So, they tell you, there’s going to be a post-watershed¹ spin-off for Doctor Who. It’ll deal with more adult subject matter. It’s at this point that you get to make a decision: when I watch this show, will I take it on its own terms, or will I count all the swear words and complain later about how many there are?²

After presenting us with naughty words used by irritated people in episode one, Torchwood now shows us sexing. As we’ve all worked out by now, based on viewer guidelines that rate seeing a naked breast as more adult than seeing someone shot in the head, sex is also very naughty. And hence, a touchy subject. ‘Day One’ has to try and walk the middle ground between so tame that it looks like it’s treating the subject with kid-gloves, and so raunchy that it looks like it’s doing it all for titillation.

Or, granted, you could not do a story about an alien who’s come to Earth for the sex. It is a bit silly,³ but let me say just this. Firstly — it’s a hell of a lot more understandable than when the Daleks came to Earth for the planet’s core. And secondly — shouldn’t we all be taking this as a kind of compliment anyhow?

‘Day One’ has many strengths, but it must be said that most of them don’t involve the sex-obsessed alien possessing poor Carys. The story’s more about Torchwood than her by the end, and the scene where she berates her stinker of a boyfriend for bad treatment and bad sex just seems to come out of nowhere. The plotline isn’t so much smutty as awkward — there are some good ideas sneaking around in the background, but they don’t seem to be being used much.

The rest of the plot — the ‘Gwen’s first day’ plot — is actually pretty good, and the bits where it intersects with Carys are amusing too. Gwen’s desperation to be useful and Owen’s snarky comments keep things pretty grounded. As it always is, once Gwen gets some confidence to her, she’s better at her job. And, also, able to tell the others that they’re doing their job wrongly. So, quite a bit of confidence then. The argument between her and Jack was particularly entertaining.⁴ There’s nothing particularly awesome in this story either, but it does set up the interactions between the team very nicely.

I’ve been irritated reading some of the reviews of this episode. It’s not brilliant, but that’s not because it shows two people getting it on. Or because there was a brief shot from behind of a fat guy wanking. These things are not, in and of themselves, bad or wrong, and people should be allowed to put them on televsion.⁵ If it’s bad, it’s because the alien’s plot is slow in the boring bits and rushed in the interesting bits, and because the whole idea is, frankly, just a shade too silly to fly.

And if it’s good, it’s because it reminded us what a flirt Jack is and was. I’d almost forgotten.⁶

1. A British term meaning “after the children are in bed”. ↩
2. What impresses me is that the people who feel it necessary to list all the naughtier words that appeared in the episode in their reviews are the ones calling the show “peurile”. Personally, I find people not swearing less realistic and thus, less involving in a show like Torchwood. ↩
3. And, yes, a bit similar to episode two of Angel. But that story, ‘Lonely Hearts’, was about loneliness. ‘Day One’ is more about, well, self-destructive emotionless sex. Kinda. ↩
4. Just the sort of thing, in fact, that was notably absent from Doctor Who in its second season. ↩
5. Although, I admit a certain preference for the former over the latter. ↩
6. It’s also good because of the slightly disturbing obsessiveness Jack displays over the Doctor’s hand that he lost in ‘The Christmas Invasion’. And because of the haunting snatch of the ‘Bad Wolf’ theme that plays as Jack cradles it. ↩

This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006. It concerns such pressing issues as Torchwood, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.