MAVENity

** warning: the following post contains character death spoilers for series 2 and 3 of Torchwood (Children of Earth). If you don’t care, please read! (and try the show — it’s great!) Otherwise, move on…

Torchwood's 3rd and thought to be final series aired in the UK and US in July 2009

A fan blog is reporting that John Barrowman confirmed at Collectormania that he has signed up to do a fourth series of Torchwood. Kai Owen, another actor from the show (Rhys) has also confirmed. Ordinarily, I would remain skeptical until the network had said something, but in sci-fi fantasy circles it’s usually the actors and their discourse with the fans that happens first, and is usually correct. Plus, the BBC has a vile habit of keeping mum about things until the last possible minute. They don’t announce when a show will actually air until only a few weeks before (*waits eagerly for news of Ashes to Ashes series three).

I am… torn. I imagine I’m not the only fan to feel this way, considering where Children of Earth left things. But I am getting ahead of myself. What is Torchwood, you ask? OH, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT IT.

In 2005, the BBC relaunched the sci-fi classic Doctor Who franchise, reinventing the show for a new generation under the direction of Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies. While still a family show, Davies infused the show with an occasionally naughty wit, including a risque character or two, one of them being Captain Jack Harkness, a 51st century pan-sexual conman-turned-good-guy, who kisses both companion Rose AND the Doctor at the conclusion of series one’s big story arc. The topic of a spin-off came up, with Jack as the lead character, and Torchwood came to be — a darker, terrestrially based Doctor Who.

Jack, plagued with an inability to die (no matter how many times he tries), is the head of Torchwood’s Welsh office (an organization created by Queen Victoria in a series two episode of Doctor Who) whose job it is to monitor alien activity, scavenge what they leave behind and use it for the benefit of the Empire. Airing in a later time slot, and for the first series on BBC 3, Torchwood does everything Doctor Who couldn’t — there’s sex, death, cannibals, murder, oh, and everyone is gay. Or at least has a same-sex snog during the course of the series.

For the last several years, Torchwood has been one of my favorite shows. I loved it’s darkness, and the gay, and most of all the characters. One in particular: Ianto Jones, the quite tea boy who it turns out in series one is hiding a big secret, and in later series develops into a strong leading figure… and ends up being Jack’s boyfriend. There’s nothing I like better than a dark, complex character in a well-cut suit, and Ianto Jones is all three. But then it all came crashing down.

Children of Earth, Torchwood’s summer 2009 five episode mega serial, seemed like the game ender to top all game enders: in the most spectacularly fucked up storyline yet, aliens come to earth, possess all the children, and demand Earth’s leaders sacrifice 10 percent of Earth’s population in children, who it turns out are like a drug to the race (they hook them up to their bodies and feed off them like parasites), and Britain’s leaders decide to send the country’s poorest and dumbest children to the slaughter. A lot of people die, horrible choices are made, yes — children do die, and so do several characters. Most particularly, my darling Ianto. He dies senselessly, in a harrowing scene that I’ll admit made me cry. On an airplane. Whoops. Jack, unable to face the choices he’s made, and in particular affected by Ianto’s death, leaves Torchwood. The show’s heroine, Gwen, is pregnant and happy with her husband Rhys, and it seems that it’s all over.  It was a painful but BRILLIANT series, with challenging, crafty writing, top-notch acting from all involved, and as upset as I was, the writers did Ianto justice as a character, giving him a depth that he had lacked previously.

Everyone reckoned this was the end of Torchwood, Russell T. Davies’ big bangin’ departure from the Doctor Who franchise. Now it looks like there’s going to be a series four.

But can it ever be the same? Do I want a Torchwood without Ianto in it? Now you know what it feels like, I’m sure the Tosh/Owen fans are chanting — two main characters killed off at the conclusion of series two, but after their death, at least we still had three  of the five principle members of the cast left. Now, without Ianto, only the two mains are left. Can it ever be the same without Tosh, Owen and Ianto? Who will they replace them with? Gwen will be a mum — will we be hit over the head with Mummy Gwen plotlines? Will Jack spends the series pining over Ianto (ok, I wouldn’t mind this), or will the intervening time between the end of Children of Earth and the beginning of series four be considered his mourning period, and we’ll see him get right back to his old Captain Jack “I’m cocky and sleep with everything!” ways? Dear God, are Jack and Gwen finally going to hook up?

I just don’t know. Will I watch it? OF COURSE. But I think Torchwood may be jumping the shark.