Death Makes A Comeback

Hmmm. Torchwood‘s move to an American production-base and transmission schedule meant that, amongst other things, for a while it and its parent show were running in the same week. Never would have happened in the old days, obviously, but the fact it happened made it fairly easy to contrast the two and the ways they’ve gone.

You can wait in vain for cheap gags about superglue on the set, faithful reader.

Once upon a time Doctor Who and Torchwood were clearly the product of the same storytelling sensibility – only the formats of the two shows (and Torchwood‘s self-imposed need to demonstrate its maturity via extraneous effing and jeffing) really separated them. Not so much these days – Doctor Who is so wrapped up in its ongoing storylines and character arcs, and so permeated with calculated daffiness, that it doesn’t remotely resemble any other programme on TV any more. Part of me even wonders if it’s as self-absorbed now as it was in the 80s, the difference being that – for a while at least – the mass audience is prepared to come along for the ride.

Torchwood, on the other hand, has grown up and doesn’t have much in common in terms of tone with Doctor Who any more. More crucially, it’s also a lot less of an obvious clone of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although once again the change of format is really responsible for this. I’ve enjoyed Miracle Day a lot, for the most part, but I can understand the disillusionment and annoyance of fans of the old show who see it as an in-name-only cash-in on their devotion to the series.

The second half of the run was much of a muchness with the first, in retrospect. For all the assertions that this series was going to build on the strengths of Children of Earth, it really was a very different animal – sprawling, a bit saggy in places, almost indefensibly self-indulgent and occasionally quite exasperating to watch. Very strong episodes were followed by obvious fillers and narrative gaps and jumps were allowed to slip by unresolved.

Most annoying was the final reveal of the cause of the Miracle – not only had the bad guys got their hands on Jack’s immortal blood, they had also (breathtakingly conveniently) discovered the location of another plot device which allowed them to… well, switch off death. What the hell was this thing and what was it doing there? No idea, but the writers seemed to think that a few Doctor Who continuity references would paper over the gap quite adequately. Think again, guys.

Even in terms of its own logic this didn’t hang together. We were invited to conclude that the Big Plot Device had extrapolated Jack’s particular power from his blood and projected it onto the rest of the world. Except that the Miracle was quite clearly different from Jack’s ability: he doesn’t age (which everyone else continued to do even while immortal) and he has astounding powers of, erm, regeneration (which nobody displayed). As I say, we have entered the Plot Contrivance Zone.

So the final revelations of Miracle Day were rather disappointing (and I for one will be astonished if these in-universe history-making events and their consequences get referred to at all in Doctor Who). That said, there was a lot of incidental entertainment to be had along the way. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that it’s time for Torchwood to go back to a genuine story-of-week format (rather than the awkward half-way house so much of this series seemed to occupy).

This in itself is possibly something of a moot question, with the tumbling UK ratings for this series and Rusty’s evident itchiness of the feet surely casting very big doubts as to whether another run even happens at all. If the word came down tomorrow that a new run was in the works, I would be politely but mildly (and, above all else, cautiously) interested. If, on the other hand, the news was that that was it, that Torchwood was now officially and finally utterly defunct, I think I would go ‘hmmm, oh well, it was nice while it lasted’ and not feel particularly moved to lament its passing.

To be honest the only reason I can think of for definitely wanting to see the show carry on is that stopping it now will only seem like a vindication to the Coffee Nutters for whom every move away from its inferior initial iterations was a mistake and a betrayal. Maybe it’s time to swallow hard and walk away and leave them to it. A bit of a shame, because while Torchwood at its shocking worst could one of the most cringeworthy things on TV, when it was good it was a credit to its origins.