Torchwood: Children of Earth

SOMETHING is happening to the children of Earth. They’re suddenly stopping still like statues. You can only imagine the consequences of this. The cast of Hollyoaks are having a quiet moment to reflect on the silent pointlessness of their lives. Robert Pattinson can leave the house without having every hair ripped from his body. And happy hour at the local pool is taking a sorely ironic turn.

But don’t worry, because Torchwood is on the case, the Doctor Who spin-off team that’s defending the entire planet from alien attacks. All the way from Cardiff.

A lot has been written about this new Torchwood ­series – written by outgoing Doctor Who supremo Russell T Davies – before it’s even been broadcast.

John Barrowman (who plays the virtually immortal, pan-sexual Captain Jack Harkness) slammed the Beeb for “punishing” the show’s BBC Three success by moving it to BBC One and truncating it to five episodes to be shown on consecutive days.

So, does it work? Well, yes – just. The first episode is classic Davies – we rattle between the Government (with the ever-excellent Peter Capaldi) kicking through the gears marked Suspicious and Very Sinister Indeed; Torchwood HQ doing the same, only nicer, and with the usual emotional conflicts that will no doubt be resolved just ­before Earth’s imminent ­demise; and the children eventually stopping and chanting: “We are coming” – once again showing that even though aliens in the Doctor Who universe have their minds set on our ruin, you can’t deny their ­excellent manners in giving us ­advance warning.

And as we reach the pretty standard twist at tonight’s climax – though it’s not one you see coming – it’s hard to deny the Davies style works best when given room to breathe. He’s always specialised in plot turns that luxuriate in themselves. Turning the TV maxim on its head, he writes scenes that say little, but take a long time to say it. It’s why he’s so good at ­Saturday evening TV: you can ­follow it with your brain off – it’s musak TV.

Crammed into an hour, Doctor Who can feel too slight, lurching from Tennant yelp to Tennant bellow. Judging from this, Davies gets to keep his easy-to-watch style, and build something more substantial from it. Sorry to say it Captain Jack, but running Torchwood as a single-story five-parter might be the best thing that’s happened to it.