Torchwood is gay

"Torchwood" is a British science fiction series, shown in the United States on BBC America.

The series is a "Doctor Who" spin off. While "Doctor Who" is considered a family show, "Torchwood" is more adult in content. It contains explicit sex, gruesome murders and some pretty nasty aliens. Most characters turn out to be bisexual. Indeed, the fictitious Torchwood Institute seems to be a veritable LGBT love fest!

The closest thing "Star Trek" ever came to homosexuality were a couple of strange alien races. "Torchwood" is the real thing. How about same-sex kissing between Allied officers in pretty uniforms (one of them a time traveller), interracial lesbian sex with a shape shifting alien, or swinging from a straight robot to a gay human? Well, at least they have diversity on this show!

Weirdly, the plot is set in Cardiff, Wales. Hardly a place anyone would consider the gay capital of Britain. The story revolves around the Torchwood Institute, a secretive operation charged with hunting down aliens from outer space and retrieve alien technology. The leader of the operation is one Jack Harkness, a mysterious human with supernatural abilities whose real identity is never revealed in the first season (of course, avid viewers of "Doctor Who" know exactly who he is). A rift in space-time runs right across Cardiff, turning the city into some kind of alien boomtown. Most fascinating are the Weewils, monstrous aliens living in the sewage system but occasionally making it to the surface, attacking people. To make the story a little bit more believable, the Torchwood Institute controls a drug known as Retcon, which wipes out the memories of everyone who ever sees the aliens. Torchwood are, after all, above the government and beyond the police!

So far, three seasons of "Torchwood" has been produced. I originally only watched the second season, and drew the hasty conclusion that the show isn't much to write home about. The last couple of weeks, I've also been watching the first season episodes on Swedish TV. They are much better. In the second season, the monsters are just too corny and the characters too weirdly depressed. One of them even becomes a zombie. The first season also borders the corny at times (what about the cannibals? Or Abaddon?), but overall it's perfectly acceptable.

Unless, of course, you have a problem with bisexuals...