The Bisexuality of Torchwood

[Here there be spoilers! Reader beware!]

Before I begin there’s a confession I must make.  I am very late to the game on Torchwood and Doctor Who (don’t even ask about Battlestar).  The reason I finally bit the bullet with Doctor Who was the constant "this show is awesome!" from some friends of mine.  When I started watching Doctor Who—which is indeed awesome—Torchwood became an immediate requirement.  After several marathon viewing sessions I devoured all the way up to season 4 of Doctor Who and seasons 1 & 2 of Torchwood.  Torchwood: Children of Earth is on my list, but hasn’t been seen at the time of writing this article.

Captain Jack Harkness was always a great character on Who, so I was really looking forward to him having his own show.  I have to admit there were difficulties getting into Torchwood and I tried to keep my comparisons to Who at a minimum, but being a spin off, they were inevitable.  With the Doctor I found the prevalent feelings to be wonder, adventure and hope.  With Torchwood I found them to be sex, violence and darkness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of sex in TV, movies, you name it.  What took me by surprise was how sex was supersaturated into the series.  It dripped from the characters, the aliens, everyone.  Maybe it was the constant danger leading to a constant need to shag, like a plot driven biological imperative.  Perhaps the writers wanted to really differentiate themselves from the parent series.  Whatever the reason there was no escaping the hormones and with it being science fiction, they took a page from Captain Kirk’s playbook and supercharged it.

A little from Column A & a little from Column B

Jack Harkness wants to bone anything with a vaguely similar biology, a fact made well known during Doctor Who, or as The Doctor put it "so many species, so little time".  His omni-sexuality was accepted by the audience because Jack’s a "51st century guy" and more flexible than our old and busted 21st century.  With him running Torchwood, I totally expected him to play the same way, but what surprised me was how much it rubbed off on his team.

Take a moment to consider that every single main character has had a same sex encounter, at least once, during the course of the show.  The very first episode had Owen in a three way with a straight couple thanks to alien cologne (yes it is as cheesy as it sounds).  Second episode Gwen was making out with a jailbait chick who was possessed by a gaseous sex craved alien (still cheesy).  Later in the season we find Toshiko in a lesbian relationship (with an alien of course) and Ianto started banging the boss.

I’ve never seen bisexuality shown so prevalently on television other than in gay themed shows (i.e. Queer as Folk, The L Word) and even then they were relegated to supporting characters, never main actors.  In Torchwood the entire main cast has been bi, not just a special guest or one particular lead, but all of them.  Even though it can be a bit soap opera-ish with the bed hopping and tangled love triangles (squares and circles too), the show does push the boundaries by displaying bisexuality as just another normal part of life, nonchalantly and with zero negativity.

Sex: Yes; Relationships: No

What did seem to be a little off were the relationships for the characters.  Sex is all over the place and whenever they can fit it in (pun intended), yet when it came to real relationships—especially with love—hetero interactions were the only ones to make the cut.  

In an episode about evil faeries (more puns) we hear Jack talk about one of his great loves, Estelle, a woman he was with before World War II broke out.  Ianto’s love for Lisa (who was in Torchwood London during the Battle of Canary Wharf) was so great he was willing to do anything to save her including hiding a Cyberman in Torchwood’s basement.  Toshiko’s tragically unrequited love for Owen was fodder for numerous episodes and the bumbling Rhys was Gwen’s sole connection to a normal life.

It became apparent during the course of the show that only straight pairings would be the allowed "loves" of the cast.  As constant as the same sex romps were, they were never elevated above the status of casual fling.  The inconsistency between the progressive sexual nature of the show and the exclusive use of traditional pairings for relationships was one thing that irked me about the series.  I’m not sure if it was an intentional direction they went in or something that grew out of the scripts.  Either way, if they want to continue being progressive their approach should be more well rounded.

Stereotypes Need Not Apply

Getting back to the positive side of Torchwood’s boundary breaking characters, you’ll see that all the leading men are masculine figures.  They aren’t clichés kicked up to 11 for comedic value or the standard issue "gay" character you see on a sitcom.  Instead you find kick ass, world saving mofo’s who happen to also like snogging other dudes. 

I applaud the series for this. It keeps in line with the show’s presentation of bisexual characters as normal everyday people.  There’s never been an effeminate turn with the men, whether they’re chasing down aliens or sucking the air out of each other’s lungs.  Too many times you’ll see non-straight characters played exactly to stereotype, even in gay themed shows (The L Word killed me with that).  Torchwood’s portrayal truly felt like a step in the right direction.

Will the American version of this show (supposedly in the works) keep this forward thinking stance with its male characters?  No clue.  Honestly, why do they even need an American version?  There’s no American Doctor Who—god forbid—so I wonder how they’ll deal with that on this side of the pond.  Hopefully it won’t be littered with stereotypes, but only time will tell.

Every Little Bit Helps

Surprising at first, I quickly got used to Torchwood’s hyper-sexuality.  The show’s plots got better as they progressed and the sex became more of a character trait than a ratings hook.  I’ve grown tired of television with two dimensional characters playing a type to canned laugh tracks or having them fall prey to the more negative connotations (check out The Celluloid Closet for Hollywood’s long history of demonizing).  It was refreshing to see people usually considered outside the norm treated as completely normal. 

Torchwood won’t lead any revolutions in culture, but hopefully it will give some folks a more positive role model.  As a sci-fi fan, I love it for expanding the Who universe.  As a writer, I love it for showing characters painted by a different brush.

_________________________________________

Do you think Torchwood is pushing boundaries or cashing in with cheap shtick?  Is it too gay for the average audience?

Related posts: (Auto Generated)

1. Relationships and Torchwood: Children of Earth [Here there be spoilers! Reader beware!] I got a lot...
2. Cuban Nomad: Year One One year ago I started shooting my thoughts out onto...
3. When Good Writing Goes Bad: Sanctuary [If you haven’t seen seasons 1 & 2 of SANCTUARY,...
4. The freedom and repression of Mad Men I’m very late to the game when it comes to...
5. Fox Television: Serial Show Killer Fox television is a strange little network.  For some reason...