Torchwood at 10: What is Its Science Fiction Legacy?

This article originally appeared on Den of Geek UK.

Torchwood moved from BBC Three, to BBC Two, to BBC One. Even Miracle Day(it wasn't miraculous, and it didn't last a day) performed well. For a British sci-fi show in recent years, this is almost unheard of. 

What legacy has Torchwood left behind? Its success says a lot about the means and methods of television. Whatever genres it straddles, whatever your opinion of it, Torchwood is a rare success for post-watershed British sci-fi. Both luck and skill played their part in this. 

Of the other successes, Black Mirror's opening series was excellent speculative fiction, and its second built on that magnificently. The other successful shows occupying similar ground and longevity to Torchwood are Life On Mars, its spinoff Ashes To Ashes, Being Human, and Misfits, all of which mixed fantasy elements with another genre, meaning Torchwood's somewhat derivative blend of sci-fi and paranormal investigation stood out. 

Of course, you could argue that Torchwood isn't really science-fiction, but you could also staple your eyes to Yeovil and declare all trees your wife. 

Torchwood certainly has the tropes of science-fiction (aliens, spaceships, shiny metal thingymajigs), but then Doctor Whomostly uses these as dressing to a story rather than the crux. The science in the post-2005 Doctor Who universe doesn't bother to come up with "reversing the polarity" style pseudo-science to cover its resolutions, opting for one-line-explanations with minimal technobabble (the outcome is much the same). It also took its time in easing the viewer in with a more restrained initial approach. Hard sci-fi is not easy to make into a popular film, let alone a television series. Prose is a natural home for it, without constraints of time and budget. 

What this demonstrates is that popular science-fiction is more obviously merging with other genres. It always has (Star Wars is a matinee cowboy film with metal horses), but now people are being entertained by stories that don't contain robots or apocalypses or lasers, yet still contain science fiction ideas and concepts. If you absolutely have to draw a distinction between science fiction and fantasy, it's meant to be based on scientific plausibility based on recently postulated theories, but you don't hear cries of "Fie! This be not science!" (English language alternatives are available) every time fiction allows matter from energy above a subatomic level. 

Also — and perhaps more damningly if you're aDoctor Who fan — the idea for "Time And The Rani" came from Princeton research into strange matter, some of which makes it into dialogue. Compare this with the approach of Rian Johnson's approach to time-travel for Looper: coming up with a coherent system to explain the mechanics, and then not mentioning it once during the film. The focus is on characters, not exposition. 

Increasingly, we are seeing writers not caring whether something explains every theory in detail or ostentatiously crosses genre boundaries. It's a very blurry, subjective dividing line anyway, and Torchwood helped to muddy things further. 

Torchwood and Doctor Whoare reflective of a general trend for terrestrial television: science-fiction is either expanding its range or being diluted, depending on your point of view. Streaming services and cable/satellite may offer harder sci-fi with the likes of The Expanse, Dark Matter, Westworld and to a certain extent this summer's Stranger Things or Philip K. Dick's alt-history saga The Man In The High Castle, but U.K.'s terrestrial output has done less of late, save for Channel 4/AMC collaboration Humans, which blends A.I. themes with family drama.

When the BBC tries to make more traditional sci-fi, or post-apocalyptic drama, we get Outcasts and Survivors, programs that echo the refrain "these shows are about people" (well, what else were they going to be about?) without the strength of characterization of, say, Russell T. Davies'Doctor Who. Both shows were based on good concepts, but Survivors was patchy and Outcasts patchier still. It's especially irritating that TV hasn't really explored similar territory since, because it isn't the genre's fault these shows weren't good enough. Outcasts certainly looked the part, even if it didn't endear itself to the audience with its story (or characters, or dialogue, or...). Similarly, the problem with Miracle Day wasn't that the villains were humans, it's that they weren't sufficiently interesting humans. Dull aliens are still dull. 

We're a long way from Blake's 7 going out at 7.15pm on a Monday for four seasons. It would be a major challenge to bring it back successfully on the BBC now, hence Syfy looking to it as potentially another Battlestar Galactica. However, a show about a contemporary prisoner disappearing into another dimension, on the other hand, might well have a chance in the UK (this is me abandoning subtlety in my quest for an adaptation of Mazeworld). 

The other important legacy of Torchwood, which celebrates its tenth anniversary on the exact day that new Doctor Who spin-off Classarrives on BBC Three, is that it was the first such spin-off since K9 And Company. While the first series is not the most adulated, it was a step-up (alright, sideways) from straight-to-video Zygon erotica.

This success was hard to predict from its early episodes. Strong viewing figures and a mixed critical reception ensued, but it was fortunate in its timing, pre-budget tightening. Speculation time: if Torchwoodhad started at the time of The Fades, would it have been given a second season? While it lacked the critical acclaim of the latter it brought in nearly double the viewing figures (and with the right demographic, apparently). Torchwood moved to BBC 2 for its second series, The Fades did not. 

Torchwood had the benefit of being a spin-off show with a ready-made audience, an extension of a juggernaut. Severed from Doctor Who, how would it have fared? Now there's a fun piece of conjecture. Equally, what this demonstrates is the benefit of giving a series a chance to grow and develop. Isolated from its parent, the possibility of Torchwoodnot lasting beyond a season would have deprived us of season two and Children Of Earth. Given three seasons, maybe Outcasts could have produced something brilliant. 

It shouldn't have to be said, but TV isn't entirely about art at the end of the day. If a show can be replaced by something that will gain more viewers and sell more DVDs, it probably will be. U.K. terrestrial finances being what they are, risks will be seldom taken (hence sparse pickings for genre fans). It might be left to cinema, subscription, and streaming services to pick up the sci-fi slack.

In the meantime, we'll always have Torchwood.

A version of this article first appeared in January 2013.