Torchwood and other adventures

Sorry for the lack of blogitude this week; obviously I’m trying to get used to a whole different set of rhythms (with, admittedly, varying degrees of success, seeing as I’m writing this after 1 in the morning) and I just haven’t had a whole lot to report.
The other day I got together with Kevin “k8track” from the DP forums, who happened to be in town, and we joyously and unapologetically geeked out at a McDonald’s for about an hour. I’m sure the folks who frequent that particular establishment aren’t used to discussions of the merits of Space: 1999 at lunchtime (or, indeed, my not-at-all-quietly-stated belief that being in the middle of a Camille Coduri-and-Catherine Tate sandwich would be an even better lunchtime activity). Good times.
Tonight my wife and I sat down and shoveled the last seven episodes of Torchwood into our eyeballs in one sitting; I hadn’t seen the last four yet, so at least part of the time it was a total surprise to me. (Though I certainly didn’t mind watching Random Shoes again.) Though in places very uneven (but name me a freshman show that isn’t), I thought Torchwood was enormously entertaining, and I’m eager to get into season 2.
Admittedly, the Mrs. freaked a little at the sight of that great big two-man snog in the episode Captain Jack Harkness, and I’ll admit that it went on long enough that even I was shifting uncomfortably in my seat, but in the end, it suited the story. And as for the uncomfortable reaction…I try to imagine how many viewers’ jaws dropped in outrage over the Kirk/Uhura kiss (i.e. the first interracial kiss on American TV) in Plato’s Stepchildren in 1969. That “just wasn’t done” on TV back then either (though we’d scarcely blink at it now), and Torchwood isn’t (A) intended to be family hour viewing, nor is it (B) shown during prime time. Still, the gradually increasing GLBT element in Torchwood may well doom it to never be shown on these shores. Which is a pity, because it’s a terribly entertaining show.
(That being said, I have to admit that, from a character standpoint and not from a standpoint of prudishness, I just don’t see where the hell the Jack/Ianto relationship came from. I don’t mind that it’s there, but for crying out loud, show how Ianto goes from “heterosexual with a female Cyberman for a girlfriend” to being, as Owen puts it, Jack’s “part time shag.” Considering how Jack treated Ianto in Cyberwoman, I’m just seeing absolutely no basis for a romance between the two. Quite the opposite, in fact. At least as distasteful as Owen/Gwen was – mainly because very few things in the entire series convinced me that Owen is anything other than an irredeemable asshole – you could see the basis for that relationship.)
The last four episodes formed a great buildup to a fantastic cliffhanger whose resolution will play out across both Doctor Who and Torchwood. I thought that was a great move – we get to see how Torchwood fares witout Jack, and we get Jack back on Doctor Who for a fleeting moment. That, folks, is a neat approach to having a spinoff in the first place. I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation and especially Deep Space Nine, but they never dovetailed on quite that scale, and I remember being disappointed that they didn’t. This was more on the order of the zinger cliffhanger that Strange Luck sadly went out on – only in this case, we know that we’ll get to see it resolved somewhere.
Just think – this spring, we get more Who, then we get the rest of the Sarah Jane Adventures in last summer, and then presumably Torchwood again in the fall. It’s kinda nutty to contemplate that we’re getting close to, for the first time since the 1960s, being able to enjoy all these adventures in the Doctor’s universe nearly year-round. If they can keep the spinoff material as good as this show (and if the godawful Small Worlds remains the low water mark of the series, which I pray that it will), we’re in good shape.