Torchwood – the ideal format?

When it was announced that Season 3 of Torchwood would be five 1-hour episodes screened in a single week, instead of the 13 episodes of 45 minutes for the first two, I was a bit puzzled. Despite an uncertain start on BBC3, the show did well and improved significantly after moving to BBC2 for the second season. Promotion to BBC1, with its bigger audience, was a mild surprise. But the change in format was very unusual.

Has it worked? After three episodes of Torchwood: Children of Earth (and allowing for the possibility that it might all fall apart in the last two) the answer is ‘Yes’. We’re seeing a story develop slowly, with lots of time for character development and the raising of tension. The usual manic race to get to the end of the plot has been replaced by a complex web of interactions, and the result is a delight. I think I detect an element of Battlestar Galactica-style willingness to let the story tell itself, rather than being constricted by the episodic format, although it’s still a way short of the latter’s mastery of the process.

Some Russell T. Davis trademarks are in evidence: the presence of families to humanise the main characters; an ingenue (female and black); gay issues to the fore; black senior military officers; children; and people under the control of alien creatures. Some of these risk annoying the audience as unrealistic (if every top soldier is black, something much weirder than alien invasion has happened to the army), but it’s best to just skip over them and enjoy the story.

One particular delight is Peter Capaldi’s brilliant performance as civil servant John Frobisher. After his bravura display of foul-mouthed arrogance as Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, the switch to the cautious, scared, amoral, buttoned-up family man who has to negotiate with the alien threat, issue assassination orders and worry about what’s happening to his children is sublime. Capaldi is so good it’s hard to believe that he’s the same actor.

The regular Torchwood cast also get the chance to spread their wings, with the treatment of Jack and Ianto’s relationship standing out. And the supporting cast are first rate.

If there’s a flaw, it lies in a lack of attention to detail at some points. Gwen and Rhys’s attempt to rescue Jack in Episode 2 was doomed, given that they were unaware that he was entombed in concrete. So the fortuitous arrival of Ianto with heavy machinery capable of carrying off the concrete sarcophagus, when he too had no idea of Jack’s predicament was a hard-to-ignore deus ex machina. And the fortunate availability of some super-high-tech contact lenses, as well as a high-bandwidth Internet connection in an abandoned factory, must be taken with rather more than a pinch of salt. But that’s pretty much the norm for Doctor Who and Torchwood.

The good heavily outweighs the bad, I’m glad to say. The new-style Torchwood stands head and shoulders ahead of its predecessors, and I’d be more than happy to see it continue in this fashion. Actually, two five-part stories per year would be ideal, but that might be asking too much.

I just hope that the resolution on Friday lives up to the excellent work so far.