I just finished watching the first season of Torchwood this week. It sucks, do something else.

I have no adequate explanation for why I continued to watch the entire run after realizing how lame it was. I have a friend who says the same thing. It was probably because I was hoping that it would stop sucking so much or that some plot point for Doctor Who would be revealed.

I say yes. I like the dialogue, the lack of yelling, and running down corridors. Yeah, the sex thing is overdone - it seems to me that because they could get away with it, they did. With any luck, now the writers have all that out of their systems, season two won't have as much of it. Some of the trysts do have their places in the storylines, though. I find myself really liking the character of Captain Jack. Given a situation where someone is in danger and the evil force is pretty much unstoppable by conventional means, he has no issue with killing the evil person. I find this pretty refreshing, as most of the TV shows will attempt to talk the baddy to death, whereaupon said baddy gets away to only be foiled by a flaw in their plan.
The acting's a little heavy, but not unbearable - especially for a Dr Who spinoff. I'm always hoping, with both Torchwood and Dr Who, that they'll do a plot that stretches across three or four episodes. It's one of the things I really remember liking when I first saw Dr Who ages ago - Jon Pertwee was the Dr, and the plot lines were very long. With Torchwood sitting on the Rift that runs under Cardiff, it gives an unlimited source of eeevil aliens, but that's too easy and shouldn't be relied on like a crutch, which they do for almost all the episodes.
The various characters seem to be well-established, and I hope that they'll be able to maintain the continuity. One thing that bugs me in retrospect about the last Dr Who is in the xmas pilot, the Dr's trying to figure out what kind of a man he is, and he says, "No second chances. I'm that sort of a man." and in subsequent episodes, he falls into line as being a neutral good character (to use the D&D term). I'd hoped they'd begin to turn him back into what Sylvester McCoy was turning into (the destroyer of worlds), but no real sign of that emerged, except for other people's impressions of him.
To sum - you need a sci-fi fix? Well, why not give it a go?

(they aren't that beautiful)

I thought the first series of Torchwood sucked but I kept with it, too. Looks like it was a series to establish the characters.

I'm gonna keep with it when the second series comes out in 2008. There are real possibilities . . .errr . . . possible.

Also - POSSIBLE SPOILER for those not finished with the latest series of DR Who - maybe Jack is The Face of BOE. I want to see how that plays out.

In the end, what Zack said, give it a good go.

ALSO, Will you be watching on BBC America? The first series starts it's run there, in September.

I think we all know who the real, immortal, one-of/last-of his kind face of BOwiE is...

It looks like they're running Torchwood on CBC in Canada as well, which makes sense as the CBC has joined them in production. I'm assuming it'll start with season one, so it looks like I'm d/l the second from the BBC again.
Just checked the CBC's Fall schedule, and Torchwood's running on Fridays from 9-10 pm.

Torchwood's not actually playing anywhere on US TV is it?

Torchwood's not actually playing anywhere on US TV is it?

Yep -- on BBC America -- premieres September 8th. at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern) -- Episode 1 'Everything Changes.'

With Torchwood sitting on the Rift that runs under Cardiff, it gives an unlimited source of eeevil aliens, but that's too easy and shouldn't be relied on like a crutch, which they do for almost all the episodes.

So, it's BBC's version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with aliens and an older cast? And the sexy bits starting right away? Maybe I would like it, then.

I've been watching the new Dr. Who and enjoying it, but BBC America's promos for Torchwood aren't really selling me on it.

So, it's BBC's version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with aliens and an older cast? And the sexy bits starting right away?

Well, the cast is not just older but less attractive. And the sexy bits not only start right away, but they keep going and going, relentlessly and preposterously. I can't count the number of times I groaned at the latest bit of gratuitous sexy situation or atrocious sexy dialogue.

I'll still probably watch the next season. If you want to watch the first series, episodes 1-12 are on Stage6. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Torchwood is absolute shit. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction, bad design, bad characters: it's just not entertaining at all. For me, the absolute worst part is their reliance on the formula where some member of the team is sneaking around behind the rest of the team, doing something that they absolutely shouldn't be doing. Eventually, whatever sneaky thing they were doing blows up in their face and everybody else has to come to their rescue. Then everybody stands around looking really serious and uttering platitudes from the "you just don't understand me" and :I can never trust you again" files. Then next week they do it all again with a different character. This was the basic plot arc of something like 7 of the 9 episodes I managed to get through. And no, no, no, that's not an "important theme they're exploring and developing", it's a fucking boring crutch, used by hack writers who don't know what true conflict and character development are.

It's amazing that the supposedly "more adult" show is much less sophisticated when compared to Doctor Who, which gets into some nice big melodramatic themes. So no, Torchwood isn't worth your time at all.

Yeah, and if it's BtVS with Brits, I can definitely pass. Can't stand Buffy (or her fans).

Give me mindbending plot twists and brain-imploding SCIENCE fiction.

I have to say I thought the first two episodes of TW sucked, for all the reasons above. I liked Gwen enough as such but the ridiculous "Mary Sue" way they treated her character just didn't gel for me, and a steady diet of Captain Jack is definitely not the same as a brief appearance where he's a moral foil for the Doctor.

Now that (SPOILER) Freema is joining the cast, though, I'm unfortunately feeling compelled to catch up.

For my money, the best spinoff is definitely the Sarah Jane Adventures. Torrent the pilot, even though it's definitely skewed juvenile it's somehow much less insecure about itself and managed not to be embarrassing every quarter hour.

More TW thoughts: See, if they'd made it a bit more like Life on Mars (which I haven't really seen but which is certainly much more well worth your time to track down), and made Gwen a real policewoman who's always on the asses of Torchwood instead of always being awed and cowed and so forth, it might have started to be good. As a writer it's a good challenge to put someone in your show who is always questioning the basic assumptions. That's why Q and Seven of Nine were good characters for their Trek series.

And regarding the Doctor, I never saw enough of the McCoys, but the pushback from some fans is convincing enough for me that the new Doctor is considered to have crossed the line more than once, and you always see this or that fan swear off the new series because it's the last straw. From the Racnoss to the Family of Blood to, well, John Smith, he's condemned quite a few to death. He's even callously used a few characters, like Blink's Billy Shipton, and he's recklessly placed Companions in danger.

I like the new Doctor Who series overall. I haven't seen Torchwood yet, so I can't comment personally, but friends who have watched it have very mixed things to say about it. I guess the character of Martha will be guest starring for three episodes next season, so that might be worth watching for.

As long as we are talking about time travel themed science fiction, which aside from a special dispensation for Doctor Who, I usually detest*; I saw PRIMER for the first time last night, and I heartily recommend it.

*Because it is usually so utterly horrible. I vomit a little every time someone brings up the "Temporal Cold War" from Enterprise.

Life on Mars is great.

We like Eureka. Kinda like Twin Peaks meets Northern Exposure.

AS many others have said, I want to really like Torchwood, but I just can't do it. I have a mild fondness for Captain Jack, and was really looking forward to this series.
Unfortunately, the show just sucks. Far too much cheese. The sex is gratuitous, and worse, boring. The characters get less attractive the more I watch. They come across as naive, emotionally retarded and mentally unstable. They are inconsistent and untrustworthy, hiding secrets both small & large from each other. Maybe it's me that is naive, but if I was Captain Jack, hundreds of years old and supposedly old enough to know a thing or two, I'd be employing better people than the halfwits he has on the staff at Torchwood.

Life on Mars is great fun.

I recommend Jekyll.

And you should watch a bit anyway: he's the next Doctor.