What would you have liked to see more of in Torchwood?

[aeshna-cyanea.livejournal.com]

I'm sure we all would have loved to see less of Gwen, but what should Gwen's screen time have been filled with instead of Sooper Cooper? Which characters would you have liked to see more of, which existing story lines should have been expanded, which new adventures should Torchwood have had?

Comments

[jennelldhalrbj.livejournal.com]

Just finished feeding baby so had a quick look here while Dan deals with the others----I would have liked to see more of everyone except Gwen. I would have liked Gwen to be Susie and get killed off, preferably getting her head lopped off. We could have had a dramatic scene where it rolls off into the distance accompanied by appropriate music. Something like "Do you want me {dead} " by All time Low, for example.

Eve Myles could have then been free to appear in some very short stage plays.

[aeshna-cyanea.livejournal.com]

I would have liked her to take the place of the poor hospital porter in "Everything Changes". Then they could either have kept Suzie, or hired PC Andy.

[antopazas.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I love background information, the episode were we see how all of them ended up at Torchwood was brilliant but there wasn't enough information for my taste. And I love personal growth in the characters. So...

I would have loved to see Tosh grow more. She is an awesome character, but insecure. It would have been nice to see her learn to acknowledge her strengths. And I do wonder what her mother was told when she just disappeared, did they ever tell us that?

Ianto survived the fall of Torchwood London. How did that work out? And seeing more of him and Jack would have been brilliant.

And because I also love Doctor Who, having a crossover episode with the 10th doctor and Donna would have made me really happy.

[aeshna-cyanea.livejournal.com]

And I do wonder what her mother was told when she just disappeared, did they ever tell us that?

As far as I remember, we don't even know if her mother survived the kidnapping. The only thing we learned about Tosh's family on the show itself is that her grandfather is still alive.

Ianto survived the fall of Torchwood London. How did that work out?

Yes, that's one of the things I'd have loved to find out, together with how he managed to rescue Lisa, and how he got her into the Hub. I'd also like to know how he got hired by Torchwood One.

And because I also love Doctor Who, having a crossover episode with the 10th doctor and Donna would have made me really happy.

Since I'm still angry at the Doctor for how he treated Jack, I would have loved it if the Doctor had gotten himself into some kind of mess and had needed Torchwood to rescue him.

[kamiandcat.livejournal.com]

Anything except more of Gwen? When I look back at Torchwood I flinch at Jack's story because it's spiraling downwards worse then a slide straight into hell. Owen, his story felt so "chopped off", you finally realize why he ticks the way he does and boom he's gone. Tosh? I have the feeling I knew nothing at all about her compared to Gwennie-Poo. And Ianto, thats questions questions questions, I want to know who he really was. I know I'm a bit mean here but I could never bring myself to care much for the characters like Andy, Rhys, probably because I was too busy trying to understand and get a grip at the main characters while ignoring Gwen at the same time.

[aeshna-cyanea.livejournal.com]

Sorry for replying so late, real life decided to go crazy on me.

I completely agree with you about the storylines of anybody who isn't Gwen. Jack's storyline is one horrible thing piled on top of another. Actually, when you think about it, that's the case for Tosh, Ianto, and Owen, too.

I think that, if the show had gotten rid of Gwen, there would have been enough room for both more and better characterization of the main characters, and well-rounded recurring secondary characters.

[raynewton.livejournal.com]

Tosh and Owen. Bring Andy and Kathy on board, and obviously, MUCH MORE JANTO.

Actually Rhys helping out in his own right, minus Gwennie-poo, could be fun, he's a nice character.

Possibly even Captain John having a remorse of conscience. Hmm...John/Rhys?

[charie-caphine.livejournal.com]

John/Tosh!

I agree about Rhys being brilliant. Problem, I can't quite figure out how he'd fit into the story without Gwen... For me, Rhys is probably the only 'redeeming quality' of Gwen's character altogether.

[aeshna-cyanea.livejournal.com]

John/Tosh would have been really interesting, especially if John didn't change (much) and remained unrepentant about his past (and continued to at least try to pull cons).

I think Rhys could have been brought into the story as a friend of either Andy or Ianto, and someone who was occasionally useful for Torchwood when they needed transportation for big artifacts.

[aeshna-cyanea.livejournal.com]

I wish Jack would have hired Andy instead of Gwen, but I think Kathy would have worked better if she'd stayed with the police and only had to work with Torchwood regularly instead of actually becoming a team member. Maybe have her be (or become) the police's official liaison officer for Torchwood?

As for Captain John, I think it would have been very interesting if he had stayed around without remorse or conscience, either because he wanted to stay for some reason (curiosity, a con, etc.), or because he was forced to (for example because someone stole his vortex manipulator).

[jsks.livejournal.com]

ianto/jack/tosh/owen we barely knew thee. i wanted to see more suzie because i think she would be a brilliant character compared to saint gwen. i would like to have seen tosh and ianto will family ties. why does ever rusty character except gwen seem to come from poor screwed-up families? i would have enjoyed seeing ianto's tad's tailor shop(bugger coe) and having brothers and sisters, tosh and her parents.
i would love to have seen more andy. i would have enjoyed seeing emma stay and maybe take ianto's place running the tourist office freeing ianto up to do more field work. love swanson and think she would be someone to keep jack in line. donna, more martha.
there were times i felt liking yelling at the screen enough with gwen playing happy couple and back to the rest of the team and wales. gwen could go back to the police and been a annoying background character.

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

I didn't care for John Hart. To me he was a nonvampiric Spike. Why does everyone from the 51st century (wasn't River Song from there?) seem to be conceited, self-centered, too focused on sex and instant gratification, and immature despite the situations they have been in?

I would have liked to see more growth in Owen and Tosh. I would have liked to have seen them find some kind of happiness. I would have loved to have seen the progression of Ianto and Jack's relationship. We saw Gwen and Rhys' ad nauseum while their's developed behind the scenes. I would have liked to have seen more aliens. If you think about it, the majority of episodes had nothing to do with aliens. Seeing some of their family life would have been interesting.

The main reasons I watched TW at all was because I saw Sleeper first and Ianto caught my attention with his quips and the electric chair scene. I then read a little about it and I got the notion that it was an ensemble show. If I had seen Everything Changes, Day One, or Ghost Machine first I wouldn't have watched a second episode.

[bk_forever]

I would have liked to see more of the other characters' lives outside work. We saw everything about Gwen's life, but precious little about the others, especially Ianto - we never saw where he lived. In the second series, it would have been good to see Jack and Ianto on a date, or just away from work doing anything, having breafast together, shopping, chatting on a rooftop, anything to show there relationship developing. All the emphasis was on Gwen and her life, it often took away from the monster of the week storyline as well as sidelining the other characters. I didn't need to see every little thing about Gwen's life, there were other characters in the show too, more interesting characters with so much potential in their stories, but they just got ignored.

Also I'd have liked to see Torchwood dealing with friendly aliens or non-dangerous artifacts sometimes, if just to show the ways Torchwood Three differs from Torchwood One. A Torchwood Two story would have been fun too.

[kassy2.livejournal.com]

I actually have no problem with Gwen in TW- Yes, I am on the right com!! It is what that stupid TRD did with the character that drove me NUTS.
I am not a huge EM fan, but she's OK, I can live with her in a show, it is not really her fault that she believed RTD's nonsense- Billie Piper did too!
I would rather have kept Suzie- she was a brilliant, flawed character with loads of potential- they could have done the whole of TKKS without her having been dead and without her ending up dead, it would have made a much more interesting story line to have had her still working in TW- after all look what Ianto pulled and got kept on!
The thing people still do not understand is that this show was created as a vehicle for EM- not JB as everyone seems to assume. RTD, as we all know, had Excalibur rejected so tacked Jack onto it, called it TW and got it accepted- but it was always with EM as the "star" - I saw this first in a paper, they had an awful (truly) picture of EM in a basque that put me off basques for life, very photo shopped and very provocative. Now, Gwen had been such a memorable character that I had to go look at the cast list to see who she was, and even then I could not recognise EM to save my life.
I really do think RTD lost the plot when people rejected Gwen as the lead, and quietly substituted Jack and Ianto instead.

Anyway, that was not the question, so I would just have liked it to carry on, basically. Without the gratuitous loss of life, that served no purpose. If they had to go with the stupid storyline that ended up with Owen as an outcast from "The Living Dead" then they should have found a fix it for it, and Owen and Tosh should have survived. If RTD had just left the show alone and allowed the writers to develop it, it would have been fine. Once he no longer had DW to mess up he turned his attention to TW and messed that up as well.
I'd love to know who let him, though, he has to be answerable to someone in the Beeb- who allowed him to make such a god awful mess of a humble little, quirky, funny, Sci Fi show??
Oh well, it's all rhetorical now.......

[ruby-took.livejournal.com]

I would have loved to see the background stories of the other characters being expanded on more. Especially Ianto and Tosh, but Owen as well. We know some of Jack from Doctor Who, but even in his case, I'd have liked to know more about his early work with Torchwood. I mean, all the background information we really have on them comes from "Fragments" - that wasn't nearly enough.

I also feel that Suzie was completely wasted as a character. There was so much potential there, and yet we know very little about her. How did she come to be in Torchwood? When did she start getting interested in the glove, and when (and how) did that turn into an obsession?

The other thing I would have liked would have been more follow-through. All too often, things that should have been traumatic for one or more of the characters and should have had long(er) term effects (Ianto losing Lisa, the cannibals, Tosh dealing with the fallout of Mary, Jack being buried under Cardiff...) seem to be completely forgotten by the next episode. Even dying and being zombiefied didn't take Owen as long to adjust to as you'd expect.

[kassy2.livejournal.com]

Hoe can I break this to you??
RTD is a rubbish writer.
He has more plot holes than Swiss cheese....and is far less tasty.
I have, joking aside, never, ever in my entire career, known of a writer who relies quite so much on fans to fill in all the gaps and make excuses for his drivel.
I have absolutely NO idea how he came to be put in charge of DW, I can only think that he threatened to sleep with the director if he did not get the job.

* This post is entirely my opinion, and mine alone, and does not indicate this level of feeling is attributable to the rest of the com*

[ruby-took.livejournal.com]

I do tend to agree with that. I love Torchwood for the characters, but it's telling that the characters I like the most - Ianto and Tosh - are the ones that have been paid the least attention by canon, i.e. the ones where the characterisation relied more on the actors than the writers.

It's such a shame, though. Torchwood had (and still has, if only a good writer took over and fixed the mess) such a lot of potential - far more potential than some other shows - and yet nothing was ever done with it. Okay, so it resulted in some top quality fanfic from the fan writers who aren't satisfied with what we got, but it's got to be a crime of some sort that all that potential has gone to waste.

[pomkeygeekange.livejournal.com]

More Tosh Owen and Ianto development. More PC Andy.And Rhys being awesome without Gwen. More about Flat Holm island, that was a really intresting idea and there was no follow through with it at all, or any of the early stories actually. So I would have liked to have seen that.

Torchwood 2 would have been great to see. More development of Alice and Rhiannon rather than just dumping them into COE.

How did weavils get into cardiff? -more about the weevils actually.

And definitly more Suzie, and more of past torchwood to.

[beesandbrews.livejournal.com]

They had several storylines that could have been arced rather than raised and dropped as 'problem of the week' episodes. So I suppose I would have liked to see more development of things like Suzie's story. Suzie would have made a great Series 1 Big Bad as we discovered what drove her into madness. It could have played into the whole Jack's search for an 'cure' for his immortality as she's seeking it.

The Ianto/Lisa/Jack story could have also played out over several episodes, letting us see Ianto's conflicted emotions and loyalties.

They could have done considerably more with Flat Holm. They surely could have explored the ethics and dangers of the Rift.

They could have showed us Tosh: Super Genius in action more often.

In a way, they had too many good ideas, but they didn't execute them well. I think that's why Torchwood is such a draw to fanfic writers.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I came too late and the others practically said everything for me. However, summarizing it:

1) Ongoing story arcs a la Babylon 5. Season 1 could have been about Suzie as the unknown villain, working with them and yet secretly following her own agenda, being dealt with in a spectacular showdown in the season finale. Season 2 could have been entirely about the sleepers (basically, that's what I'm doing in "Sleeping Dragons", even though it isn't obvious yet), and also ended with a final showdown.

2) More Tosh doing her stuff and saving the day. Her being appreciated for her genius, not abusing for sad love stories. Seeing her family - a link from the "CJH" episode to her grandfather somehow, if only for a scene or two; it would have been great.

3) Jack showing his stuff, acting as an actual, competent leader, who knows lots about alien tech. I mean, he comes from the 51st century, and the Doctor let him repair the TARDIS, for Pete's sake, he shouldn't have been defined through his libido alone!

4) More character development for Owen, and the fixing of the idiotic zombie thing. I mean, it was interesting for the one episode about the dying old guy, but had no relevance whatsoever for the rest of the season, so it should have been fixed.

5) Ianto being something else than just the coffee boy. Perhaps in connection to Flat Holm, too. I mean, he obviously knew about it already, before everyone else. Oh, and *the date* - and the development of his relationship with Jack, regardless in which direction.

6) More aliens, more alien tech, more background for all characters, and more guest appearances for Detective Swanson. That woman was fantastic. I wouldn't have minded more Andy, Rhys without Gwenzilla, and yeah, I wanted Emma back, too.

So, basically, I'm with the "everyone but the Gweniinator" crowd.

[kamiandcat.livejournal.com]

I Torchwoods case less would so often been "more". For example Suzie/S1, like you said, make the whole season about her. She gets discover late midseason and killed but for the finale they need to bring her back and it turns out her plan was to go after Jack's life-energy all along. Screw Abbadon...