Torchwood: mayhem in space-time…
“Excuse me. Have you seen a blowfish driving a sports car?”
So begins series two of BBC Cymru’s (Wales) “Torchwood”. As I recall, Demonweed doesn’t hate TV and gets BBC America, so he’ll likely be aware of this extraordinary television series.
A spin-off from the revived ‘Doctor Who’ franchise, my former wife and current friend Wendolyn told me about ‘Torchwood’ a couple of years back and I hunted down some episodes – becoming an immediate fan. Revolving around the charismatic ‘Captain Jack Harkness’, Torchwood is ‘outside the government, beyond the police’.
Sort of like a ‘UFO’ for grownups, it’s a difficult show to categorise – based in Cardiff, Wales, Captain Jack and his team hunt down and stop alien and temporal miscreants. Sometimes funny, sometimes highly emotional, always interesting…
Sky Harbor gives it an enthusiastic “Two Fins Up!”
I done heerd about this. Hafta watchid.
I just finished the first season of the excellent ‘Boardwalk Empire’, Steve Buscemi’s masterpiece, first episode directed by Scorsese. Like a prequel to the ‘Sopranos’.
Currently, I’ve borrowed ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’ from the Murder Merchant. Really dark comedy. Love it.
Comment on February 12, 2013 @ 7:34 am
Blowfish might make the wait for Sherlock more bearable.
Comment on February 12, 2013 @ 9:31 pm
Quite different aspects of Brit weirdness!
Comment on February 13, 2013 @ 5:00 pm
I haven’t seen all of Torchwood, since I regained access to decent cable fairly late in the original run of the show. However, I have watched enough repeats that I’m probably in the 50-70% range when it comes to how much of the series I’ve seen.
In a more recent cable switch, my home got some sort of superdeluxe package for the first 90 days, and that gave me a chance to watch Torchwood: Miracle Day (a Showtime production.) The whole series is what you would expect from a gritty spinoff of the rebooted Dr. Who. If you dig it, you should probably save Miracle Day for last, since it leaves little prospect for a revival of the Torchwood project (save perhaps as a CIA-funded American spinoff that apparently was in the works but never produced.)
Even if brilliantly quirky sci-fi melodrama is not a mainstay of your viewing, Miracle Day might still be worth a viewing. It starts with the gradual revelation of a mindblowing premise, its tragic moments cut deeply, the plot twists surprise without infuriating, and the finale is as epic as any tale inspired by the Whoverse.
As long as I’m rambling about TV, I got a close friend a DVD of Justified’s first season for Christmas. Now he and his wife are caught up on this show, presently airing season #4. It is based on an Elmore Leonard character, and the author also has plenty of input on this series. Though most episodes play out like a short Tarantino film, the Kentucky hill country setting turns all the dialogue into a delightful blend of Shakespearean intensity with the rustic whimsy of characters from the Serenity/Firefly universe.
I am also a particular fan of Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and several other series. (USA’s legal drama Suits deserves special mention; both because it is way more serious than anything else on that network, and personally I can relate to the character who breezes through the LSAT but never makes it to law school. The premise of the show is that he manages to get hired by an elite NYC firm during a bizarre weed-related misadventure, but his new life is frequently complicated by the secret that he never earned a J.D.) All that said, I believe Justified is the single best dramatic series in production today. Ratings are excellent for basic cable, and the plan is to finish three more seasons then do a feature film. I hope it goes at least that far.
Comment on February 15, 2013 @ 10:30 pm