Pop Vultures

The season premiere of Torchwood on BBC2 posed the question everyone has asked from time to time: what happens when fandoms collide in the presence of alien tech, emotional whining and anthropomorphic blowfish? The answer, fortunately, is a pretty good time.

In season 1, Torchwood could be rather erratic in terms of quality, but gosh darn it, it sure was shiny and pretty, and that made up for an awful lot of nonsensical plot devices and forced relationships. In celebration of its season 2 opener, Russell T. Davies apparently decided that if a little pretty could distract from the show’s flaws, what would happen if he gave us a even more pretty?

Keep reading for the review (with some very mild spoilers).

Enter the time agent Captain John, Jack’s former lover and occasional nemesis. Guest star James Marsters bites into the role with such glee that you can see chomp marks all over the character (and frequently the scenery, as well). He hasn’t been such a magnificent bastard since the early days of Buffy, and it is a welcome return to form. Between Jack and John, being a time agent is clearly a winning career choice. It may not be an easy field to break into, but all your co-workers are bound to be omnisexual, gorgeous, and morally ambiguous at the best of times. Imagine the office Christmas party.

The plot is fairly standard. Captain John appears on the scene in Cardiff in pursuit of some sort of technological marvel and manages to flirt, kiss, fight and drink his way through town — and that’s in the first five minutes. Barrowman and Marsters’ chemistry is excellent, though that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Both actors have already shown that they could make passionate and believable love to a door frame if the script called for it. In addition. the euphemism-laden dialogue between the two is some of the sharpest this series has turned out. Unfortunately, from time to time the two men would need to take a smoke break or find a place to hide from screaming fangirls, and the other actors would have to step in. For these scenes, the program didn’t exactly falter, but neither did it rise.

Torchwood occasionally suffers from a lack of focus. Is it a character drama, in which we are supposed to care about angsty Jack (myself, I prefer the fun-loving, irrepressible Jack that shows up on Doctor Who)? Is it a soap opera, with characters seeking and swapping partners each episode? Or is it just a down and dirty sci-fi show, with random armed blowfish driving around town in convertibles?

The episode, and the show overall, works best when it embraces the last category, mining the weirdness of sci-fi for humor. When it spends too much time on Gwen’s doomed relationship or forces characters together despite an absolute lack of chemistry (did they learn nothing from the horror that was Gwen and Owen last season?), I start to wonder how many weeks we have till Doctor Who returns. I am pleased to report, however, that this episode did not contain a single incident of gratuitous, ratings-exploiting sex. I guess they figured that having Spike kiss Jack would bring in all the viewers they needed.

All in all, if you can skip over the whining (”Whyyyy did you leave us, Jack? What does the Doctor have that we don’t?”) and the foreshadowing of couples to come, this is a very enjoyable episode. If Russell T. Davies can keep balancing out the weaker parts of the show with strong guest stars and smart dialog, the second season could easily surpass the first. Of course, a bit of pretty never hurts, either.

Torchwood premieres January 26 on BBC America.