TORCHWOOD - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (2007)

Torchwood - The Complete First Season (2007)

Actors: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd
Format: Color, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Number of discs: 7
Studio: BBC Warner
DVD Release Date: January 22, 2008
Run Time: 650 minutes

 

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This Doctor Who spin-off television series can be best described as The X-Files with a bigger staff complement. (The title is an anagram of Doctor Who — go ahead, try it.) A bisexual Tom Cruise look-alike who can't die for whatever reason named Captain Jack Harkness heads up a covert team of British specialists investigating supernatural phenomena — or rather make that alien phenomena as “scientific” explanations are always supplied, just as they are in the Doctor Who show.

The show has sharply divided British SF fans mostly for introducing sex and swearing into the Boy’s Own universe of the good Doctor. There is a good deal of both plus some occasional violence and gore, but we never found it off-putting. Overall the show is quite entertaining even though episodes tend to be of varying quality. One episode for instance features some very bad “sexy robot” makeup and costume on a human / Cyberman hybrid which simply undermines that entire episode. Other episodes are just too “X-Files” for their own good. The sex in an episode in which an alien in female human form “boinks” her victims to death are simply jarring and out of place.

Still, fans of the new Doctor Who revival will find the most to appreciate and if you count yourself as one, then you should definitely check out Torchwood. If you appreciate the adult tone of modern sci-fi TV shows such as Heroes and the new Battlestar Galactica series, then it is recommended that you should maybe try to catch an episode on TV before deciding on a purchase. Or maybe catch more than one as you might end up watching a poor episode and writing off the entire series in the process.