Tonight. Nine o’clock. BBC America.
The adult-themed Doctor Who spin-off debuts on BBC America. But honestly, it’s more like Angel meets Homicide than anything Doctor Who. Seriously. Check Doctor Who at the door, because if that’s what you expect, then you’re in the wrong place. If you want a secret government agency tracking down alien tech, though, along with some seriously tortured and broken characters, this is your show.
I’ve written about the series at length before, but I’m going to hack some spoilers out of something I wrote then that I think, if you’re on the fence, is the single reason to give the series a shot:
One thing that I’ve heard consistently about Torchwood is that it’s a series obsessed with death. I’m not sure that it is. I think there’s a message slightly more subtle at work in Torchwood. The characters aren’t obsessed with death. The characters are obsessed with loneliness. There’s an undercurrent of the characters fighting against the inherent loneliness of human nature, they’re looking for connections, they wander down dark and unfortunate paths seeking connection, but events have an unfortunate way of showing them that, in the end, we’re all alone.
Yeah, that’s bleak and nihilistic, and damned if I didn’t eat that up. 🙂
Torchwood. Give it a shot.
BBC America. Tonight. Nine o’clock.