Torchwood - Fanlore

Torchwood

Name: Torchwood
Abbreviation(s): TW, Tw
Creator: Russell T. Davies
Date(s): 2006-
Medium: Television series
Country of Origin: UK
External Links: IMDB

BBC (Access limited outside UK)

BBC America
Subpages for Torchwood:

Gwen Cooper · Ianto Jones · Jack/Ianto · Jack Harkness · Jack Harkness (1941) · John Hart · Toshiko Sato


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Torchwood is a spin-off of the BBC television series Doctor Who, created by Russell T. Davies and intended for a more adult audience than its parent series.

Contents

The show's premise

Starring the character of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), Torchwood is set in Cardiff, Wales, where a branch of the fictional Torchwood Institute is charged with keeping the world safe from alien threats that come through a rift in time and space.

It begins with Gwen Cooper, then a police constable, investigating a supposed special ops unit that seems to conduct its operations with unusual secrecy and advanced technology. When she tracks Torchwood back to the Hub (their base), Jack hires her, and she serves as the primary viewpoint character in the first few episodes.

Torchwood's first series of 13 episodes debuted in the UK in October, 2006. A second series premiered in January 2008. The third series, a five-part miniseries, was aired over a period of a week in 2009 on BBC1, where it achieved good ratings.[1]

Particular Appeal to Fans

Torchwood is unusual for a television show in that, though strongly based in the conventions of the sci-fi/horror genres, it features characters of diverse sexualities: Unlike, for example, Queer as Folk, which is about queer people being queer, Torchwood is about people who fight aliens and who happen to be queer. (Or not, as the case may be.) The result is a show that appeals to people who like science fiction adventure, but delivers on the subtext that other shows merely hint at. Furthermore, the themes dealing with relationships and the emotional effects of a high-stress working environment are incorporated into plot development with sometimes operatic intensity.

Although it was originally conceived to be more realistic and "gritty" than its parent show, Torchwood also employs sci-fi cheese and homoerotic fanservice. (The actors engage in much playful fanservice as well.[2])

The show is sometimes described as "fangirl crack" for any or all of the above reasons.

However, like in Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who, the line between comedy and tragedy is often a blurry one [3] and Torchwood does indeed have a consistent bleak, rather existentialist streak dealing with themes like love, death, loss, and the meaning of life (or lack thereof).

The fandom and its history

Fans enjoy shipping/slashing the characters of Torchwood in all combinations, but the canon slash pairing of Jack/Ianto may be the most popular. The other canonical relationship that was featured in both series one and two is the het pairing Gwen/Rhys, which is well-liked but not as frequently featured in fanfic.

The time-traveling, omnisexual, immortal Captain Jack is also alleged to be a little black dress - a character who can be convincingly paired with anyone, even in unlikely crossovers.[4]

Themes and cross-connections

Torchwood inspires some of its fans to become interested in:

  • Doctor Who
  • British military history, esp. WWI & WWII, and costuming
  • Time travel stories
  • Mortality vs. immortality
  • [list more stuff here]

Other fandoms which involve these themes can inspire crossovers, including:

Crossovers are also sometimes inspired by actor casting, such as:

Pre-Series One (Before 10/22/2006)

Torchwood fandom began forming even before the BBC announced the show would be created, as its lead character, Captain Jack Harkness, debuted on Doctor Who, where he attracted some of his earliest fans a year and a half before the premiere of Torchwood's first episode.

Fanfic (or other fan activities) which focus on Jack during the period of his travels with the Doctor may be of interest to some Who fans who do not follow Torchwood. Conversely, not all Torchwood fans will watch the Doctor Who episodes featuring Jack or have an interest in fan fiction about that period of Jack's life. As a result, folksonomy-oriented sites like Delicious do not group this subgenre of fanfic as efficiently as they do fanfic that focuses on Jack's time at Torchwood.

Early Torchwood fan fiction was based on what could be gleaned about Jack and the fictional Torchwood Institution from the first two seasons of the revived Doctor Who, as well as the BBC press releases which eventually revealed the names, appearances, and basic roles of the other main characters.[5] [6]

Fansites Established Before Series One

Fanfic challenges, cons, and other events

  • [list events here]

During and After Season One

Torchwood was considered a small fandom for Yuletide in 2006.[7]

Fansites Established Before Series Two

  • torchwood_three - daily fandom newsletter/round-up of Torchwood-related news, art, fanworks and meta livejournal community, created 11/09/2006
  • jackxianto livejournal community - JackxIanto fanfic community. Created 11/16/2006

Fanfic challenges, cons, and other events

  • vintagemilitary - a fanfic challenge community for crossovers with Captain Jack and other fandoms. Created January 2007

During and After Season Two

[Reaction of fandom to changes in canon - tone, quality, etc.]

Fansites Established Before Series Three

  • ask_captainjack - A roleplay journal in which Jack writes an Agony Aunt advice column. Created 2008-04-12, it gradually spawned the Askverse.
  • Sodomy_Central - A fanfic community for Jack Harkness/historical figure pairings. Despite the name, it's not slash-only. Created October 2007.

Fanfic challenges, cons, and other events

  • The Rift, "the world’s first all-Torchwood convention;" Saturday 26 April 2008 in London.
  • (DragonCon 2008 - date? guests? was TW part of the Doctor Who track?) in Atlanta, GA.
  • The Hub convention; Friday 17th - Sunday 19th of October 2008 in Northampton.
  • The Hub 2 convention; March 13th-15th, 2009, in Northampton.
  • [tardis big bang challenge - an all-whoniverse-inclusive event]
  • [skiffy awards]
  • [list events here]

During And After Season Three

A third series of the show was aired in 2009.

Fanfic challenges, cons, and other events

  • omnijaxual - A fanfic community pairing Jack with anyone/anything. Created August 2009.

Fanzines

References

  1. ↑ Article on Broadcastnow, accessed 27 October 2009.
  2. ↑ Naughty pics of the "Torchwood" crew's convention makeout session - 21 Oct 2008.
  3. ↑ Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, pp 158-159: I believe passionately that Comedy and Tragedy exist alongside each other. No way they are diametric opposites; they're right next to each other and they overlap in a thousand different ways.
  4. ↑ Vintage Military LJ comm and frostfire's "Hi, I'm Captain Jack Harkness" (which inspired the creation of the omnijaxual LJ comm)
  5. ↑ Linked in dune-drd's LJ
  6. ↑ Linked in sweetestdrain's LJ
  7. ↑ Yuletide quicksearch for Torchwood stories
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