Agreed. They even had Torchwood engraved on their main mode of transport for goodness sake.

If Torchwood does come back it would be better off starting with a clean slate, IMO. By that I mean a new team, new location and new institute. Perhaps a spin-off set in a parallel universe where Torchwood still exists. The protagonist could find themselves accidentally transported into this parallel world, creating a Life on Mars style backstory in which he or she is determined to get back to their own world while trying to make sense of this one. Naturally they encounter the Torchwood of this universe and end up working for them much like Gwen Cooper did.

One thing that would need to change is what you say about the inconsistencies in Torchwood's secrecy. I didn't like how it seemed to become public knowledge as the series went on. I would rather it went back to being the mysterious organisation that only a select few were aware of like we saw in Army of Ghosts.

Tonally it would ideally follow Children of Earth's example and feel like a genuinely adult show, which it often didn't during series 1 and 2. No more chasing blowfish in cars, something more "X-Files" would be a lot better. And please no more global invasions/pandemics, just keep it small-scale and very localised so that hardly anyone is aware of the strange happenings around them and they are easily covered up. Make it feel like our own world.

And please no sex just for the sake of it and killing off every character like there's no tomorrow. The former was partly why I found Torchwood quite immature in places before COE and the latter is just doomed to back the series into a corner.

To be honest, it might benefit from RTD handing it over to somebody else.

I wondered why we'd have UNIT and Torchwood, then I remembered UNIT was United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Is UNIT purely UK or not? If it's now Unified, unified under who? If it's not UK only, as in United Nations then that would explain why there are two secretive, alien-fighting organisations, but not why UNIT's Black Archive is in the UK and kept secret from the Americans. Hmmm.

UNIT is not just based in the UK but we assume that the UK is its main headquarters. The Black Archive might not just be in the UK. We may have only seen the UKs version and not Black Archives from other countries. As far as we know UNIT was founded in the 1900s whereas Torchwood was in the 1800s. Because UNIT is a worldwide organisation it is more in charge than Torchwood.

I still say if Torchwood comes back, set it in the future, say 130 years, with Jack and Rex working as private investigators and trying to hide their immortality and keep Torchwood secret.

To the original question - no thank you.

I never really enjoyed it, and can't abide the posturings of Barrowman.

I think they should go back to the quality and style of Series 1 and 2, and palm it off on Gatiss. It was predictable, unambitious stuff so should be exactly his level. It'd keep him off real Doctor Who too, hopefully.

Either that or go the other way and get RTD back for another high quality Children of Earth blockbuster. Keep the Americans out of it.

Main UNIT HQ is in Geneva IIRC, or was in the Classic series anyway.

With regards to Gwen (and indeed most of the original Torchwood team apart from Jack)...much as I liked her in COE I found her for the most part to be a bit smug and pleased with herself. I know this is how she was written and alot of TW 1 and 2 was full of Whedon style quipping but it grated. There is a difference between being strong, brave and self assured and being a bit nonchalant and pleased with yourself and too often Gwen was the latter.

Seems odd how you inexplicably bring Gatiss into things when he never did anything Torchwood related and have a dig at him and yet say bring back RTD because of COE. If you think old TW was predictable and unambitious then blame RTD. He was responsible for season one and two. Meanwhile I think Gatiss has had a great year and with The Crimson Horror wrote an ambitious, original and far from predictable episode that lit up S7 part 2.

Not to mention RTDs wrote Love and Monsters which is by far the worst episode of the New Series. Granted Gatiss' episodes have not been the best but he has had some good ones. The Unquiet Dead and The Crimson Horror were good.

well I love L & M. But it seemed odd to drag Gatiss into the discussion in relation to Torchwood 1 and 2 and then seemingly praise the author of those series for the admittedly brilliant and incredible COE. Yes COE was brilliant. But at the same time as one can praise RTD for that all the failings of other TW are equally his fault.

for me that title goes to the unbearable night terrors. didn't like cold war either, but then gatiss redeemed himself with crimson horror. When I think about that and the unquiet dead it makes me think that gatiss should alway's be made to wite victorian episodes as it is obviously what he is best at

I did like Torchwood and would like to see it back. In order of preference, would be for me COE, Series 2, TMD, Series 1.

Series for me was far better than Series 1, a grown up series rather than an "adult" show. The shooting of Owen in Series 2 was shocking at the time.

I guess its down to personal opinion. To me Love and Monsters could have been great with the dark story of Elton losing his mother and the Doctor standing in the middle of the room. Plus instead of the pathetic Absorbaloff we could have had the Elemental Shade.

I agree with you about Gatiss and Victorian episodes.

I wouldn't mind seeing Torchwood back. I quite liked the idea of setting it in the past. You could have a Victorian version with Eve playing Gwyneth (somehow rescued from the brink of death) and Jack time-travelling back to be in it too!

Maybe you could use the Paternoster gang too, if the timescales match up! They could be quite interesting with an adult theme

Chris Chibnall was the closest thing to a show runner on TW Series' 1 and 2.




Well Jack's already back there as he landed in 1869 after leaving The Games Station but did not join Torchwood till 1899.


I suppose an older Time Travelling Jack could have worked for Torchwood prior to 1899 and his younger self being recruited.


The Paternoster Gang were in 1892 the last we saw them IIRC.


Jago and Litefoot are also investigating Aliens in 1890's London.

I'm sure I remembered from the TW magazines (the in depth articles about episodes , how they were written and filmed) that RTD was still very much in charge. The buck stopped with him as regards scripts, character arcs, etc.

Heh...I thought Cold War was OK... but thought The Crimson Horror was just awful...worse than Night Terrors.

The weird thing with Gatiss is I've enjoyed most of the other BBC stuff he has done ..other than Doctor Who.

I do think sometimes with Doctor Who/Torchwood ...

...we put too much blame on the writer...but not enough on the Director/actors/effects team etc.

You can have the greatest script/story in the world asnd it will still be awful if those involved in bringing it to the screen dont match up.

I don't see how it's any more odd than if someone said "They should bring it back with new team members, how about Dean Gaffney?". Actually it's less odd since Gatiss is already in the Who sphere. Gatiss' style is a good match for the first two years of Torchwood.

If you want it to be even less odd and actually like his work, then: Gatiss isn't going to get the top job any time soon since it's not available; he deserves something else as a reward.

My point is that there are too many similarities between UNIT and Torchwood to really make sense. You could just about get away with it if you accept UNIT is international, but that each country would have their own Black Archive and not be sharing? The point of UNIT is to help protect Earth from alien threats. Torchwood was established to protect the Empire from the same. This makes the existence of Torchwood less credible to me. Torchwood seems like a bunch of amateurs by comparison, especially the way it was portrayed.

Playin' at it, they were!

In Miracle Day they definitely acted like a bunch of amateurs but in earlier series I'd say they would probably be more effective than UNIT because they've been collecting alien artifacts for a lot longer and are much more keen to use them against the alien threats (whereas UNIT tended to just use machine guns and the odd bazooka!)

Mind you, I suppose Torch Wood only had Jack as an alien advisor whereas UNIT had the Doctor, so UNIT wins out there

When they went into Tosh's backstory UNIT were portrayed as a Stasi-like secret police, I hated that and wondered how it was allowed, given that they then let Martha work for it, presumably being different then.

And a brigadier outranks a Captain!

I suppose you could theorise that UNIT had some bad times after the Doctor regained his ability to fly the TARDIS and left. The Brigadier must have had superiors - international superiors - and lead to a more militaristic organization for a time, until someone saw sense and let science lead again. Maybe that could explain the name change. Perhaps there was an international disagreement and split.

Torchwood is in all probability completely and utterly dead. Series 1 was awful, series 2 was mildly better but still not that great (and Gwen is annoying simply because she's meant to be a responsible agent with a rank but acts like a DW companion who hasn't a clue what they are doing and whinges so very much). COE went down well, but was basically the first time Torchwood had been anything other than 'that DW spinoff that's a bit cheap and has John Barrowman'. I watched some of Miracle day, which was dreadful and killed off any credibility Torchwood had built up after the laughably bad series 1. Basically Torchwood needs money, good scripts and a reason to make it. Instead the BBC will just make Doctor Who and leave it to rot.