I managed to miss the last two episodes of Torchwood as part of the BBC’s plan to screw over anyone who likes their flagship Sci-Fi shows by moving the timeslots at random. But that’s a rant for another day, because thanks to the pretty darn good BBC iPlayer, I was able to watch both episodes back to back on my laptop.

The Doctor

Then there was the first episode of Doctor Who on Saturday night. Which was just awesome. Breathtakingly so. The timing of the early scenes, where Donna and The Doctor were feet apart at all times was brilliant. And of course, that completely silent conversation the two had through the windows of the office block was hilarious.

Catherine Tate managed to pull off the feat of not making Donna Noble a complete cartoon character. Which was important, because we’ve got her for the rest of the series. If she’d pissed us off with Donna in the first five minute…OK, we wouldn’t have boycotted the show, but we would’ve been pretty pissed off. So, good work C. Tate.

The storyline was inspired, too. You’ve got The Doctor tracking this illegal intergalactic incubation scheme where humans are given a weight loss pill that turns their excess flab into baby aliens.

Even Donna’s seemingly pointless conversation with her grandfather (played by Bernard Cribbins) came right in the end when she paid him a flying visit in the Tardis.

And of course a very early and unexpected return of Rose Tyler. I actually got chills just typing that. Just before leaving with The Doctor, Donna deposits her mother’s car keys in a bin and leaves a message a blonde-haired stranger. Rose. She turns toward the camera briefly and then walks away, fading out as she leaves. So many questions…

And Torchwood Ends…

…with a bang. Captain John returns and wreaks merry mayhem among Jack’s oversexed team of alien investigators. Well, first he blows them all up. Then he kidnaps Jack and takes him back to Cardiff in the early AD years. Then it turns out that John found Jack’s brother Gray (no, not Gay).

Gray’s gone all psycho because Jack abandoned him as a child. He captured Captain John and roped him into destroying Jack’s team and doing all sorts of other bad things. So all John’s protestations of love for Jack weren’t the ironic banter of a madman, and at the first opportunity John helps Jack out.

Anyway, before we get to the part about Jack being buried underneath Cardiff for the best part of two millennia, in a perpetual cycle of suffocating and regenerating without going completely mad, we get to see how Owen, Toshiko, Ianto and Jack joined Torchwood. The penultimate episode is dedicated to the four stories, and it’s amazing. I won’t regurgitate it here for you, but getting little glimpses of back story is seriously important in any Sci-Fi series. The Torchwood team (the writers, not the characters this time) did a fantastic job of building interesting and diverse storylines for the long-serving staff of Torchwood.

Jack finally is reunited with his brother. But while he’s relieved, Gray is psychotic and buries him alive. Consumed by guilt as we saw earlier in the series, Jack doesn’t fight and allows himself to be covered in earth for the next couple of thousand years. In the meantime, Gray’s handiwork has brought Cardiff and the Torchwood team to their knees (and not in the usual way, boom boom!).

And here’s where the shocks come in - Tosh takes a bullet to the stomach which ultimately proves fatal, and already-dead Owen meets a sticky end trapped in a nuclear station and covered in nuclear waste that (apparently) erode him slowly from the inside out. And not even a TV to watch while it happens. I honestly had no idea that two of my favourite characters from the show were going to get killed off.

In Summary

If you asked me, I’d say Torchwood was the superior show for the episodes I’m talking about. The second series of Torchwood has been gritty and gripping, and with the exception of one weak episode, Jack Harkness and his colleagues have made excellent viewing and they’ve raised the bar for The Doctor as he begins his fourth series.

The unlikely pairing of Tennant and Tate will be a refreshing change from fawning assistants and romantic subplots. No doubt we’ll get plenty of that later in the series when Rose and Martha return, but for now let’s enjoy the platonic bickering of the Doc and Donna show (remember who coined that term folks).

Which brings me back to Russell T Davies. The guy behind these both shows, and someone who’s finally given the UK some credible Sci-Fi to export around the world. Watching the climax of Torchwood and the beginning of Doctor Who brings it home that we owe Davies a debt of gratitude. These two shows stand up brilliantly in the face of stiff competition from the States - Bionic Woman, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Heroes. Just give the guy a bigger special effects budget…