Torchwood Finale

The first series of Torchwood came to a conclusion last night on BBC Three with a double episode; one of which I quite liked and one of which I found almost total bollocks from beginning to end.

I must say that I’ve found watching Torchwood to be a thoroughly dispiriting experience. The characters, with the possible exception of Captain Jack, just make me want to take them aside and slap them across the face hard while saying "stop being so silly!". And the only reason that I make an exception for the Captain is because the character really has had very little to do throughout the whole series, apart from in the penultimate episode.

This was a half-decent episode, where the Captain and the Toshiko character find themselves trapped in 1941 in a dance hall. The Captain meets the "real" Captain Jack Harkness – i.e. the man whose identity he has assumed. There were some nice touches – the intercutting between current and past time in the dancehall, particularly the moment when we see Gwen in current time and a dancing couple waltzes through the camera shot between us and Gwen. And it was good to see Murray Melvin again as the sinister dance hall manager: Bilis. Melvin does understated menace very well indeed.

Perhaps the episode worked well for me because the usual flash-bang-wallop style of Torchwood was scaled down in favour of what was almost a simple love story. Except, of course, as befitting a series with Russell T. Davies behind it, this had a twist: it was boy meets boy, and boy loses boy when boy one goes off the next day to be shot down in the war and boy two gets returned to current time. The character of the "real" Jack Harkness was nicely played (by Matt Rippy), moving from comradely confidence to shy confusion as he realises that he is attracted to "Torchwood" Captain Jack. But somehow, given that this was 1941, I thought that it would be unlikely that he would ever be able to make the public declaration of his love in the manner that was depicted in the episode. They made a lovely couple, though.

But while I’m still wiping a tear from my eye, the final episode undoes all the good and returns Torchwood to its usual level of unremitting silliness. Three of the Torchwood team have visions of their deceased loved ones who tell them to open the time rift. Instead of going "hang on, that was odd, I’d better tell the others about this" – I mean, they are supposed to be a team, aren’t they? – they all keep shtum, thus of course finally ensuring that the rift gets opened. Gwen at least has the benefit of knowing that she’s been given a vision (by Bilis), but clearly hasn’t the nous to understand she’s being used and thus sets up her own Truly, Madly, Deeply moment for Eve Myles, the actress playing Gwen. Mucus dutifully flows in copious amounts, but I just found it tiresome, because that’s all the Torchwood characters have ever seemed to me: tiresome and self-obsessed.

And when the rift is finally opened, what stomps out? Some big bad CG monster. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I mean, there was plenty of interesting potential in the idea that the initial rifts in time were already causing havoc – the reintroduction of the Black Plague, for instance – and time slippages on a massive scale could in themselves bring about the end of civilisation as we know it. But no, that wasn’t good enough for the scriptwriters, they have to introduce a rather silly giant devil, literally out of thin air. It says a lot for how little this final episode worked for me when I found the most electric moment was hearing the sound of the Tardis at the very end. I wish I could fast-forward to what happens next, back in the Doctor Who storystream, and wipe out all memory of the train-wreck that Torchwood has turned out to be. 

But, to end on a positive note, earlier yesterday was the pilot episode of yet another Doctor Who spinoff, the Sarah Jane Adventures. OK, it was for children, but it had a fizz and sparkle to it that has been completely missing from Torchwood. And Lis Sladen was as wonderful as ever as Sarah Jane Smith. It can be done, you see. Why did Torchwood go so wrong?