# Torchwood (2006)

> A covert Cardiff-based team investigates alien incursions and the unusual, operating outside official oversight.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/396

## Facts

- Seasons: 4
- Episodes: 41
- Episode runtime: 45 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: science fiction, drama, action
- Created by: Russell T Davies
- Network: BBC Three, BBC One, BBC Two
- Cast: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, Alexa Havins, Mekhi Phifer, Bill Pullman
- TMDB rating: 7.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485301/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: dark, sardonic, gritty, melancholic, tense, adult

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series positively, with the strongest regard for its darker, more ambitious later seasons and the ensemble cast.

## Synopsis

Torchwood (2006-2011) is a British adult science fiction drama series created by Russell T Davies for BBC Three and BBC One, a spin-off from Doctor Who. Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) leads a covert team of investigators based in Cardiff who chase the unusual, the strange and the extraterrestrial, while Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd), Owen Harper (Burn Gorman) and Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) pursue each case within a secret government unit that answers to no official oversight. The engine of the series is the tension between protecting the public and the cost of keeping secrets, as each episode brings a new alien threat, a moral trap, or a personal wound that tests the team's loyalty. Its four seasons mix standalone case-of-the-week episodes with a serialized mythology that builds across the run, and a later season adds a five-episode miniseries-style arc. The mood is dark, sexually frank and violent, with flashes of gallows humour and a melancholy undertow. Set in present-day Cardiff, it is a gritty, contemporary take on the monster-hunting format, in the vein of The X-Files and Fringe, and fans of Doctor Who will find its tonal shift especially striking.

## Shows like Torchwood

- [The Rook (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/68275)
- [Time After Time (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/59730)
- [Farscape (1999)](https://ember.film/tv/4058)
- [Torchwood: Web of Lies (2011)](https://ember.film/tv/36518)
- [Project Blue Book (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/68484)
- [The Lone Gunmen (2001)](https://ember.film/tv/5405)
- [Warehouse 13 (2009)](https://ember.film/tv/14741)
- [Primeval: New World (2012)](https://ember.film/tv/37837)
- [Ultraviolet (1998)](https://ember.film/tv/215)
- [Eureka (2006)](https://ember.film/tv/4398)

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