I've just finished watching series two of Torchwood, and have been forced to accept that it is far superior to series one. I honestly didn't remember it being significantly better, possibly because I didn't remember any of the stories particularly well. Series one was so utterly, shockingly bad that all I really remember of Torchwood is the outstanding rubbish.
The 'sex monster' from episode two, the scantily clad cyberwoman from episode four, the fairies from episode five, the murderous alien with a telepathy pendant in episode seven, the inexplicable and variable behaviour of the Resurrection Gauntlet in episodes one and eight (and the wackiness with poetry in the latter), Owen's sudden and uncharacteristic attachment to a woman in episode ten, the poor excuse for a Fight Club rip-off that was episode eleven (and written by Noel Clarke, no less, so it should have been so much more and better), the revelation in episode twelve that Jack took the name of a US Airman who died in a training exercise and - just to be completely random - also happened to be gay, and that whole thing with the life-consuming demon in the ridiculously patchy finale... these are my abiding memories of Torchwood, where I remember anything... and I have to admit that, despite only re-viewing the first series very recently, I had to look some episodes up today, to remind myself what they were about. That's just embarrassing... And the weird thing is, for a sci-fi series, Torchwood series one relies an awful lot on mysticism and supernatural mumbo-jumbo.
By comparison, series two is more focussed on proper science fiction. While the introduction of Jack's former Time Agency partner is largely a waste of an episode, just about everything after that had something constructive to say. From alien sleeper cells (episode two) to a stranded creature being turned into pies (four), to alien parasites that cure all ills to ensure their own successful gestation which, naturally, is fatal to the host (six), to alien parasites and their overprotective parents (nine), to the lesser-known effects of the rift (eleven), series two was mostly well-written and each story seemed to have been thought-through and logic-checked along the way. A couple of episodes harked back to the random hokum of the first series - the Spectre of Death strutting about a Cardiff hospital, a sinister soul-stealing circus that steps out of a film recording - and really didn't seem to fit. Some of the backstory-telling seemed pretty disconnected - particularly Ianto and Owen's respective inductions into Torchwood Three - and came with their fair share of 'WTF?' moments, but this is actually fairly typical of episodic television these days. If the backstory isn't there from the start, it's difficult to later shoehorn it into place in a convincing manner.
Neither series has an arc, as such, though things that are touched on in the first episode of each invariably came to the fore for the finale. This kind of thing is another contributing factor to the 'WTF?'-ness of episodic television. An arc at least gives the episode writers something of a trajectory. They may not see or know the target, but at least they can keep the story going in the right direction. With Torchwood, there were episodes in series one that should never have been filmed, and episodes in series two that should, by rights, have been in series one, to set the foundations.
But, then, it's easy to say these things retrospectively. Some of this wouldn't have been seen by the people making the series. Clearly it never occurred to anyone that an infiltrator in the Torchwood team could have been more effectively utilised over the course of a few episodes, or that Jack's hidden knowledge of rift activity and its victims would have been more appropriately revealed to Gwen during series one, or that the continued existence of alien 'sleepers' was not a topic that could just be left hanging.
On the flipside, it was interesting to see the Singularity Scalpel used more than once. It's often said of writing that if you mention a loaded gun, you'd damn well better use it. The Singularity Scalpel was a prime example of this rule in action. While its introduction in Reset is blatant foreshadowing, it was a pleasant surprise to see its return in Something Borrowed, because it's so rare to see episodic television link to itself in this way, particularly when those episodes had different writers. This rule works backwards, too - without laying the foundations in Reset, the use of the Scalpel in Something Borrowed would have just been deus ex machina... but, that said, the Scalpel should probably have been introduced in series one.
So... Series two low points? To The Last Man was an interesting story - utterly self-contained and with no connection to anything. It really should have been in series one, because it left me wondering why we'd not seen - or even heard about - Tommy in series one. Owen's un-life, spread over the latter half of the series, became pretty much a non-event after he defeated the Spectre of Death in a bout of fisticuffs (yes, really) in the very episode he was brought back to life. Sure, it gave him the opportunity to nick an alien artefact from Richard Briers (who was distracted by his attempts to flirt with Toshiko over Owen's communicator), but that was just another McGuffin that never got explored: an alien response to our Voyager probes... I mean, come on!
It was weird to see how much of series two was given over to trying to make Owen a sympathetic character, too. Shame series one basically made everyone annoying, whiney and stupid.
High points..? Well, even some of those were tempered by poor execution. In fact, thinking about it now, while I really quite liked series two, none of it really stands out as brilliant... it's just 'adequate' - done well enough. I guess that's a significant improvement on series one... Sleeper had enormous potential, but centring it so tightly on Cardiff defeated the object. Meat was a great idea, but (why) would someone finding a stranded alien automatically think to turn it into a nigh-inexhaustible food supply? Reset could have been so much better if the 'villain' hadn't been written as so much of a villain. Something Borrowed, I guess, was a welcome bit of comic relief, and worked well in and of itself. Adrift was actually reasonably powerful as a missing-persons Police Procedural, but it felt like it should have happened soon after Gwen first joined the team...
Actually, there's an interesting point: My favourite two episodes - one from each series - were Police Procedurals centred on Gwen Cooper. Considering she started out as a Welsh bobby, it's amazing how underutilised her police skills were. Both Random Shoes and Adrift offered some explanation as to why Jack wanted Gwen on the team... almost every other episode painted everyone as incompetent.
Then there's Ianto... Series two made something of the character... gave him character, rather than just leaving him in the background. I don't necessarily think he should have become a field agent quite so suddenly, but he tended to be rather better at it than some of the others.
And Tosh... For most of the time, she was the outsider of the team - looked down on, almost invisible and mostly useless to everyone, despite her supposed technical genius. She was finally introduced in the penultimate episode of series two, where she was quite brilliant. How or why is it, then, that this amazing analyst, who can automatically, subconsciously correct technical specifications while building a device, wasn't able to figure out any of the alien tech she encountered in series one? Oh, right... because it was mostly supernatural twaddle.
Also, I have to say that Gwen and Rhys, by and large, are probably my favourite Sci-Fi TV couple. Their arguments felt very real, given the bizarre circumstances, and Gwen's decision to finally open up and tell her fiancé/husband about her work after - reluctantly - involving him in a case were probably the most strongly-written elements of the series. Eve Myles and Kai Owen have what people in television and movies call 'Chemistry' - they are believable as a couple, and the relationship they portray is perfect in its imperfections. Rhys was originally written as a buffoon but, like Ianto, it seems the writers felt some affection for him, made him a bigger feature and a more rounded character in series two.
So... On to Children of Earth...
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