Fanboy Feasting No. 19

Those of you with access to BBC America might have already had a taste of the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. Too bad for me, no such channel exists on my pleasantly cheap cable plan.

If you’re at all familiar with the Doctor Who series, you probably already get the fact that you either love it or hate it. Personally, I’m in the boat of hating on Doctor Who, but I’m intrigued by the characters and context of this spin-off.

Torchwood takes place in the city of Cardiff and revolves around a branch of the fictional Torchwood Institute.
While it still suffers from the same lack in production quality as its predecessor, the characters of the series don’t annoy you as much as the eccentric David Tennant. Instead, the show highlights the stories of some less straight forward sci-fi archetypes, in favor of broader, more open characters like team leader Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and the new girl, Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles).

First, if my italicization of the word “straight” wasn’t obvious enough, there’s a lot of guy kiss girl, guy kiss guy and girl kiss girl action that happens, sometimes at surprising times, throughout the show’s seasons. Thanks BBC for not boxing your characters into a very narrow view of what it means to have relations.

There’s also a refreshing sense of risk you see on the show. Mature language and relatively strong scenes of sexual interaction pop up fairly naturally (though, there are definitely occasions where it’s forced in for sheer shock value). Once again, thanks for acknowledging that, yes indeed, people do cuss and f— as a part of everyday life.

If you decide to check out the series, keep in mind that overseas most production companies aren’t willing to invest in the same kind of moolah that we are for higher quality special effects and fancy camera filters. Once you get past that you’re in for a wild and fun ride for the inner fanboy in all of us!

I owe all my recent exploration of the series to Comic-Con and a friend of mine who had told me about the show. Without the sweet deal I scored at the show, I would have never forked up the dough for seasons 1 and 2 on DVD from Amazon.com.

If you have any other suggestions for me and, well, everyone else to check out, post it here! Happy hunting!

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