An End to The Torcher

Torchwood finally bowed out on Friday night - much to our collective relief, no doubt. It was, however, an enjoyable episode, with lots going on, and The Other Coat (Captain John) much in evidence. He blew up lots of bits of Cardiff, gave Jack a ring while burying him alive, and did lots of "business" - actor-speak for picking things up and faffing about with them to indicate mental state or give the audience something to look at. It was all good fun. He also strung Capn Jack up by his arms and didn't support his feet, but Capn Jack refused to be suffocated as he actually would, and continued chatting away like a good'un.

As usual, the best bit was after the show, when the BBC aired "Torchwood Confidential". It is always a tad creepy when the Beeb does its little panegyric love-ins, but TC is so far up its own bottom that it is worth watching just to listen to one's own involuntary yelps of disbelief.

There are No Women on TC. No women apparently write or produce on this show, and the men only communicate by email. Or maybe they pretend only to communicate by email to show the viewing public just how cool and techno-literate they are, because this lot are spods. Not the semi-cool geek-types whose spoddiness is generated by insane intellectual passion rather than social hopelessness, like Gareth "okay, I may be geeky but I have a black Fred Perry polo shirt, you know" Malone off the choir; no, this lot are the more oafish, not-quite-outstanding-at-anything-so-we-hang-round-in-a-gang lot who probably still deal out dirty looks and snide remarks to the true geeks. They are marked out by their love, not for their craft, but for their self-importance. The beating heart, one suspects, of BBC production.

They talk a lot about how "difficult" it is to kill off a character, but what they say doesn't ring true. They don't care about these characters, surely? If they care, why are they so cardboard? And oh good Godfrey Cambridge, there it is. The characters are cardboard because they reflect the production team. No girl would aspire to go out with one, no single individual is permitted self-knowledge by the remainder of the pack, No One Is Greater Than The Show; they are the Stalinist State perfected through the prism of the English Public School System; socio-emotionally and intellectually foetal to a man.

The girls - who front the series - put in an appearance. Apparently the tears Gwen cries in the show "are real tears". Are we supposed to be impressed by this? One is reminded of Laurence Olivier suggesting to a fellow thesp. that he "try acting". The dangers of confusing reality and fantasy are well documented, but here is one of the less publicised ones - that of making fantasy pointless. After all, the art of drama is to fake it.

MEANWHILE ... OVER ON BBC ONE

How I enjoyed Dr Who! I type this with some astonishment, as I didn't enjoy the last series to the point where I couldn't be bothered to watch it. I have intensely disliked both the last two assistants; the worst thing was that they both Loved the Doctor, and that really isn't right, especially when he is David Tennant. No working relationship can survive interplanetary breeding programmes, as evidenced by last night's ep. Happily, Catherine Tate is here, and we are all much happier now.

Catherine Tate is not a creature of heart-stopping beauty. She may have a wealth of auburn hair and eyes you could lose your soul in, but she is also a woman with an unfashionably buxom arse and the accent of true Estuary Outrage. Instead of being a show pony, she is a quick-witted funny feisty woman, who can also act. How on earth did she end up on Dr Who? Let us all praise the Powers That Be, who have sent us a lovely Goddess to use her own wit and elan to rescue us from the tedium of poorly pretended hanky-panky yearning fests that this once-classic show has been in danger of being swallowed by. If the Doctor can avoid being Tinkerbell in a cage needing all the world to believe in fairies, this series could yet be a watchable thing. Yippee!