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torchwood

The new season of Torchwood, the American version, kicks off tomorrow night. I have mixed feelings about the show’s new season. I’m looking forward to another series of sci-fi episodes mixed with a nice dose of guy on guy sex. I’m not looking forward to a new season of Captain Jack sans Ianto.

I’d heard about Torchwood, vaguely, for several years but nothing was so enticing that I just had to rush out and find copies of the first three seasons. But then while in Siem Reap browsing through a pirated DVD shop I found the first two seasons, offered at less than a buck a disc, and thought I should give them a try. First season, first episode, one of the main characters, Owen, uses an alien gas to nab a fish for the night and then sprays her boyfriend too, deciding a bit of man meat might also be in order. I was hooked. And the sci-fi end of things was pretty cool too.

For Americans who have not seen the show, it is a BBC spin-off from the long running Dr. Who series. Captain Jack runs Torchwood, a semi-secret agency separate from the government (blah, blah, blah) tasked with dealing with all the aliens who slip through the rift into our world. Well, into the Welsh world of Cardiff at least. Jack is omnisexual, though as the show progresses his sexual escapades are mostly with guys. The show is produced by Russell T. Davies, the man responsible for Queer As Folk, though the queer folk in Torchwood are treated as routine characters; there is no big brouhaha made over same sex dalliances. That attitude, along with the aliens, make the show enjoyable to watch.

If you have not seen the previous seasons, then I’m going to ruin a major plot line for you. Live with it. The show’s hero, Jack, ends up in an almost committed relationship with one of the Torchwood crew, Ianto. When we first meet Ianto he’s a straight laced lackey, kinda serving as a butler to the group. Young, tall, dark, handsome, and a dour sense of humor, the first episodes in which he plays a central part involves his girlfriend. Kind of. Not the introduction you’d expect for a gay character. As time goes on, he and Captain Jack begin a bromance that ends in romance until the end of the third season when Ianto gets killed by a group of aliens, the 456, who try to abduct the children of the earth to use as a party drug. Yup, the 456 would have a happy home in Pattaya.

ianto and jack

Fans were outraged over Ianto’s death and demanded he be brought back to life. Davies said that would not happen as it would demean the character, ignoring that Captain Jack dies and lives again at least once in almost every episode, Owen died and then played out the next season and a half, and even the first Torchwood dead body, Suzie, was brought back to life in a subsequent season. I’m still pissed, too. Ianto was cute, his relationship with Capt. Jack adorable. The same dramatic effect could have been achieved by knocking off the gap toothed fish, Gwen, instead.

So the new season is set to start, Ianto-less. And the British TV show is now being filmed in the U.S., a co-production between the BBC and the American cable network Starz. It’s no longer based in Cardiff either. While the producers rave about a bigger budget, helicopters, and explosives, fans worry that the flavor of the show will change and that the show’s gayness will change along with it.

According to John Barrowman, the out actor who plays Captain Jack, the opposite is true. “I’m naked in one episode – I am full-on naked. I am bumping and grinding in this one. I am having man sex,” he reports adding that some of what they filmed is too racy for broadcast on the BBC, but is fine on a pay premium like Starz. “One day, I get to shoot a helicopter and save the world, and a couple of days later, I get to have sex with a 24-year-old. It’s the most perfect job in the world.”

“Jack’s still omnisexual,” Barrowman says, “but people will watch this series and think he’s completely gay.” That’s good, but it is the kind of gay that concerns me. Gay characters on TV are not unheard of, there are several shows on now that feature gay characters in major roles. And that’s nothing new. The gay press goes gaga over any show that includes recurring gay characters, regardless of how those characters represent us. Unfortunately, the majority are stereotypical gay portrayals that promote the gay as a queen school of thought. Sure nowadays they always make sure to stress the underlying dignity of the character, but it’s still a case of presenting gays to the general public as flamboyant fems. And the general public is comfortable with that. Especially when the part is played for laughs. I don’t think that is really scoring a point for gay pride.

ianto and jack torchwood

Ianto and Jack’s relationship, on the other hand, was about two men – I mean real men – attracted to each other and in love. Their interaction with each other was intimate and cute. And not in the least bit fem. It was an honest portrayal of two guys who just happen to be in love with each other. And they actually had sex, which is often never mentioned with most gay characters on TV.

Jack’s other gay interludes on the show also followed a similar vein, masculine characters who just happen to like a bit of man meat. So there is hope, even with Ianto gone. It’s nice to know the new season will not shy away from Capt. Jack’s gay leanings, I just hope they stay true to what has come before and don’t water down new gay characters to the type of queen American audiences have come to accept as the norm.