apparently it's every man. And woman. And alien. My gods what an insult to gays everywhere - according to Russell it really is a choice after all, folks.Now that's out of the way, the stories.There is nothing to say about them. They start out interesting, rapidly go nowhere, everyone has sex with everyone else, and then the deus-ex-machina is trotted out with a forced depressing ending so they can rubber stamp it as 'edgy'.Torchwood is just a pile of rubbish, and I can't believe it survived the 2nd season.

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    ElessarAndurilS

    Torchwood is an odd series with many flaws yet still entertains most of the time. The show neglects character development yet tries to include heavy emotional scenes regularly. You have to first care about the characters before throwing heavy emotional plots at the audience and expect them to care. The overall purpose keeps changing from the stated one, but there are plenty of episodes that are fun to watch. There are also ones that are insulting such as the goofy half converted human/robot woman that made me think of Flash Gordon special effects laced with heavy emotions regarding characters we don't even know? Most of the time the special effects are not a big part of the show, and when included good enough. But the first season states that the team is getting ready for the 21st century to protect from the coming aliens. What? The first season deals with gizmo's of unknown origin, purpose, that are locked up because the team doesn't know how to use them. Aliens aren't really part of the stories, but there are still episodes that are good entertainment. The second season they ditch the getting ready for aliens and use the tag line that Torchwood is who you call to deal with aliens. Thing is there aren't aliens to deal with so much as people coming through a time rift and committing crimes. There are some aliens, but mostly not, and god help us if they are going to protect us. Season 3 is an episode in 5 to be continued episodes in which our protectors at the first sign of an actual alien attack, although "above the police, government and law" are ordered to be wiped out by a low level government official with the backing of a large contingent of military personnel that the military leaders don't seem to have any knowledge of. Then the episode that should bring closure to the story does a really bad job of leaving us with any sense of what actually happened and why after collecting all the intelligence on the actions of the British Government they just blow off going public with it? What? Jack just pulls a rabbit out of his hat that makes the aliens go away with no definitive explanation of what he did that made them turn tail and run instead of wiping us out. Not to mention that the whole world goes along with a plan to give up 10% of the worlds children to these aliens with no good reason given? I think reality would be closer to world war III or world wide rebellion when people were told to cough up their kids to be taken away forever with no reason given. But we are instead isolated to the actions of 3 or 4 people who in the world stage wouldn't have the power to assemble a world wide swim team much less world wide conspiracy to steal 10% of the worlds population of children to give up to aliens. A season long insult that I saw through to the end simply because I thought at least they were going to release the video condemning the politicians in their effort to protect their own but give up other peoples children. Didn't even get the satisfaction of seeing their down fall at the hands of what would realistically be a population in rebellion. I don't know if I have it in me to watch the final season. There seems to be just enough entertainment that I continue to watch, kind of like not being able to turn away from looking at a bad car accident.There are positives, enough that I've watched, but a lot of shortcomings to. Of the shows in the Genre there are many ahead of Torchwood worth spending the time watching. But it has been just good enough that I have watched it, and found some episodes entertaining in spite of the flaws. Might just be Gwen's eyes to.

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