Torchwood, BBC (airs on BBC America)
BBC; BBC America; IMDb; TV.com; Wikipedia
For more links see Doctor Who & Torchwood links.

Caution: spoilers!

Torchwood was first introduced in the updated incarnation of Doctor Who. It was hinted at throughout the first couple seasons, as well as a Christmas special. On a seemingly unrelated note, during the first season of the new "Doctor Who," we met a time traveller from the future, who called himself Captain Jack Harkness, who would join the Doctor and Rose for awhile. Until they parted ways. However, that was not the last we would see of Captain Jack....

"Torchwood," the series, is kind of like "Men in Black." Torchwood, the organization, deals with unusual things. Mostly alien threats, in theory. But it may have to deal with terrestrial oddities, as well. And it scavenges alien technology, to arm the human race for the future. For the meantime, however, it is a semi-secret organization. The public may be aware of its existence, but not what it actually does. They basically seem like the kind of people who show up at a crime scene and assume authority, if they feel like it. Not so different from feds taking over a police investigation, really. Except that Torchwood is outside the government, beyond police or even the U.N. Though it is odd that the only branches I've heard mentioned were in the U.K. Well, not so odd considering the Torchwood Institute was established by Queen Victoria, in Scotland, in 1879. But still. Um... speaking of Scotland, at the start of the series, Captain Jack tells Gwen that Torchwood One was in London, destroyed during a battle (in an episode of "Doctor Who"), Torchwood Two is in Glasgow (though this is not the original Torchwood House, so I don't know whatever happened to that), Torchwood Three is in Cardiff, and Torchwood Four has disappeared (it isn't said where it was located, but Jack says they'll find it someday. This reminds me of the Babylon 4 station from the series Babylon 5.)

The series is set in Cardiff, at Torchwood Three. The reason it's there is because beneath the city is a spacetime rift (established in another episode of "Doctor Who"), which causes all sorts of "flotsam and jetsam" to drift through from other worlds or times. This is a small branch of Torchwood, with just a few people working there. The team is led by Captain Jack Harkness, though no one on his team really knows anything about him. It isn't really explained how he even came to be in this time and place. For awhile I wasn't even quite sure if this was before or after his travels with the Doctor, in his personal timeline, but eventually it becomes clear that it was after that. Anyway, all that's really learned about him in the first season of Torchwood is that he spent some time in 1941, an American volunteer fighting with the British Royal Air Force, and that he had assumed the name "Captain Jack Harkness," who was actually an officer who was killed in the war. We also learn that Jack- our Jack- can't die. Or at least, whenever he is killed, he comes back to life. And he doesn't age.

At the start of the series, a Welsh constable named Gwen Cooper is investigating a murder, and it leads her to discover Torchwood's Cardiff base of operations, and she soon joins the team. The team's second in command was a hardware specialist named Suzie Costello, but she will be absent from most of the series. I won't say why. But in her absence, the new second in command was a doctor named Owen Harper, who I don't think is particularly likable. There's also a computer expert named Toshiko "Tosh" Sato (who we like), and a guy named Ianto Jones, who seems to be basically a sort of... administrative assistant. But whatever each individual's official role, they all have to do various things in the course of their investigations, or whatever.

Well, at the end of season one, Jack disappears. Because he once again joins the Doctor (and his current companion, Martha Jones) for the last three episodes of season three of "Doctor Who." Here we finally learn a bit more about what happened to Jack between the end of his previous stint on "Doctor Who" and the start of "Torchwood." Why he can't die, and that he'd been stuck on Earth since the 19th century, hanging around the rift in Cardiff for over 100 years, waiting for the Doctor to show up again. But, after an adventure together, Jack returns to Torchwood (though not before leaving the Doctor and Martha with a little anecdote about his past that unwittingly hints at an answer to an ongoing question from the "Who" series, of which Jack himself wouldn't have been aware).

Well, when season two of "Torchwood" starts up, Jack's teammates are a bit upset about his having left them for a time. But they soon get over it. Meanwhile, a former lover of Jack's, and former fellow Time Agent from the 51st century, calling himself Captain John Hart (played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer's James Marsters) shows up and causes some trouble for the team. Just as he leaves at the end of the season premiere, he mentions someone named Gray, who we'll learn more about later in the season (in an episode involving flashbacks to Jack's childhood, and later in the season finale). Well, of course there will be plenty of sort of standard Torchwood adventures, but I should mention some of the major events in season two (here begin this review's major spoilers). They include Gwen's boyfriend, Rhys Williams, finally learning just what Torchwood is all about, and so he'll help out a bit on occasion, though he's never been happy about Gwen's job, even before he knew exactly what it was; also, he's never liked Jack. But also this season, Gwen and Rhys get married, although Gwen appears to have some feelings for Jack. Which may be somewhat reciprocated, although Jack is currently in a relationship with Ianto. (Ah yes, those Brits do love their soaps, eh?)

And we learn that Martha Jones, who parted ways with the Doctor at the end of season three of "Doctor Who," is now working for UNIT (the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, a fictional military organization which figured prominently for a time in the original Doctor Who series). She joins the Torchwood team for a few episodes, during which time Owen dies. However, he comes back to life. But unlike Jack, he... isn't really alive, he no longer has any life processes. He can walk and talk and whatnot, but doesn't breathe, can't heal his injuries, can't eat or drink (or at least can't digest or excrete, which makes eating and drinking highly inadvisable), can't have sex, etc. So of course he's not happy. Anyway, at the end of that story arc, Martha returns to UNIT.

We also learn that the rift works both ways; not only does it deposit things in our time and space, it can take things. Then in the penultimate episode of the season, we get some flashbacks to when each member of Torchwood was recruited, which was rather interesting. (Ianto's flashback, it should be noted, was when he joined Torchwood Three in Cardiff; before that he had worked at Torchwood One in London. So we don't see his initial recruitment, though we do get to see him and Jack work together to capture the pterodactyl that currently lives in the Torchwood hub; oh, did I forget to mention before that they had a pterodactyl? Hmmm....) Anyway, at the end of that episode, Jack receives a holographic message from John Hart, who has Gray with him. This leads into the season finale, which I'll just say wasn't what I was expecting. Some major stuff happened, with a profound impact on the future of Torchwood, at least on a personal level. Since you've been warned about spoilers, I'll tell you that both Tosh and Owen die (for good, this time).

Season three is just a 5-episode miniseries called "Children of Earth" (Wikipedia). It begins with something that happened in 1965, involving a group of children. Flash forward to the present, and we see that one day, every child on earth stops for just a minute. Later in the day, they again stop, followed by shrieking, followed by reciting a message (in English, everywhere in the world): "We. Are. Coming." There's also an old man who is affected in the same way, who was among the children from 1965. And there are those people in the government who seem to be aware of what's actually going on. And... well, I'll say more when I've seen more of the miniseries.

Anyway. The series is all sort of... I don't know. Lots of different sorts of things happen. And it all seems pretty unorthodox. I'm not really sure what else to say, right now. It's interesting enough, I like the show, but not as much as "Doctor Who." And I never really get particularly invested in any of the characters, with the exception of Jack, and even he I thought was more interesting in his arc(s) on "Doctor Who." Still, everyone gets their own stories, more or less. Um... aside from Jack, my favorite character is Tosh, though she's inexplicably in love with the caddish Owen, who isn't interested in her. Of course this gets more complicated after Owen becomes... undead, or whatever. And there are times, even before that major change, when he shows signs of being not quite as bad as he normally seems. I guess. And... well, I'm not sure what else to say, right now.... But surely things will change after season three...