Keeping the torch alight

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• Publication: Daily Express
• Date: 2011-07-15
• Author: Matt Baylis
• Page: 51
• Language: English

IT has never been unusual for the average episode of TORCHWOOD (BBC1) to begin with some weird phenomenon affecting people over a wide area. Until now, the quirky BBC sci-fi production has contented itself with turning the nation's primary school pupils into zombies or making all the budgies talk Mandarin.

It may be no coincidence then that the fourth series, the first to be a co-production between the BBC and an American network, seems to be aiming a bit higher. It's no longer a case of something a bit weird radiating out from the Cardiff area. It's nothing less than the end of human mortality itself.

Folks first started thinking something was up when a convicted child murderer failed to die by lethal injection. Then all the hospitals reported an uncanny emptiness in the morgue department. In short nobody seemed to be dying any more.

Seeking to avoid a global calamity and some very long queues at the supermarket, a plucky CIA agent named Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins) has found the connection between the lack of funerals and a now-defunct organisation named Torchwood. In typically American style she has extradited Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and his sole surviving assistant Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) to Los Angeles to sort things out.

We expect cultural confusion have they ever even heard a Welsh accent in Los Angeles before? bigger bucks spent on special effects and, let's hope, no reduction in the tart humour that has always been the show's trademark.

Things got off to a promising start when a newsreader said there'd been a ceasefire in Somalia, there being no point in a war if no one's dying. But will all the camp innuendos survive Stateside? Will Captain Jack, the TV sci-fi world's first bisexual hero, have to tone things down for the viewers of West Virginia? It'll be intriguing to see what does get lost in transatlantic translation and if anyone mourns it.

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• APA 6th ed.: Baylis, Matt (2011-07-15). Keeping the torch alight. Daily Express p. 51.
• MLA 7th ed.: Baylis, Matt. "Keeping the torch alight." Daily Express [add city] 2011-07-15, 51. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: Baylis, Matt. "Keeping the torch alight." Daily Express, edition, sec., 2011-07-15
• Turabian: Baylis, Matt. "Keeping the torch alight." Daily Express, 2011-07-15, section, 51 edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Keeping the torch alight | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Keeping_the_torch_alight | work=Daily Express | pages=51 | date=2011-07-15 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=28 April 2025 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Keeping the torch alight | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Keeping_the_torch_alight | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=28 April 2025}}</ref>