Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

Following the adventures of 1950s air ace Diane Holmes, new exciting new BBC 3 project stars Louise Delamere. In each episode she pilots the Sky Gipsy through the rift in space time, exploring different eras, worlds and even parallel universes.

Okay, so I’m entirely making this up, but with the Russell T. Davies’ eye for potential spin-offs, can we doubt that he is considering it? And wouldn’t it be great to take the best episode of Torchwood so far, and give Diane Holmes (basically a female version of Ace Rimmer) her own series?

I previously posted about how, with Torchwood renewed, the production team should be taking a look at the casting and making some hard decisions. Since Torchwood doesn’t seem to have an HR department, I’d imaging that when the JIC discover Captain Jack hasn’t been keeping up with the appraisal schedule, they’d bring in consultants to write a report on possible staffing changes at Torchwood 3…

Captain Jack

…He apparently holds the view that his team are “outside the Government and beyond the United Nations”. It’s not clear where he believes his budget comes from…

…His unquestionably unique management style, based largely around groping or threatening members of his team and going off to stand on tall buildings, is of dubious efficacy. His team are dysfunctional and disorganised, and he is quite unpopular. One team member describes him as a monster, whilst another shot him in the head….

Recommendation: Harkeness’ experience is invaluable but his leadership qualities are minimal. Recommend he is moved sideways, reporting to a new Torchwood Commander at Cardiff.

Ianto Jones

…generally smart, well organised, and well presented. However, his grasp of the essentials of fronting a covert operation leaves something to be desired, especially in his habit of ordering pizzas in the name of Torchwood…

…Showed poor judgement and reckless disregard for his colleagues…

Recommendation: terminate.

Owen Harper

…His talent in his former profession is clear, but he is currently underused. He has become bored and disaffected. He allows untrained colleagues to conduct autopsies, openly undermines team members, and follows his own agenda…

Recommendation: has great potential, and should be promoted to a position where this can be realised.

Toshiko Sato

…bright, extremely competent technically. But her commitment to the organisation is questionable. She has a strong streak of naive idealism. She also completely misunderstands how ISBN numbers work…

Recommendation: terminate.

Gwen Cooper

…although not particularly intelligent, she is methodical and tenacious. Her training in police investigative procedures could prove useful…

…and the ability to develop an empathetic relationship with subjects. Whilst this can be an asset, it needs to be combined with pragmatism and common sense…

…on secondment from Heddlu De Cymru, providing good cover for covert investigation, something that could be (and isn’t being) expoited…

Recommendation: retain.

The Torchwood Car

…inappropriate, inefficient, just a plain eyesore…

Recommendation: ditch it.

The Writers

Recommendation: Sack them (well, except P. J. Hammond and Jacquetta May).

The BBC have announced Torchwood has been comissioned for a second series.

Torchwood is the longest running Doctor Who TV spinoff ever, but I’ve been a bit ambivalent about whether I want Torchwood back. I just don’t think it’s very good, though I’ve hoped maybe in the second season it will get better. Then again, I’ve thought, maybe it just isn’t working, and it should just be ditched in favour of maybe a show about a covert organisation on a different planet.

But if it’s renewed, I hope someone will be taking a look at staffing. One of the main problems for Torchwood as a believable organisation is that there seems to be no accountability, no lines of managment. Where’s HR? Who does the appraisals? Well, I hope that the BBC take a look at the cast of characters and decide who’s working out, and who’s not.

Neil Hannon is a talented chappie, but his version of Murray Gold’s Song For Ten from The Christmas Invasion on the new Doctor Who Music CD (now on iTunes but not yet in the shops, bah) just isn’t the same as Tim Phillips’ rather spiffing original.

Fortunately, the BBC have presented our ears with almost two minutes worth of Phillips’ version behind today’s window of their Doctor Who Advent Calendar.

We still haven’t had the slightest clue, 8 episodes in, how Captain Jack ended up in Cardiff in, what must it be, 2007/8? What is clear is that the charming, reckless conman of The Empty Child is no longer with us. I’m hoping that…
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What we know:

Jack was a Time Agent in (his presumably native) 51st Century, until he discovered two years of his life had been erased. He scarpered, turning on his former employers by trying to con them with pieces of worthless detritus he’d planted in time; this was how he met the Doctor on 1940s Earth. The Doctor left him in the 2001st century after he was brought back from the dead by Rose “Bad Wolf” Tyler, in the event which may have made him immortal. He ended up in 2007(ish) working wearing an unfeasibly large bluetooth headset.

Several things still have to fit. For a start, how Jack is in a position of responsibility? No just at all, but particularly since had he been in that job when the Doctor arrived at Torchwood One he’d have been able to contact him. So has he just walked into the position (assuming Torchwood is set soon after those events), or is there some reason he didn’t go to Canary Wharf to see the Doctor? Also, Jack WWII romance could hardly have happened in the time he was in London trying to flog a Tula Warship to the Time Agents, so has he been there twice? And when did he go to 1909 Lahore? Has he been on Earth for the last 100 years, or was that when he was travelling?
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