---
title: "Torchwood"
year: 2006
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/torchwood"
fi1m_score: 73
critics_score: 74
critics_reviews: 5
published: "2026-09-17T01:29:01.346509+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T01:29:24.817909+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Torchwood (2006)

Created by Russell T Davies · 45m · MPA TV-MA · Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Drama

**Fi1m score: 73** · Critics 74 (early) from 5 reviews

*In a sentence:* A secret alien-hunting team beneath Cardiff Bay; they have a pterodactyl and no HR department

> Russell T Davies’s adult Doctor Who spin-off spends its first series insisting how grown-up it is, then becomes so in its third, five episodes as bleak as anything British television has managed. The rest is patchier than its admirers say.

## Synopsis

Cardiff, 2006. A crack in space and time runs under the city, and whatever falls through it is collected by Torchwood, a secret outfit that answers to nobody and works from a base beneath the Bay. Police constable Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) watches the team at a murder scene bring the victim back for two minutes with a metal glove, and cannot let it go. She wants in; they would rather dose her with an amnesia pill. Their leader is Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a grinning man in a wartime greatcoat who cannot die. Around him: medic Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), technician Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) and Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd), who makes the coffee.

## Review

Torchwood is a secret organisation in Cardiff, outside the government and beyond the police, that collects whatever falls through a crack in space and time under the city. Russell T Davies spun it off from [*Doctor Who*](https://film.one/tv/doctor-who) in 2006 with a 15 certificate and a brief to do what the parent series could not: sex, swearing, guns that get used. It ran for four series across five years, at thirteen episodes, thirteen, five and ten. It is loud and uneven, then briefly remarkable, then lost. Taken whole it is worth an evening if the genre is yours; the five episodes in the middle are better than that.

The team works from the Hub, a shaft of steel gantries under the water tower on Cardiff Bay with a pterodactyl living in the roof, and the rota of cinematographers, Ray Orton and Simon Butcher among them, shoots the city around it as wet pavements and coloured glass. Ben Foster’s score announces every entrance with brass. What passes for adult content in the first series is a teenager’s idea of it: an alien in the second episode that feeds on orgasm, a medic with a spray that makes strangers want him. None of it shocked us, and we were slightly embarrassed for it, the way you are for a relative swearing at Sunday lunch. Chris Chibnall’s *Countrycide*, which sends the team into the Brecon Beacons, is the exception, and nasty enough to earn the certificate on its own.

John Barrowman plays Jack Harkness as a turn: the grin, the greatcoat, the habit of standing on tall buildings. It is likeable and it does not do quiet; when the scripts ask for grief he goes still, and the stillness reads as waiting for a cue. Eve Myles holds the early years together. Gwen Cooper is the copper who still flinches, and Myles plays her as someone who cannot stop caring and is not sure it counts as a virtue. Burn Gorman gives Owen Harper a sneer with a frightened doctor behind it, Naoko Mori is underused as Toshiko Sato until Toby Whithouse writes her an episode, and Gareth David-Lloyd’s Ianto Jones starts as the man who makes the coffee and is handed, by degrees, the best arc in the programme.

Catherine Tregenna’s *Out of Time*, which lands a small aeroplane from 1953 in present-day Cardiff and then more or less forgets the aliens, is the first series at its best; an old man asking after his family moved us more than the programme had earned. The second series is looser and funnier, and knows by then who we care about.

Then the third series, *Children of Earth*, five episodes on five consecutive nights in July 2009, directed by Euros Lyn and written by Davies with John Fay and James Moran. We will not describe its premise. Half its time is spent in Whitehall, where the crisis is handed to a middle-ranking civil servant because nobody senior wants to hold the phone. The aliens are kept behind glass and never made clear, which is right. The scene that horrified us was not anything behind the glass. It was a room of ministers round a table, discussing the crisis in the voice they would use for a spending review, and one of them asking how it will look. It is the most frightening thing Davies has written.

*Miracle Day*, in 2011, has a bigger premise and does less with it, and we will not describe that one either. Bill Pullman plays Oswald Danes, a convicted child murderer who becomes a celebrity, in a soft, reasonable voice that is the best thing in the ten episodes. Mekhi Phifer and Alexa Havins arrive as Americans, and a writing room that now includes Jane Espenson, Doris Egan and John Shiban sends everyone across the United States after a conspiracy. Ten hours is twice what the idea has in it. We were bored, then angry about being bored, because whenever Pullman was on screen the programme seemed to know what it was about, and whenever he left it went back to the car chase.

Set against *Doctor Who*, the point is that these people are not the Doctor. They carry guns, they get it wrong, and they do not get to leave at the end of the episode. The show only fully believes that once. Watch the first year with patience, the second with pleasure, and *Children of Earth* with the door shut and nothing planned for afterwards.

*Fi1m score 73, published 17 September 2026.*

### Reviews we read (5)

- **The Hollywood Reporter** (90/100, inferred): The review praises Torchwood as compelling, convoluted and camp, well worth watching even for non-sci-fi fans. It singles out the winning chemistry between the leads and the blend of action and edgy dialogue. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/torchwood-158482/)
- **The Guardian**, Phil Hogan (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the Doctor Who spin-off entertaining and indecently funny in its alien plots set in Cardiff, praising the fast pace and humor while noting its appeal to children despite adult content. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2006/oct/29/features.review7)
- **Variety**, Brian Lowry (70/100, inferred): The review calls the series a smart, occasionally salacious hour with X-Files charms and Buffy bite. It singles out the quirky team interaction and John Barrowman’s performance as elevating the material. [Read](https://variety.com/2007/scene/markets-festivals/torchwood-1200556793/)
- **Empire**, William Thomas (60/100, inferred): The review finds potential for greatness in the Doctor Who spin-off but criticizes its uneven tone and overemphasis on being edgy. It singles out the promising opening monologue and intriguing central character Captain Jack for praise. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/torchwood-series-1-3-parts-review/)
- **Collider**, Greer Riddell (85/100, inferred): The critic presents Torchwood as an ideal adult-oriented companion to Doctor Who, praising its shift to darker, more mature themes including sexuality, existentialism and corruption. They highlight the grounded Cardiff setting, ensemble dynamics and diverse relationships as standout elements that distinguish it from the parent series. [Read](https://collider.com/torchwood-doctor-who-sci-fi-adventure-series/)

## Details

- **Created by:** Russell T Davies
- **Creator:** Russell T Davies
- **Director:** Ashley Way, Andy Goddard, Euros Lyn, Billy Gierhart, Colin Teague, Guy Ferland, Brian Kelly, Alice Troughton, James Strong, Jonathan Fox Bassett, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Mark Everest, Bharat Nalluri, James Erskine
- **Screenplay:** Jim Danger Gray
- **Writer:** Chris Chibnall, Russell T Davies, Jane Espenson, Catherine Tregenna, John Fay, James Moran, John Shiban, Peter J. Hammond, Helen Raynor, Doris Egan, Phil Ford, Toby Whithouse, J. C. Wilsher, Matt Jones, Noel Clarke, Jacquetta May, Ryan Scott, Dan McCulloch, Joseph Lidster, Paul Tomalin
- **Cinematography:** Mark Waters, Nathaniel Goodman, Simon Butcher, Rory Taylor, Ray Orton, Christopher Faloona, Toby Moore, Mark Waters
- **Editor:** Richard Cox, William Webb, Mike Hopkins, Hunter M. Via, Michael N. Knue, Fergus MacKinnon, Philip Kloss, Mike Jones, Padraic McKinley, William Oswald, Sara Mineo, Mark Goldman, Elen Pierce Lewis, John Gillanders, Phil Hookway, Nick Ames, Bobby Sheikh
- **Music:** Ben Foster, Murray Gold
- **Cast:** John Barrowman as Jack Harkness; Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper; Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones; Burn Gorman as Owen Harper; Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato; Alexa Havins as Esther Drummond; Mekhi Phifer as Rex Matheson; Bill Pullman as Oswald Danes
- **Runtime:** 45m
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 22 October 2006
- **Genres:** Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Drama

## Where to watch in the US

- Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AT, AU, CA, DE, FR, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama 2011: Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama (nominated)
- Satellite Award for Best Television Series – Genre 2011: Satellite Award for Best Television Series – Genre (nominated)
- TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials 2010: TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials (nominated)
- Hugo Awards 2008: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *Ultraviolet* (1998): Vampires treated as a public health problem by grey men in Whitehall offices
- *Angel* (1999): The other spin-off that left home, grew darker and outdid its parent for stretches
- *Being Human* (2008): Toby Whithouse puts a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost in a Bristol flat
- *The Returned* (2012): The dead walk back into a French mountain town and nobody knows what to say
- *The Leftovers* (2014): One impossible morning changes the world, and the series stays with the grief

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/torchwood