Ah, Torchwood. I remember the happiness I felt watching your first episode. You seemed like you were going to be so cool.

And then you just weren’t, in so many ways. It’s become a bit of a cliche to say this, but I’ll say it anyway; I don’t think lead writer Chris Chibnail and I see completely eye to eye on what makes a good TV series. I felt this throughout Torchwood year one, and I felt it watching its season two premiere tonight.

But, it was most definitely better. Most surprising were the awesome bits; there weren’t many, but I wasn’t expecting them, so they were rather nice. The Star Wars hologram joke, in particular, was perfectly timed. The team’s awkward admission that things are more fun when Jack’s around. An alien blowfish waving a granny across the road. I had heard Torchwood was funnier this year, and it turns out the rumours are true.

It’s still an oddly awkward show at times — surprising, given that the same people are making the brash and confident Doctor Who at the same time. The aforesaid humanoid blowfish¹ opens the episode, being chased by Torchwood.² It’s an cute beginning, but unfortunately it’s let down by a painful scene where the blowfish happens to both know a lot about our heroes, and have the ability to phrase it in the most hackneyed dialogue possible.

So; Jack’s been away, but as we know has chosen to come back to Cardiff to be with his favourite not-very-secret alien-fighting organisation. Arriving around the same time is Captain John Hart, an old flame of Jack’s from his Time Agency days who looks and sounds very much like Spike from Buffy. Add his mixed motivations, the team’s usual irritation at knowing almost nothing about Jack, and a lot of snogging, and you get yourself a reasonable episode of Torchwood.

Colour me cautiously optimistic, then. ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ isn’t necessarily better than the best episodes of last year, but it does give me hope that the show is on a more even keel this year. Here’s to a better year for Torchwood, and to the hope that Chris Chibnail may yet develop an ear for natural dialogue.

1. Apparently though, blowfishes don’t look like that. If the Torchwood people can’t even categorise marine life correctly, how do they expect to save the world? Perhaps they should have tried patting him. ↩
2. Unfortunately, the team haven’t even thought to file their name off the SUV yet. Or get rid of those bloody stupid blinking lights. ↩

420

This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Sunday, January 27th, 2008. 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.