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Torchwood Season 2: The season everything changes?
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Set in Cardiff, Wales, Torchwood is a darker, more enigmatic offspring than its parent show Doctor Who, with a dash of sex and an edgier outlook. Filming of Season 2 quite literally started with a bang. The BBC was forced to issue an apology for sparking terror fears after an explosion scared passers by and sent a huge pall of smoke over Cardiff's city centre. The explosion was staged in an old courtroom building next to the Millennium Stadium.
Police and BBC warnings on local radio hours before had not been enough.
"We had informed neighbouring businesses but could not tell everyone who might be in the city centre," said a BBC spokesman. "We apologise if anyone was frightened."
Created by Russell T. Davies, the man responsible for Doctor Who's recent renaissance, Torchwood's well-received first season introduced a raft of disparate characters and strong narrative themes that focused on morality, relationships and, of course, weird alien happenings. The title itself is an anagram of "Doctor Who" and the apparently indestructible lead character Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) first appeared in the revitalised Doctor Who's first season.
Torchwood is a secret organisation that solves alien and human crime and, along the way, collects alien artefacts and protects humanity. Cardiff is at the centre of a space-time rift that regularly spits out artefacts and creatures for the team to deal with.
According to reports large-scale changes are coming to the show. Russell T. Davies believes they made some mistakes with plotting and character development in Torchwood's first season that needed to be improved this time round. The first episode title "Fresh starts" seems to suggest he's done just that.
Hopefully they don't replace too many of the key characters that worked so well together in Season one; especially their leader Jack, the morally flawed medic Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), and the curious and sometimes naive Gwen (Eve Myles).
James Marsters, best known as Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, will make a guest appearance, as will Neighbours / Ugly Betty star Alan Dale. Marsters has been quoted as saying he will play "a bit of a psychopath".
Scripted episodes feature a rogue time agent and a time slip from World War I. Perhaps this season we'll also see a cross over episode with Doctor Who?
Filming of Torchwood's second season started in April and will continue until the end of November. In the UK, it's expected to air in January 2008.
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RTD is right, there were some serious plot and character problems in the first season! Most of the characters just weren't interesting enough, they did such stupid things that you couldn't believe they had any actual responsible, and there were major story problems (partially caused by the aforementioned stupidity!).
Plus there was the gratuitous sex and violence. Which is fine in context, but now when they appear shoehorned in just because they could. Even the swearing jarred.
Torchwood is great. I love the show. Despite some stupid scenes and very badly acted scenes, this makes a good sci-fi show that combines many human aspects: comedy, Sex, Relationships, Enemies and more.
It's a great show but I do hope that there are some improvements on the "meant to look real" feeling us viewers are supposed to get. Some scenes in series one were like "yeah that's sooo fake, its so fake you shouldn't have even shot that scene" even though it's not possible in reality, it looks and feels "fake".
I am looking forward to Season 2 here in Australia and hope it goes to air not long after it does in the UK, or I'll just have to download it. :grin
