Review – Torchwood, BBC HD, 10pm, Sunday

Called “Random Shoes”, this episode could just as easily have been titled Random Plot. A hit-and-run accident victim, Eugene (Paul Chequer), finds that his consciousness persists and he’s able to follow the Torchwood team as they investigate his death. It sounded good in theory but the idea of a ghostly entity wandering around as an invisible observer – possibly due to an alien artefact – has been done many times before in sci-fi, especially in Stargate, which at least usually does so with more wit.
Eugene emerges as a someone with a long-term interest in the Torchwood operation and he harbours an unrequited love for Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles). He also serves as a narrator for the episode. Not only is this dramatically weak, but the concept resembles Love & Monsters, the mid-2006 episode of Doctor Who, which already ranks in many viewers’ minds as one of the worst stories of Russell T Davies’ ‘reimagined’ Doctor Who series. Why the producers decided to do it all over again for this companion series is a mystery far deeper than anything that the patchy Torchwood has managed to put on screen. The episode’s fate as one of the low-lights of the season so far was sealed by some excruciating dialogue and further proof that the best Welsh actors have long since left the area.

Torchwood is a show that does not really benefit from being made in HD. It somehow makes it look cheaper and the actors’ exaggerated expressions are all-too clear. To think that this is fundamentally the same technology that has been used for the likes of Bleak House (featuring Torchwood’s Burn Gorman to better effect) makes it even more disappointing. In fact, digital HD cameras were also behind three of the year’s more adventurous movie blockbusters: Superman Returns, Miami Vice and Mel Gibson’s particularly stunning Apocalypto. Now that Torchwood has just been renewed for a second season, let’s hope its creators look to those kinds of examples to make it look better in HD and tighten up their scriptwriting while they’re at it.
Random Shoes is repeated in standard definition on BBC2, Wednesday 13 December at 9pm.
You can read more on Torchwood over at TV Scoop