For the in-story organization, see Torchwood Institute
Torchwood is a British television science fiction and crime drama created by Russell T. Davies and commissioned by the BBC as a spin-off of Doctor Who. An in-house BBC Wales production for digital television station BBC Three, it is the first television spin-off of Doctor Who since the unsuccessful pilot of K-9 and Company in 1981 and the first to be commissioned for a full 13-part series. The title "Torchwood" is an anagram of "Doctor Who."
The spin-off series has not yet featured the Doctor as such, though in the first series Captain Jack tries to protect a hand suspended in liquid — the Doctor's hand, severed during The Christmas Invasion — and the TARDIS is heard materializing in the final episode of season one. The Doctor's companion, Martha Jones, appears in the second series.
Details
Torchwood is set in contemporary Cardiff, and features a group of "renegade" criminal investigators. Aside from investigating human and alien crime, they are also charged by the British government to covertly investigate alien technology without the knowledge of the United Nations. Confirmed writers include P.J. Hammond and Chris Chibnall.
In the announcement, BBC Three controller Stuart Murphy said "Torchwood is sinister and psychological... as well as being very British and modern and real." Davies himself has characterised the series concept as "a dark, clever, wild, sexy, British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show with a sense of humour — The X-Files meets This Life."
The series will star John Barrowman as Jack Harkness, one of the Ninth Doctor's companions from the 2005 season of Doctor Who. Although no crossovers with the parent series are planned, Barrowman reported on his website that the story of Torchwood would be "seeded" in the Christmas special and 2006 season of Doctor Who.
According to Davies, the name originated during production of the new Doctor Who series, when television pirates were eager to get their hands on the tapes. Someone in the production office suggested that the tapes be labelled "Torchwood" instead of "Doctor Who" to disguise their contents as they were being sent to London. Davies thought that was a clever idea and remembered the name.
As it is scheduled to be shown post-watershed, that is, after 9:00 pm, it is also expected to have more mature content than the parent series. Davies joked to a BBC Radio Wales interviewer that he was "not allowed" to refer to the series as "Doctor Who for grown-ups." BBC Wales Head of Drama Julie Gardner will serve as executive producer alongside Davies. Torchwood is set to premiere in Autumn 2006 on BBC Three. The date of the premiere is Sunday 22nd October 2006.
Interviewed on ITV1's afternoon chat show Loose Women on 18th October 2005, Barrowman suggested that the series might be repeated on BBC One sometime after its initial BBC Three airing. He also stated that it will not be revealed in the series how Jack Harkness has arrived in the early 21st century.
After the BBC announced Torchwood, tabloid newspaper The Daily Star wrote that singer Charlotte Church would be appearing as a Satan-worshipping villain in the series. The accuracy of this claim is false. However, rumours are surfacing that Rachel Stevens will be joining the cast.
Martha Jones joined the show in the middle of Series 2 during the episode "Reset". She has a three episode appearance. When she joined the show, she was a fully qualified doctor, but left at the end of A Day in the Death.
Story arcs in Torchwood
Like Doctor Who, Torchword has used arc words which appear throughout the season and take a leading role in the finale. Arch words for Doctor Who have also appeared in Torchwood, most notably the appearance of "Mr Saxon" posters.
In Season 1 the recurring theme was death and something being in the "darkness", which was revealed to be the release of Abbadon in the series finale; it has remained a recurring theme in the show in Season 2 as part of the arch involving Owen. In Season 2, the story arc was "Gray" refers to Captain Jack's lost brother, who returns in the series finale.
References in Doctor Who
The word "Torchwood" first occured in the 2005 Doctor Who episode Bad Wolf, during a deadly version of the game show, The Weakest Link. One of the answers was that the Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the ruins of the famous Old Earth Torchwood Institute.
In the episode Tooth and Claw it is revealed at the very end that Queen Victoria founded the Torchwood Institute, taking the name from the estate, with a remit to investigate paranormal events such as the werewolf in this episode.
In the Series 2, "Rise of the Cybermen", Pete Tyler asks a guest (off camera) at Jackie Tyler's birthday party how things are in Torchwood. This story is set on a parallel Earth, and Pete's World Torchwood Institute later features in "Doomsday."
See also
List of Torchwood television stories
