torchwood sadly isn't better than the sum of it's one part

Torchwood returned to BBC2 last week. For those who are in the dark about the show, it's a spinoff from the BBC's Doctor Who series by Russell T Davies. Only in it's second season, it had something of a rough first season. Davies has mentioned more than once his love for all things Buffy, Angel and Joss Whedon, despite such a strong pedigree, Torchwood plays out of something of a tawdry lovesong to those shows and the genre, which is quite ironic as Buffy is more or less an ode to the horror genre with a good dash of hipness and excellent character development thrown in.

The first season was something of an unmitigated disaster. Davies tried to make it edgy, which, to him, seemed to translate into a great deal of sex and self loathing, self loathing almost on par with BSG. The stories came off as derivative and juvenile, the show ran on BBC2 which gave it more latitude when it came to cursing. If the show demonstrated a glut of sex, coming in second would be swearing without any real context. The whole effort really looked very tawdry.

So, fast forward to season 2, Davies has imported the companion from the latest season of Doctor Who to join the cast. Freema Agyeman showed herself to be a fantastic actress in season 3 Doctor Who and can only help the show raise itself up. But, she did not figure in the first episode of the season, but a face familiar to scifi fans did none the less.

James Marsters returned to TV last week, and for the first time since Buffy, with his faux, but sounding always very real to life, London accent. Marsters, known for his recurring role in Buffy and Angel as the vampire Spike, as well as the Brainiac in Smallville, will guest star in Torchwood for three episodes. But the sad truth of it was that Marsters was flat out mesmerizing while the regulars were very much lacking in comparison. I'd forgotten what a treat he is as a mischievous troublemaker and he and star John Barrowman developed a great on screen rappore, including sharing a kiss or two on screen, but I dread that once the three episodes are up, the show will go back to being the sub par effort is was previously.