January 25: "Everything Changes" (TW)

So.  Series 2 of Doctor Who concluded on 8 July 2006.  But between then and its return at Christmas, a brand-new spinoff came out (on 22 October, to be precise) -- not a one-off, like K-9 and Company had (fortunately) been, but a full-fledged series: Torchwood.¹⁷⁷  And unlike its parent show, Torchwood was designed to be a post-watershed show (so late night after the kids have gone to bed), with a lot more swearing, sex, and explicit violence than you might find in Doctor Who.  So, not exactly the sort of thing the general audience would go for.

Based on this first episode though, by Russell T Davies, they might actually pull it off.  Far and away the best thing about Torchwood is the return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack.  He's not quite as great as he was in series 1 of Doctor Who, as he has to be more of the straight lead here rather than the rogue he was with Eccleston, but he still does a good job.  But "Everything Changes" focuses primarily on PC Gwen Cooper, who's investigating a murder when this outfit called Torchwood comes along and takes charge.  Gwen spends the rest of the episode trying to find out more about Torchwood and what they do.  It's all very "pilot"-y.

We do learn some things, though; this is explicitly set after "Doomsday", and while the Torchwood in London (Torchwood One) was completely wiped out, the Torchwood in Cardiff (Torchwood Three) is still around -- even if there doesn't seem to be a central authority for Captain Jack and his team to answer to anymore.  We also learn that this is after "The Parting of the Ways" for Jack: "Something happened to me a while back," he tells Gwen.  "Long story and far away.  But I was killed, and then I was brought back to life.  And ever since then, I can't die."

But as far as first episodes go, this one isn't too bad.  It doesn't assume that the audience has seen Doctor Who, which means that it does take some time to set up Torchwood for that new audience, with the "we take care of alien stuff".  It's sort of like a reverse X-Files, dedicated to covering up alien involvement instead of exposing it.

Suzie confesses to Gwen while Jack stands on the perception-
filtered lift. ("Everything Changes") ©BBC

They make some good moves (such as the gag about letting Gwen inside the base and then being unable to stay in character, or how the actress playing Suzie is treated like one of the main cast -- with a credit and everything -- only to be killed at the end), but there are some problems as well.  The aforementioned Suzie is shown to be a killer (even if this is shown as a hazard of the job), and while she gets her comeuppance at the end, Owen Harper (Torchwood's doctor) is shown to be a date rapist, essentially, with no consequences -- indeed, it's hard to shake the feeling that we're supposed to find this funny.  Still, at least Gwen, Toshiko, and Ianto come out more or less okay.

It's not the best episode ever, but "Everything Changes" does a decent job of setting the series up.  It's nothing incredible, but it does the job it was meant to do -- even if you're still not quite sure at the end what sort of show Torchwood will be.







¹⁷⁷ As you may already know, Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who.  The name was originally used as Doctor Who's codename during series 1 (à la Return of the Jedi and "Blue Harvest"), but Davies liked it so much he used it for the top-secret organization we see here.