Torchwood

I'm a big fan of the new Doctor Who series, so it would only seem natural that I would gravitate to its spinoff show, Torchwood.  For the record, Torchwood is an anagram of "Doctor Who".  Apparently the story goes that when the first season of the new Who was being filmed, the tapes were being sent to the BBC honchos for viewing.  Fearful of pirates (YARR!) they made up "TORCHWOOD" and labeled all the Who tapes as such to throw people off the track.

Ok, so Torchwood stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness.  He's a semi-main character from the new Doctor Who universe, and a pretty good one at that.  So once again, you would think I would love this show to death.  Ya know what?  I can't stand it.

I saw the first episode online and thought it was pretty strong, kind of a "Doctor Who meets X Files" thing.  In my world thats a real good thing, so I looked forward to the dvd release of S1.  Buddy of mine..um..loaned me his backup discs?...and I settled in to watch.  Next episode was a bit risque, but ok.  Some decent stuff there.  But the further I went into the season the more I noticed something.  The writing absolutely SUCKS.  The characters are so poorly developed, there is so much contradiction within them from one episode to the next, that it was driving me batty.  There is dialogue in there that would make George Lucas blush.  By the end of the last episode the only character I didn't want to see shot was Jack.

I could go into detail but I don't want to risk spoilers for anyone that may be interested in watching it.  Suffice it to say that I'm very disappointed in it and will not be coming back for S2.  On the plus side, I enjoyed the annual Christmas episode that kicked off S4 of Doctor Who so I have that to look forward to in the coming weeks.