Down and dirty but far from sexy ... from left: Jack (John Barrowman), Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd), Toshiko (Naoki Mori), Owen (Burn Gorman) and Gwen (Eva Myles)
One of the problems of multi-channel television is getting caught up, or stranded, miles away from where you originally meant to head to. Which is why, to my intense irritation, I managed to miss the whole of the first episode of Torchwood because I was watching Riverdance in China.
Riverdance is one of those things, like Keane and chicken kiev, that I hate admitting to secretly really liking. I'd never go to see them in public, as I am a snob. But I always get a spring in my step when it pops up on my iPod. Plus, you mustn't underestimate Michael Flatley's addition to the sum of world happiness. His autobiography alone is a masterpiece of "Obviously, they saw I was right in the end" professions, and lots and lots of incredibly icky descriptions of various "special ladies" he's made sweet love to in backstage cupboards.
Anyway, Michael and his sweaty, matted curly hair aside (and that weird Spanish woman, and the banging on about elements and so on), I find something elementally exciting about loads of people banging their feet on the ground in a straight line then doing it again, but faster. Can't help it. And from the looks of things, Chinese people liked it too.
But Torchwood though! I've been waiting for this for ages. Dr Who with sexy bits! Frankly in my head Dr Who already has sexy bits, namely Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant (and sometimes, fervently, together), but this sounded really too good to be true. Thank goodness they showed the second episode straight afterwards, before I turned over to Jade's PA.
Now, let's see. Here's the beauteous Captain Jack (who is meant to swing both ways but, let's face it, from the descriptive 'beauteous' you can probably guess his main preferences) is now head of, uhn, some secret underground lair in Cardiff (I know this is horribly Welshist, but a part of me did go "Christ! The whole thing? In Cardiff?", especially when they were given so much money to do it that they can have real crowd scenes and everything).
Then there's great casting - the wonderful Guppy from Bleak House (and not as I thought at first glance, Nick Moran run through a shredder - what does he do for food these days apart from driving the Matalan car incidentally?). But what's this? Guppy's making remarks about women that would see you sacked from any non-underground secret organisation in about two seconds flat. Nice.
Then there's our heroine, I suppose, a policewoman who's stumbled across them. She has very carefully styled hair and says "what you doing?" a lot. And then there's a bunch of other people who look like this year's graduate intake for Proctor & Gamble.
And the all new sexy adult plot is - a hot sexy women who shags men to death!!! You remember, like that dreadful film with Darius' girlfriend! Look, there she is - shagging a man to death! And there's a fat bloke having a wank! And there she's having a wee bit of lesbo sex with Our Heroine! And look she's shagging her way through - a sperm bank!!!
I am very VERY unhappy by this point. Sexy is Captain Jack doing tales of great ingenuity and derring-do (like the peerless The Doctor Dances), with the occasional more-than-dance with a plucky young lad/lass. Sexy is not staring at some pallid lady's thighs while she goes on about feeling new alien sexual energy (because of course a woman actually wanting sex would hardly be very feminine, would it?), whilst the Captain middlemanages a bunch of idiots who say things like, "You've spent so much time with the alien stuff you've forgot what it means to be human"
Sexy is not watching a fat bouncer having a wank. My disappointment knows no bounds. Of course, it's the first episode I've seen (and the second overall), and if life teaches you anything it's that you have to trust the Davies. But based on last night it's even less sexy than the cut of Michael Flatley's trousers.
