Torch-what??!!

Something amazing happened yesterday. Whilst watching BBC1's ever-loving Angel/X-Files rip off summer thriller saga 'Torchwood: Children of Earth' I realised something. We've never had it so good. For three episodes in a row Torchwood has been consistently entertaining and not at all muddled and bollocks. The series usually finds itself as mediocre sci-fi adventures with quite good characters and rather rubbish 'Alien of the week' stories apart from a handful of episodes each season which totally justify the overall existence of the series.

For example, season one brought us the most unforgivably boring fight between a dinosaur and a robot ever in 'Cyberwoman', and an episode that was essentially Welsh, alien fight club. Still the season contained the truly heat-wrenching episode with Capt. Jack meeting the man he named himself for and a good-old romp in 'They Keep Killing Suzie' (a real contender for one of my favourite titles for anything ever)

Season two was generally of better quality but for every carnivorous shape-shifter impregnating brides before their wedding day (I don't care what you think, that was genius!) or cameo from Buffy's swaggering James Marsters, there were three episodes featuring the sullen face of Martha 'has anyone written me a personality yet?' Jones and one that revolved around harvesting Tesco value steak from a giant alien worm. Lovely.

COE may not be especially high-brow or cerebral but it is bloody good summer blockbuster entertainment. Sort of half 'State of Play' and half 'Torchwood' there's enough intrigue and involvement outside of the four main players we already know to make this miniseries work on a much more epic scale. So the twists are a bit predictable and the 456's projectile vomiting was a tad offputting but it's fun!! And I like fun? Don't you? Ah probably not you miserable bastard.


UPDATE 11/7/09

OK, I was wrong. Having seen the last two episodes this WAS clever TV, this WAS more than a summer alien thriller. This ran the gamut and went to Battle Royale, nay Warsaw ghetto levels in terms of questions of sacrifice, life and death. With that ending and such a strong appreciation for the plot (It's rare to see ratings go UP during the course of a series, usually you expect to see a slow drop especially for something requiring as much viewer attention and commitment as this) it's hard to see where the show goes next. If it's over, it left on a high and it's certainly impossible to ever go back to cheesy alien adventure romps, those days are beyond over. What we do know is that Capt. Jack will be in the Dr Who Xmas specials and maybe the good Doctor can knock some sense into him. Maybe not. Either way the third series of Torchwood was bloody exemplary. All previous mistakes forgiven.