A bunch of sexually tense people shout at each other while fighting a new alien an episode plaguing Earth through a time rift in Cardiff, Wales. Cardiff? Exactly.
Well it’s not really as bad as the first sentence might imply, but for Doctor Who fans, this is no Doctor Who. It is in fact a spin-off, in the loosest terms, from the new BBC Doctor Who series. In comparison to Doctor Who, Torchwood is found lacking even though many of the same people write and produce the show. While the new Doctor Who series needed some time to grow on viewers like me, just as a newly regenerated Doctor needed some time to grow on the audience in the old series, Torchwood seems to have the opposite effect.
Why Cardiff? I assume this had something to do with production money or where the show’s creator grew up and lives. And, I don’t mean to slight Cardiff. From the outside shots during the show, it seems like a lovely place to live and raise a family. I’m sure Cardiff has some fine people and some great pubs. To top that it seems to have more sunshine (1518 hours of sunshine during an average year) than one would expect in the British Isles. However, if Time were to create a Rift, would it ever pick Cardiff? On the other hand, can anyone seriously talk about a time rift? So what does it matter where The Rift is?
One of the things that intrigued me was the show’s star, John Barrowman. John plays Captain Jack (don’t know if that’s a reference to a Billy Joel song, kind of doubt it) an American with a time traveling past. What’s intriguing is that he has perfect mannerisms and dialect. Don’t see that often on British shows. The solved mystery is that, while John was born n Scotland, he grew up in the U.S. That explains how he does American so well.
For a cold winter night, watching Torchwood is better than watching 100 other shows one could think of. So if you get the chance tune in on few episodes. I get it on Netflix streaming video on the Wii. Love it and recommend Netflix.
On the numb butt scale, this gets a 2.5.
Tags: bbc, doctor who, movie, Movies, TV, review, torchwood, tv, tv series
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