Day One written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Brian Kelly

This story in a nutshell: Russell T. Davies on the sex gas that permeates this episode: 'when we're launching a new adult science fiction drama, it's kind of inevitable you're going to do the sex monster.'  Proving that as TV savvy as he is, sometimes he gets it very wrong.

Hunky Hero: Jack is so naive that he thinks his instructions on not allowing the alien technology out of the Hub is being adhered to. Everything Changes revealed that they are all up to it. The Torchwood regulars know nothing about Jack. He is a big mystery to them. I can't imagine why he would want that beyond the fact that he enjoys keeping them in the dark because he doesn't trust them.

Welsh Babe: The idea of a day in the life of Gwen Cooper as she experiences her first day at Torchwood is a smart one in theory so we can tag along for the ride and see exactly what that would entail. In practice it doesn't come off because it means we are new boy/girl as well and are as alienated by the rest the team as Gwen is at first. Also her first case involves a sex alien that is trying to froth up as much spunk as possible, hardly a crack investigation that is going to make her name. It's nice to see Gwen and Rhys so deliriously happy before Torchwood comes along and shits all over their relationship. Gwen almost seems normal in the early stages of this episode, calm and casual before she gets to the stage where she is annunciating every word with a bizarre Welsh strain and staring boggling eyed at everything. Gwen is shown to be utterly incompetent and unprofessional, releasing the sex entity onto Cardiff because she can't take a jibe from Owen. Gwen feels responsible for the sex attacks and wants to work doubly hard to prove herself. She's supposedly a savvy police officer but you would be hard pressed to buy into that given how badly she performs on her first day. There's being thrown in at the deep end and there's not trying to doggy paddle at all. Gwen has the wrong idea about alien life' she thinks they are all here to invade and enslave. She needs to speak to Sarah Jane and be filled in.

Jack's Crew: I still don't understand the logic in making the Torchwood team this impenetrably unlikable. I maintain that an episode like Fragments in season two would have been an ideal way to kick off the series, showing how each of the regulars joined the staff and why they are so impossibly aloof. Without that context they just come across as being a thoroughly dour, conceited bunch. Owen trying to record a colleague who is about to go down on a prisoner is the height of distaste. Ianto doesn't give two shits about Jack's sexuality which is rather odd given he is deep throating him by the end of the season.

Dreadful Dialogue: A crash course in dialogue so cheap it can literally sink a show...

 'It's a shame your tools not big enough for the job.'

'I wish I never met you. I wish I were dead. Call me back.'

'He just...' 'Came and went?'

'You want to tell his family he died screwing an alien?'

'Put your trousers on and get out.'

'Where are you from and why are you trying to invade Earth because you can forget about enslaving us?'

'I just want the energy. The climax...' 'Just to recap, you've travelled to Earth to feed off orgasmic energy?'

'What are we doing having Chinese while a girl fights for her life?'

'Are you alright now or are you still feeling a bit of a cock?'

'Put out and APB. Woman possessed by gas knobbing fellas to death.'

'Rat jam!'

'All you want is to cum and you don't care what's underneath.'

The Good: Gwen makes a good point that the Torchwood crew have been stuck down in the dark, dank Hub with alien tech that they have forgotten what it is like to be human. It's going to take a far less corrupt human being than Gwen Cooper to remind them of that though. Instead of her injecting a little humanity into the series, Torchwood manages to suck what little she has out of her throughout season one. The Doctor's hand appears and with animatronics it manages to twitch with life out of the liquid. That's worth a raised eyebrow.

The Bad: Rather than simply send Gwen a message that says 'come to work' after the meteor falls, Jack sends her a text that simply says 'Torchwood.' The melodrama begins. Inside the SUV the keyboard and monitors zoom into place around you. Oh dear. I like the fact that Gwen tries to be the public face of Torchwood, the likable member that ingratiates herself with the officials. Unfortunately that only lasts this episode and before long she is decked out in black leather and arrogantly strolling onto the crime scenes in slow motion as if she owns the place.  The performance of Sara Lloyd Gregory is lacking in every respect. It is quite hard to sell the idea of an adolescent and desperately horny alien taking over your body with any kind of dignity but she plays Carys as a walking automaton before her infection and as a bizarrely asexual predator afterwards. It has the uncomfortable feeling of somebody being forced to behave in a discomforting way. I bet Gregory is a really lovely girl who wondered what on Earth she had gotten involved with.  There is nothing at all classy  about watching two young ones shagging in nightclub toilets, especially when it becomes apparent that the nightclub owner is voyeuristically overlooking and getting ready to polish his equipment at the free pornography. It would appear that Torchwood is not only going to be revealing the darker underbelly of the universe but divulging in the filthier side of humanity at the same time. I can't imagine why anybody would choose to watch this filth beyond a fascination with revulsion. Is there supposed to be something funny/scary/relevant about a man who orgasms his way into oblivion? I felt nothing for Carys' plight because I got to know her for about 30 seconds before she was taken over and in that time she comes across as a ridiculous drama queen who can't hold her booze. Why should I care about this person? In the middle of an episode about a murderous sex alien the Torchwood team stop for a get to know you Chinese takeaway. What the hell? How random is that? It completely disrupts any flow that the investigation might have had and proves utterly ineffectual at revealing anything about the staff. You would think that Chibnall had never written a script before in his life. I bet those criticisms about the JNT era on Points of View when he was a spotty Herbert haunted him after this was broadcast. People in glass houses... The Jack/Carys fight throughout the Hub might just be the nadir of the first season, tonally completely out of place with the rest of the episode, poorly choreographed and with both actors looking decidedly uncomfortable (particularly Barrowman who seems to compensate by going as insanely over the top with his gestures as possible). Wow, the exploding rat encapsulates everything that is wrong with this episode. Just when you think things can't get any worse, Carys winds up in a wank bank to get her kicks. And she's trying to cop off with a gay guy. Jack opening all the doors and finding little piles of dust on the wank material is so tacky it reaches a new sphere of b-movie style madness.

The Shallow Bit: 'First contact with an alien, not quite what I expected...' Huh? Gwen is bisexual? She'll happily snog a woman at work behind her boyfriends back? She's willing to clinch with an alien life form? Was anybody script editing this bollocks? Having Gwen copping off with Carys and then speaking to Rhys on the phone whilst she's still buttoning up her blouse might have something to do with the fact that I didn't warm to this character. She's sexually corrupt and would go on to prove to be throughout the first two years.

Result: Such a terrible, terrible episode that I am surprised that it didn't frighten everybody away from Torchwood in their droves. The fact that this show managed to build its audience and make the leap from BBC2 and BBC1 after producing drivel like this, Cyberwoman and They Keep Killing Suzie suggests two things to me. One that the general television audience is not discerning enough or two that they are too unintelligible to determine good television from bad. This is exactly the sort of TV I expect the Big Brother/TOWIE crowd to gobble up; crass, simple to the point of retarded and loaded with inappropriate content. It's such a car crash that you can't help but watch the results through your fingertips and wince. I think this is supposed to be a fun piece but it is so misjudged and po-faced that it misses the entertainment jugular by a country mile. I'm not sure what is worse; the perverted subtext, the graphic content of toilet sex, masturbation and lesbianism, the retarded characterisation of Gwen who never once convinces as a competent police officer, the unflinching arrogance of the rest of the team, the lack of a single identifiable character, the way the plot stops halfway through for the team to grab a Chinese, the piles of dust in the wank bank, the lack of anything resembling logic, scares, laughs or intelligence...this really is as bad as it gets. I find it hard to think of an episode of science fiction that is quite this tacky and I have seen some pretty hideous examples. Incompetently acted. Blandly directed. Atrociously written. Welcome to the semen drenched world of Torchwood: 1/10

Revenge of the Slitheen written by Gareth Roberts and directed by Alice Troughton

This story in a nutshell: SJA claims its first Doctor Who monster (probably in a cost cutting exercise) and they wind up working much more effectively in the spin off series. The Slitheen are back! And this time they have turned off the sun…

Until Next Time…Ms Smith: Continuing on from the stellar work done with her character in School Reunion and Invasion of the Bane, Revenge of the Slitheen sees Sarah Jane sniffing out mysteries and monsters poking her nose where it isn't wanted at her investigative best. Sarah is finding hard to connect with Luke especially after seeing how effortless it is with Maria and Alan and insists on him calling her Sarah Jane even though she wishes it were mum. Sarah Jane never found the time to get married and thinks there are far better ways of going about things than calling in the army. After she polishes off the Slitheen, Sarah Jane calls in UNIT to mop things up (‘love to the Brig’). Her love/hate relationship with Chrissie continues and Maria's mother takes great delight in getting her name wrong (she calls her Sally-Anne and Susie Q). When he wants to know how she started out Sarah tells Clyde how the Doctor took her out into space and time and showed her things you wouldn’t believe. She has taken up his legacy to help, protect, to make a stand and never give up. Sarah, you rock!

Sarah’s Gang: On the day he was born he saved the Earth and on his first day of school he nearly wipes it out – he doesn’t really have what you would call a stable life, does he? There is a lovely thread that runs through Luke's period on the show that explores what it is like to be socially awkward as an adolescent. It is something that I am sure a lot of teens could empathise with, if I were watching this show when I was younger I would have seen a lot of my self in Luke. Sarah wants him to have a normal life but given their predilection for alien invasions it looks like that is never going to happen. Oh Luke, joining lunchtime science classes and wanting to make friends with the teacher is hardly the best way to blend in at school. 

Maria paints her bedroom wall electric pink, which says something about her sense f style. I really liked the parallels with Invasion of the Bane, this time it is Maria sending Clyde home who wants more answers about how his life has been turned upside down just like Sarah Jane did to Maria in the first episode. Maria is bullied into a corner until she figures what the hell and kills the Headmaster with vinegar. Let's put that in perspective, she's a teenager and she has murdered. It's an issue that is dodged psychologically and just goes for the moment. As ever Chrissie gets some of the best scenes with her complete lack of tact. Turning up at her ex husbands and asking for the double duvet that he will no longer need because she cheated on him is unbelievably thoughtless and by the end of the story she suspects that all the disasters that keep occurring on Bannermen Road are in some way linked to her. It is clear that in Chrissie's eyes the entire universe revolves around her...she simply cannot move for disasters!  I could watch this character all day and night, she is such a delight. 

Introducing Clyde Langer, trouble maker. The producers of the Sarah Jane Adventures judge the situation perfectly and get rid of the insanely irritating Kasey to introduce Clyde. He’s better acted, better written and so much better looking. Luke wonders why everybody likes Clyde when he keeps defying authority. He wants answers to the mystery that is Luke and admits that he is a product of a broken home. It is something that the show would return to time and again to great emotional effect. I loved his insane reaction to Mr Smith coming out of the wall, it pretty much mirrors my own. His answer to their problems is that they bomb the school. I’m glad we’ve got a character who can cut through all the mush and he suggests jokingly that they have a High School Musical moment because everything will be sorted out with a group hug. Or not. If you are going to have a sentimental backbone to a series, you need a character like Clyde to remind you how tacky it is to keep it real. 

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Time to go back to school!’
‘She’s an old woman with a funny lipstick. End of.’

The Good Stuff: The music is wonderful as always and really drags you into the story. One of the best assemblies I have ever heard delivered by a Head Teacher who doesn't give a damn about the students he is advising: ‘Study hard because none of you will ever be pop stars!’ There are references to pornography, which proves this is trying to appeal to parents as well as children: ‘Anything dubious your adolescent minds might be drawn to have been locked out!’ There are mentions of Wularians (Carnival of Monsters), the Blathereen (The Monsters Inside), Judoon (Smith and Jones) and ‘Slitheen in Downing Street’ (World War Three and School Reunion) and with the return of the farting reptiles it is lovely to see so many kisses to the parent series. Unlike Torchwood, which seemed to go out of its way to deny the existence of Doctor Who for the most part. SJA learns from the mistakes of the past with the moments of the Slitheen unsheathing. They do so with much more speed and they move with much more fluidity, Alice Troughton using imaginative angles to capture them and getting the actors to clack claws and twitch their heads to suggest natural movement. There was a moment in Revenge of the Slitheen that made me realise that despite the preposterousness of the story, this show would always manage to thrill me with the scale of it's storytelling. It comes when Mr Smith shows the scale of the Slitheen operation on Earth, linking up the Slitheen bases across the world. Trinity Wells returns to tell us all that ‘Los Angeles has gone dark!’ She really is a portent of doom. Can you imagine the chaos that stopping all the cars in London would generate? Can you imagine the devastating effect of turning the sun off? Despite their comic exaggerations, the Slitheen always think big. The first of many Slitheen gunkings in this series, Clyde and Maria are covered in green jelly in a terrifically entertaining scene. Saving the world with vinegar in squeezes…Gareth Roberts captures a situation that children can mimic at home. I can just imagine little ones running around the house with plastic bottles spraying their podgy parents with water. Cleverly the story makes you feel for the Slitheen child at the end of the story and that is all thanks Elisabeth Sladen’s terrific performance. Mr Smith snaps at Clyde in an unexpected moment, suggesting all is not what it seems with the sentient computer. 

The Bad Stuff: Slitheen – licence to overact? This is one of the very few times the series feels distinctly CBBC and how insulting to be picked to play a Slitheen. Do they have auditions of the fattest actors on the books? The slow motion sonic lipstick is insanely tacky and the love-in in the last scene made me bring up a little sick. The shows only weakness is that it pours syrup down your throat a little too often. Given it is afforded the chance to enjoy a cliffhanger in the middle of every story (ala classic Who), SJA's first chance to have a dramatic pause is a wasted opportunity. The floppy Slitheen toes have to be seen to be believed. 

The cliffhanger isn’t great and the flapping Slitheen toes should have been removed.

The Shallow Bit: This is one attractive cast. Daniel Anthony is a babe and Elisabeth Sladen seems to get younger as she gets older!

Result: Just because it has Slitheen in it that doesn't automatically make it bad. This series has pretty much got everything as right as Torchwood got it wrong in their respective first series', the tone is fun and thoughtful, the cast is superb, the production values are serviceable, the pace is dynamic and the biggest strength is the running time - an hour is just long enough to tell a good story full of incident and with the extra fifteen minutes adds some depth and character that would push many a SJA story ahead of Doctor Who. Even if it isn't a great example in this story it is great to have the opportunity to enjoy a cliffhanger in every story too. Revenge of the Slitheen is mostly great although the actors playing the Slitheen are so far over the top they are somewhere on Mars. Clyde is introduced to the series and you would think he had always been there and the cast continue to gel superbly and whilst the plot is disposable you can see precisely how this series is going to put things on a worldwide scale on a budget. Great dialogue and a real sense of fun, this show is infectious to watch whether you are 13 or 30: 7/10

Everything Changes written by Russell T Davies and directed by Brian Kelly

This story in a nutshell: Gwen Cooper learns that things aren’t quite as simple as they might appear underneath the Millennium Centre…

Hunky Hero: John Barrowman, possibly the world’s greatest entertainer (he can sing, dance and present with equal aplomb) but not the worlds most gifted actor, finally gets his own drama to front the results are variable at best. What baffles me about Barrowman is that on occasion he can bring his performance down to a very sensitive, mesmerising level but more often than not he chooses to overplay his dialogue and murder a scene. He’s a little like Sylvester McCoy in that regard. It’s frustrating because the potential is there for him to be a fine leading man but he just needs somebody to whisper in his ear that he is playing the part a little too tongue in cheek at times. He’s a little like latter day Tom Baker in that regard. Jack’s joke for everybody to ignore Gwen and go about their business as she stands there holding the pizza should work far more effectively than it does but the net result is that this crew seem even more conceited than they already did. Why does Jack spend an inordinate amount of time posing with his hands on his hips atop vertiginous buildings looking out across Cardiff? Surely he isn’t lording it over what he consider to be his town? And if so, wouldn’t have set his sights on something a bit sexier? Bizarrely considering this is a pilot and should be welcoming new viewers to the show, we don’t learn much at all about Jack in Everything Changes. Davies expects the audience to have that knowledge already, which is a little remiss of him.

Welsh Babe: Gwen Cooper is supposed to be our anchor in this series but I never truly bought into the character as an identification figure. To begin with she was a little too naïve for my liking and as the first series continued she became far too seduced by what would be to any rational human being a pretty repulsive way of life (cheating on her boyfriend, loving the sex and violence of her job). Eve Myles is capable of great subtlety (check out episodes like Adrift) but at times she is written for in a highly melodramatic fashion and it encourages an equally melodramatic performance. Considering this was her breakout role I cannot deny that Gwen put Myles on the map (she has recently fronted her own, reasonably successful, series Frankie) but there was such fanfare surrounding Torchwood and it’s inconsistent accomplishments that I don’t see how she could have failed to have achieved a reasonable amount of attention regardless. Gwen’s brilliant scheme to finding a way into Torchwood is to hang around where she last saw them and hopes that she bumps into them again. When that fails she asks the nearest pizza company if they deliver to Torchwood. With that kind of investigative prowess I bet the police were devastated to let her go when she transferred across. It is her conscience that stands out, at least initially, trying to prod at Jack’s humanity and get him to understand that there are people involved in the crimes his team investigates and plunders. Like Rory with (in my eyes) the less successful Amy, Rhys is the one character on this show that feels real to me and that I would enjoy spending more time with. By the time of Miracle Day, Eve Myles will have mastered that vacant look off camera. When Gwen thinks she is going to die, Myles looks more like she is stifling laughter than shitting her pants.

Anti-Hero: ‘That would be me, sorry, I’m a twat…’You said it, mate. Actually, that’s not fair. Burn Gorman is probably the strongest performer of the ensemble but in year one he is handed the least presentable character. Owen is one of the most conceited, abrasive, disagreeable characters it has ever been my displeasure to watch. He starts off in Everything Changes as a medical upstart (and that is their MO, so you have to work pretty hard to stand out like this) and somehow devolves as the season progresses. In his efforts to try and make Owen look hip with alien tech, he turns Owen into a serial rapist (alright I know to become a serial anything you have to commit the crime three times, but I’m willing to bet this isn’t the first time he’s pulled off this obscene trick). How this is supposed to make the character to appeal to anybody but the most sordid of individuals baffles me, unless that is the kind of crowd that Davies was hoping to pull? ‘I’ve got to up early, and I can’t be bothered with all the chat…’ so I’m going to use the alien tech version of rohypnol to brainwash you beneath my sheets, and your boyfriend too. Ugh, tasteless.

Red Herring: Indira Varma is a terrific actress and I have seen her in a number of shows where she has been superb. Handed a character as vacant (and as disposable) as Susie though and she struggles to bring anything to the part. You can’t escape the fact that she was never going to be anything but a red herring, a supposed member of the ensemble that dies before the end of the first episode. Mind you to be fair the rest of the cast are so ill defined at this point it could have been any one of them.

Tech Support: The opposite of Gorman/Owen, Naoko Mori is the weakest member of the ensemble but she has been handed the most likable character. Go figure.

Butler: As an example of how inconsistent Torchwood can be, Ianto is threatening Jack with sexual harassment after his flirtatious comments in Everything Changes and yet come They Keep Killing Susie he is playing timed rounds of hide the purple parsnip with him. Sometimes I can’t keep up with the sexual games on this show.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘CSI Cardiff, I’d like to see that. They’ll be measuring the velocity of a kebab!’

Dreadful Dialogue: ‘It’s a fucking disgrace’ – Torchwood pretends to be trendy and winds up falling flat on it’s face. And that’s three minutes in to the episode.

‘Contraceptives in the rain, love this planet’ – not only is Barrowman far too aware of the camera in his first scene but he’s also talking a load of bollocks.

‘The 21^st century is when it all changes…and you’ve got to be ready’ is not the best tagline for a series.

‘And your work is more important’ ‘Now you got it’ – and therein lies the fundamental difference between Doctor Who and Torchwood. The former celebrates humanity whereas the latter (some episodes excepted) treads on it to get to the sleaze.

‘How come we get all the Weevils and bollocks and shit? Is that what alien life is – filth?’ - the antithesis of Doctor Who which promotes the universe as a playground to play in, Torchwood seems to suggest it is a cesspool that flings its excrement our way. Nice.

The Good:

• The whole idea of Cardiff CSI is laughable with ariel shots of the city at night looking for all the world like the most chic place to hang out in England. To Brian Kelly’s credit he takes hold of this risible challenge and almost makes it work. The photography is gorgeous as we zoom over the streets, veins pumped with neon light, with an almost omnipotent POV. It sets the camp tone for the series, certainly. The bloodied corpse in a rain soaked alley is another arresting image.
• The Resurrection Glove is the sort of outlandish notion that Torchwood should have played about with each week, pushing the boundaries of what a show like Doctor Who could get away with. The whole notion seems to play into Russell T. Davies’ poke in the eye to Christianity and the name seems designed to cause at least minor offence but at least it is an idea with storytelling possibilities.
• I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Hub set is a marvel of design, combining all manner of influences into an eccentric patchwork of style unique to itself. I especially love that the water feature outside the Millennium Centre plunges straight through the heart of the facility and that there is a sewer system that runs through the base. They are well and truly in the gutter (and it allows for an atmospheric reflecting water lighting effect). Perhaps a top secret base built like something out of a superhero comic wasn’t the best way of convincing people that this series needed taking seriously, though (Sarah Jane’s attic is far more convincing in that respect).
• Maybe he was just being facetious (surely not?) but the mystery of the missing Torchwood four would have made for a great episode.

The Bad:

• There is nothing worse than people trying to be cool. It either happens naturally or you shouldn’t bother but this show is constantly trying to make it’s regulars look as hip as possible and the result is akin to your parents attempting to get down ‘wiv da kidz’ - toe curlingly embarrassing. During the second season they tried to drop the pretence and simply get on with telling good stories but they fell back into bad habits more often than not. It wasn’t until the advent of Children of Earth, a story so exceptional in it’s own right, that Davies felt the show had found it’s feet and the characters stopped trying to convince they were trendy. Standing on tall buildings, coats flapping in the wind, sexual morality going out the window, waving guns around as though they were play things, murdering people without compunction, emotional disloyalty, swearing as though it is going out of fashion…perhaps the title for this episode should be Anything Goes. Compared with something like The Sarah Jane Adventures which just got on with telling decent yarn and treating its characters intelligently, the two approaches couldn’t be more different. The result is the SJA cast are instantly sophisticated whilst the Torchwood bunch look like a bunch of children playing at being adult. A trap that they fell into time and time again is the idea that Torchwood storms a crime scene dressed up like they have walked from a designer catalogue; dressed to the nines, exuding arrogance and each character fully aware of their gait. It makes me howl with laughter every time I see it.
• I’m going to sound like a cantankerous old fart but I don’t care – I like a proper title sequence which introduces and identifies a show visually and musically. There was a period about ten years ago where the American penchant for holding up a title card and having a quick snatch of a theme music kick in was all the rage and it started to infect the show over here too. It just doesn’t have the same impact. In Torchwood’s case if I could see the argument being made that the blink and you’ll miss it title sequence meant there was more time for quality material within the episode itself then I would be more than happy to let it slide. But the condition of the show in it’s first year is so dismaying that a longer sequence would be most welcome.
• The heavy rain in the first scene is not doing the Cardiff tourist board much of a favour. Nor is the least convincing bar room brawl ever committed to film. Come to Cardiff and get the sniffles, and a pint glass in your face.
• The whole sequence with the Weevil makes me grind my teeth because it is so lacking in any refinement. It has nothing to do with the story itself (it is merely the excuse why Torchwood is visiting the hospital but it could have been any number of other, less ridiculous, reasons). Surely a highly trained police officer would recognise that even from a distance that this creature is not a person. Surely she wouldn’t go storming towards it. And the throat ripping nastiness that ensues is simply there to show how far that this show is willing to go in order to repulse it’s audience, and is completely unnecessary. This scene is symptomatic of all Torchwood’s problems – it is the series’ flaws in a microcosm. Not thought through well enough, and with no kind of censor. Even the make up is only half-perfected.
• Of course the Hub has a ruddy great Pterodactyl flying about the place! Fucks galore, rape allusions, throats torn out…and Pterodactyl’s? You can’t on the one hand shine a light on the least salubrious aspects of life on Earth and then try and suggest the wonder inherent in it too. Everything Changes inharmoniously switches its emphasis throughout, tearing me in two incompatible directions.
• The rationale behind Torchwood seems to be that they don’t know how any of this alien tech works but they use it anyway. Given their propensity for cocking things up, I predict serious consequences in the future.
• I have no problem with The Sarah Jane Adventures mentioning and exploiting events from Doctor Who because they are aiming for the same kind of audience but slipping Torchwood into the same universe as those two opens an ethical can of worms I’m not sure they were ready to handle. I would take issue with youngsters catching this show and yet with discussions of important events in the Doctor’s life, the two shows seaguing into each other at times (Exit Wounds/Utopia) and even featuring the occasional Doctor Who monster (Cybermen) I can understand why they would want to.
• I love the fact that Jack mentions that Torchwood is ‘beyond the United Nations.’ He’s basically saying ‘we’re UNIT with sex and swearing!’
• Ret-con? Naming a drug that serves as a plot device after a contemporary term for a narrative device? Stop trying to be cool, Torchwood!
• This is a murder mystery based on some pretty astonishing co-incidences. Gwen just happened to spot the knife when she visited Torchwood, she just happened to pass the drawing of it in the police station and despite the supposedly infallible ret-con she puts the two together and realises that one of the Torchwood crew is responsible for the murders. Is it just me or is that all a little to insubstantial? They can make the realisation look as though it took days to come to, but if any one of those co-incidences hadn’t happened then this mystery would have no resolution.
• Jack slowly gliding up from the Hub in the background as Susie confronts Gwen is the most hilarious moment Torchwood ever committed to film. Played this earnestly, it is wet your pants time.
• Everything Changes commits the cardinal sin of a pilot, it doesn’t really give the audience a clue of what the series is really about (because at this stage the writers don’t have a clue) or what to expect. No wonder it haemorrhaged viewers if they thought it was going to be more like this. A shame because Small Worlds, Random Shoes and Captain Jack Harkness were just around the corner.

The Shallow Bit: With Torchwood, this section of my reviews really comes into its own.

Result: An awkward pilot and coupled with Day One on its opening night was almost enough to drive everybody away from Torchwood for good. I remember being quite miffed after watching 90 minutes of generally badly judged television and wondering how Russell T Davies could have got it so wrong. You only have to check out the rest of his oeuvre to see how this man has written some of the most sophisticated and honest adult drama to have hit the screens. His only New Adventure, Damaged Goods, was a cracking read and whilst it failed as a Doctor Who novel it was a brilliant piece of adult fiction with exceptional characterisation. When I heard Davies was going to be penning a new, grown up (I would debate whether Doctor Who is childish in it’s outlook but that is a debate for another time) I was salivating at the thought of him moulding a show that took all his creativity and mixed it with some developed characterisation and post-watershed themes. I thought it was going to be the greatest show on TV, mixing his penchant for children’s and adult drama. The truth is the result was an awkward fusion of the two that can never settle on a tone of maturity and juvenilia (and with all the sex, swearing and violence the two are treated as exactly the same thing). My real issue with Everything Changes isn’t the childishness of its nature but how none of the characters are especially likable. If Davies really is a fan of Joss Whedon’s work then he really hasn’t taken notes on his ability as creator of a agreeable company – Whedon’s gift is giving the audience a way in to an absurd premise like Buffy through hilarious, flawed but fundamentally decent characters. Davies in comparison fills his show to bursting with unpleasant people; morally bankrupt, egotistical, smug and self important. They aren’t people that you would want to spend any amount of time with and that is a real problem when you are trying to endorse a pilot for a longer series. Reports are that Torchwood was rushed into production and it pains me to say that it does show at times and the reaction of the production staff that perhaps they didn’t bring their A-game to the first series is understandable too. By trying to appeal to the trash brigade, sci/fi fans and a family audience it winds up missing all of it’s targets. So little of the pilot clicks into place as it should; the mystery is poorly introduced and wrapped up, the characters ill defined, the tone all over the place and the shock moments more laugh-out-loud than seat of the pants. The downer is the second episode is even worse. How something as accomplished as Children of Earth was born of this series perplexes me: 3/10

Invasion of the Bane written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts and directed by Colin Teague

The series in a nutshell: Have you ever watched CBBC? It does occasionally talk down to children in the worst of ways. Look at the presenters that introduce Sarah Jane Adventures, they behave in completely unrealistically in order to appeal to the daftness that is locked inside every child. Astonishingly this show comes along which treats its audience with intelligence, subtlety and warm and wonderful characters – it is no wonder it redefined children’s television at the time and was a constant ratings winner on the channel. By concentrating on its characters strengths and with scripts fizzing with fun and thoughtful moments the result is a show that is far more adult in its nature than the gratuitously melodramatic Torchwood.

This story in a nutshell: Who is that mysterious woman over the road who doesn’t like strangers and has aliens floating around her garden in the evenings?

Until Next Time…Ms Smith: My God…Davies and Russell have got this as perfect as they got Jack wrong in Torchwood. The car, perfect. The house, perfect. The look (how on Earth does Elisabeth Sladen age backwards?), perfect. Sarah has a bit of a reputation as a mad woman but Maria thinks she is quite glamorous. Just like she was in season eleven (I love that this was picked out after The Time Warrior as you really can see the parallels) she is a career woman with facts and contacts at her fingertips. She hasn’t had any children and secretly thinks she has wasted her life. Her life is dangerous and she doesn’t want to put their lives in danger, she is very responsible here but extremely prickly. I really love the scene where they subtly out her as a time traveller, it reveals her backstory without having to go to TV Movie style lengths of reams of exposition leaving the audience scratching their heads. When Luke asks if he can live with Sarah she says no but her body language screams yes. Some organisations go in guns blazing but Sarah thinks there is a better way (yeah Jack). She met a special man called the Doctor once and they travelled together but it came to an end and she had to adjust to normal life, she tried to forget him. But he appeared in her life again years later and she realised she could carry on their work without him. Her life began again. in the words of the embarrassingly straightforward talking Kelsey best friend is a mechanical dog with his bum stuck inside a black hole. She misses K.9, her daft metal dog and now she is on her own. The people she fights have plans and weapons but she doesn’t, it's what makes her different. I love her philosophy, there are two types of people in the world, those who panic and then there’s us. Her possible names for Luke - Harry, Alistair…

Sarah’s gang: Whilst I prefer Rani because she is much hipper and more confident than Maria, she is still pitched really well throughout her tenure. Yasmin Paige might lack Anjili Mohindra’s contemporary image (there is something of an old woman trapped in a young persons body about her) but she is still extremely likeable. I love her line ‘I’d rather have a cup of tea’; you just know she will get on so well with Sarah Jane, who had a similar line in The Time Warrior. She doesn’t abandon Kelsey (mores the pity) and she rescues Luke selflessly. It's wonderful to think of proto a Sarah Jane in the making…although Rani really takes on that role and embodies it. At one point she  does have a mini tantrum but then Sarah's prickly attitude would be enough to turn anybody sour. 

Can you believe that that is Luke? His voice hasn’t broken and he looks practically angelic. A far cry from the grungy lad he would become. Whilst Luke hardly becomes the voice of cool (that’s Clyde) come series four he is independent, dressing well and doing his own thing. A proto Wesley Crusher should be really annoying as all boy geniuses generally are and it takes geniuses like Davies and Roberts to pull this off so Luke is the exact opposite, intriguing and very sweet. He is everyone, he was born running…and he has no belly button! He’s only 360 minutes old and he knows nothing about the world, everything is new to him. It’s a lovely concept to explore human behaviour Star Trek style without having characters such as Data and Seven of Nine really grinding the point home. And how wonderful is it that Sarah Jane has an adopted son…if it doesn’t make you go all warm inside then you are a Dalek. His deadpan (lack of) humour looks like it is going to provide some great moments (‘These are the clothes I was born in’).

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘And she worships something call the Holy Oak! No, Hollyoaks!’
‘This is so not happening!’ ‘That contradicts the facts’ – haha I loved this! Another line you can drop into conversation ad nauseum.
‘Until next time…Ms Smith!’ – its been too long since we have had a villain with a parting line like that.

The Good Stuff: The opening special FX open the story magically. Alan and Chrissie are the best family in all of NuWho and their various spinoffery – the Nobles come very close but he is a single father (which just works considering he is so damn hot) and she is the money hungry ex wife (but really funny with it) and the chemistry between the two actors is just gorgeous. They would sparkle all the way through to their departure, which was a potentially damaging moment for the show. The atmosphere of the early scenes is spot on; suggesting magic, wonder and capturing your senses – the mysterious woman over the road and her night-time spectre (and the music sends chills down my spine). The mixture of the suburban and the supernatural captures that glorious Harry Potter feel of something supernatural happening on your road. The bubble shock bus is brilliant, I screamed like I was ten years old again when I saw it so I can only imagine what it did to the ten year olds in the audience. Samantha Bond really knows how to play a villain, playing it for real but with a wink at the audience…it took a long time before they bested her (and then she came back to raise the bar again). The bubbleshock factory is a fabulous location to play about in, it's all pipes and wires, steamy clouds and bleached lighting and the direction during the action scenes has lots of flourishes (tilted angles and dynamic tracking shots). It's impossible not to be thrilled by this blissful old school Doctor Who action, it feels as right as all the sex, swearing and gore in Torchwood felt wrong. Alan is so lovely, can’t he be my dad (actually maybe not…there could be complications given the fact that he is gorgeous too). Filleting memories sounds like a terrifying procedure, favoured by the Bane. The Bane CGI is extraordinarily good and I don’t say that lightly. I have a few issues with cartoony CGI versus live action effects (which I generally prefer) but not only did they go for something totally alien and memorable but it tears through her house and up the stairs awkwardly causing absolute mayhem. It is one of the best mixtures of live action and CGI in NuWho (and the POVs are disorienting and dramatic). Just when you think things can’t get any better we head up into the attic and it is majestic area for Sarah Jane to tuck herself away and investigate paranormal happenings. And then K.9 appears. The conversion scenes are very The Christmas Invasion but they are well stages and for what is such an insane idea (people holding out a bottle of pop and intoning ‘drink it!’). Driving the bus through the wall…I just love Sarah’s style. Like a good UNIT story it all ends with a huge explosion and it was the most impressive explosion to come out of Cardiff at the time. Every show needs a Chrissie (‘There he was chasing me around the bedroom with a bottle of pop saying ‘drink it’. I thought, that’s novel.’). I simply cannot get enough of her. 

The Bad Stuff: Kelsey. That’s it really. ‘I am so shamed for you!’ She’s shallow, sex mad and rude and it pains me to say that there are more Kelsey’s out there than Maria’s. The shot that comes out of Kelsey’s mouth is the most chilling piece of television I have ever seen. What a gaping maw. ‘Kelsey you’re an alien!’ Don’t you think she makes a far more convincing zombie? Its odd, Mr Smith seems like a step too far into kid’s camp but by the end of the first series he is the most awesome computer and I can’t imagine the series without him (and his bitchy relationship with K.9 is a scream). The slow motion hugging at the end is the only moment the sentiment was too much for me. SJA does occasionally tip over into sugary schmaltz overdrive, trying to show that everything is safe again. 

The Shallow Bit: Elisabeth Sladen has discovered the fountain of youth and looks more gorgeous than ever. Alan is the best looking guy in Doctor Who (and its various spin offs). Oh hang on…Davey is a total muffin too (sorry…).

Result: I have absolutely no shame in confessing my shame for the Sarah Jane Adventures. Any show that can capture that feeling I used to have when I was watching Doctor Who as a child but with added contemporary production values and hipness has to be treasured. Recently I have had a histrionic comment left on the blog (every now and again somebody writes something scathingly insulting about the show that to them is obvious because it is their opinion and they put it across in a post that makes them sound pompous because they cannot comprehend why the world doesn't understand the facts they are spreading) that Doctor Who should have childish characterisation because it is a children's show. Wrong. Doctor Who was always a family show, one that was appreciated by adults as much as children and as such it should always (and often was but this particular review was Time and the Rani which proves to be the exception to the rule) aim higher than simply talking down to children with the presentation of its characters. The Sarah Jane Adventures is definitely aimed at a younger audience but Russell T Davies understands that the characterisation has to be more sophisticated to appeal to a wider audience. He ensures that is the case from the outset, with pretty much every character springing from this story (with the exception of Kelsey) in a very mature, likeable fashion. I had been so disappointed with the Doctor Who Christmas special that year and then the New Year came and Davies completely restored my faith in him and then some. Imagine all the gleeful irreverence and imagination of classic who with flashier realisation. That’s what you've got here with the Sarah Jane Adventures. The series is pitched at just the right level to drag in old school Who fans and still rock their kid’s worlds. The cast has been expertly hand picked, Elisabeth Sladen somehow makes Sarah Jane cooler than ever and gets supporting from two very strong teen actors. The Bane invasion is a great deal of fun and the episode feels as though it has a large budget to squeeze in all the great set pieces. I cannot believe how right they got the tone of this series and because of that it continues to be a huge success to this day. It was the antithesis of Torchwood, getting the tone exactly right from the first episode and continuing to succeed right up until its tragic demise. I loved this on it's transmission, friends have told me that their kids aged everything from 8-14 adored it and I recently treated my five year old niece to a sample and whilst she was a little frightened, she was riveted to the spot and demanded I rewind several parts over and over: 10/10