TV
All a Bit New: How ‘Torchwood’ Formed an Unexpected Gateway to Horror (and My Own Queerness)
As a repressed teen with a burgeoning interest in horror and a big lesbian awakening coming her way a decade later, Torchwood was something of a foundational show for me. It was one of the first pieces of media I can remember watching that made me question the concept of heterosexuality as the default setting. It was far from perfect in its presentation of this concept, but it was better than I was getting elsewhere.
And best of all, it could be scary. I was hooked.
Like a lot of nerdy kids growing up in Britain in the early 2000s, I had a major Doctor Who phase. During showrunner Russel T. Davies’ first tenure (2005–2010), I watched each new episode religiously, had action figures lined up along my windowsill, and even got some artwork featured on the kid-friendly companion show Totally Doctor Who (2006–2007). Yeah, I was just that cool.
My dad, a life-long science-fiction fan, was fully supportive of this phase and didn’t bat an eye as I rolled seamlessly into watching Torchwood, Who’s adult spin-off show, when it arrived on BBC Three in 2006. But while he would occasionally sit down with me for an episode of Doctor Who, he wasn’t particularly interested in Torchwood, so I watched it alone in my bedroom, unsupervised and unexamined.
I’m grateful for that. If my parents had looked a little closer at the show, I doubt I would have made it past the first episode, because Torchwood started as it intended to continue: splattered with blood and pretty damn queer.
As a repressed teen with a burgeoning interest in horror and a big lesbian awakening coming her way a decade later, Torchwood was something of a foundational show for me. It was one of the first pieces of media I can remember watching that made me question the concept of heterosexuality as the default setting. It was far from perfect in its presentation of this concept, but it was better than I was getting elsewhere.
And best of all, it could be scary. I was hooked.
“Modern” Talk and Subversive Stereotypes
When Doctor Who made its triumphant return to British screens in 2005, I was 12, living in a small, insular town on the east coast of Scotland. Homophobia ran rampant in my high school and the community at large. When I look back on my lonely, confused teenage years and wonder why I didn’t realize I was queer sooner, the answer is painfully clear. It was easier to hide, even from myself.
The British television landscape didn’t help. Queerness was largely absent on mainstream TV at the time; where it did appear, it was typically presented for laughs. Some of those jokes are still funny. Many cut deep, even now.
Openly gay showrunner Russel T. Davies certainly wasn’t afraid to insert queer jokes into Doctor Who and, later, Torchwood. But the humor tended to stem from the absurdity of homophobia, rather than coming at the expense of the queer characters themselves. In the Who episode “Gridlock” (2007), for instance, an elderly lesbian chastises Thomas Kincade Brannigan (Ardal O’Hanlon) for insisting on calling her and her wife “sisters,” with Brannigan responding that they should “stop that modern talk — I’m an old-fashioned cat.” The episode is set five billion years in the future on the planet of New Earth and Brannigan, a humanoid cat, is in an inter-species relationship with a human woman with whom he’s had a little of kittens. But two women being married? Still considered “modern talk.” Good fun.
But Davies’ queer influence on Doctor Who went much further than jokes. With the introduction of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) in the very first season of the revival, Davies gave Who not only its first-ever openly queer character, but a horny “omnisexual” who subverts stereotypes by looking and acting like an archetypal masculine hero, all while flirting with everyone in sight. Harkness even kisses both Rose (Billie Piper) and the Doctor (played at the time by Christopher Eccleston) on the mouth before his heroic self-sacrifice in “The Parting of the Ways” (2005).
As Davies told Pink News in 2020, he was “thirsty for that kind of material” growing up — and he clearly wasn’t the only one. Captain Jack immediately grew a fan following, making him the obvious candidate for a spin-off show.
That show is Torchwood, which continues Jack’s story following his death, resurrection, and realization that he has become accidentally immortal. Believing the Doctor can “fix” him, Jack hunkers down in Cardiff to await the Doctor’s inevitable return, joining and later leading the Torchwood Institute — an organization set up by Queen Victoria to defend the Earth against alien and supernatural threats — along the way.
With a presumed adult audience, Torchwood was able to turn the queer dial up several notches. But it also leaned harder into the horror elements that the more family-friendly Doctor Who could only flirt with.
Blood and Bodies (and BBQ Sauce)
After a brush with Halloween (1978) when I was far too young, it took me years to build up the courage to start watching horror movies again, despite my growing fascination with the genre. To ease the transition, I read a lot of scary books, looked at the pictures on horror DVD cases, and watched Torchwood.
Torchwood is not a horror-forward series, but it certainly has its moments. The debut episode, “Everything Changes” (2006), sees an alien creature with a face “like Hellraiser” ripping a custodian’s throat out with its teeth, sending gouts of blood spurting in every direction. The third season, known as “Children of Earth” (2009), deals with an alien threat demanding that the human race hands over 10% of its kids, claiming they will “live forever.” When we get a glimpse of the fate that awaits them, the image is truly nightmarish.
And then there’s “Countrycide” (2006), an early episode that feels like a Welsh folk horror take on The Hills Have Eyes (the remake of which was released earlier the same year), complete with corpses stripped down to bloody skeletons and a fridge full of human meat. The true horror of the episode? There appears to be no alien influence at play. When the traumatized Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) demands an explanation for the murder and cannibalism, the all-too-human ringleader provides one that offers no catharsis or comfort, saying he did it “‘cause it made [him] happy.”
Sure, Torchwood could also be supremely silly — see the sexy Cyberwoman slathered in BBQ sauce getting pecked at by a pterodactyl (“Cyberwoman,” 2006). But I can’t deny that the series sparked my creepy curiosity. Episodes like “Countrycide” made me eager to seek out the films that influenced the writers. I also tracked down several of the series’ tie-in books, which could be even more explicit in their gore. Andy’s Lane’s Slow Decay (2007), involving an alien tapeworm that makes its hosts so hungry they’ll eat anything — rats, other humans, even their own flesh in a pinch — has always stuck with me.
What I appreciate most about Torchwood in hindsight, however, is not its willingness to show blood, which Doctor Who has always been squeamish about, but the way it challenged my small-town understanding of sexuality as a teen.
Quaint Little Categories and Problematic Queers
Jack Harkness’s sexuality was no secret going into Torchwood, so it’s no surprise that showrunners Chris Chibnall and Russell T. Davies seized the opportunity to delve deeper into this aspect of his character. In the second episode, “Day One” (2006), Torchwood’s medic, Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), comments that the only thing they know about the mysterious Jack is that he’s gay, because “period military is not the dress code of a straight man.” Tech wiz Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) challenges this narrow notion, noting that Jack will “shag anything if it’s gorgeous enough.” Jack, who was born in the 51st century, later teasingly chastizes his team for their limited 21st-century understanding of sexuality: “You people and your quaint little categories.”
Like Davies’ Who before it, Torchwood does not relegate Jack’s queerness to mere words. Throughout the series, we see him engaged in a will-they-won’t-they flirtation with Gwen in between making out with multiple men, from the closeted World War II captain (Matt Rippy) whose name he stole, to former-lover-turned-enemy Captain John Hart (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s James Marsters). By season two, Jack is getting hot and heavy with Torchwood team member Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd). In the final season, “Miracle Day” (2011), he has same-gender sex scenes that were heavily edited for the UK broadcast and lambasted by bigots.
And Torchwood isn’t content to place all its queerness in Jack’s basket, though it struggles to handle its other characters’ sexualities with as much nuance. Owen, Toshiko, and Gwen all have queer encounters throughout the first season, with some even resulting in sex. None of these are what I’d call particularly good representation, however, especially by modern standards; all involve predatory elements and none are ever mentioned again, with the characters going back to exclusively heterosexual relationships afterward. The show’s understanding of gender was also limited, with the episode “Greeks Bearing Gifts” (2006) even shoehorning in an uncomfortably unfunny joke at the expense of an unseen trans character.
But it wasn’t all bad. By far, Torchwood’s best representation outside of Jack comes in the form of the aforementioned Ianto Jones.
Ianto Jones and Coming Into Your Queerness
Ianto undergoes a major evolution during his run on Torchwood, starting out as the unassuming “tea boy” and gradually growing more emboldened, funny, and heroic. At the same time, he’s coming to terms with the idea that he’s not as straight as he (and the audience) originally thought.
At the outset of the series, Ianto is trapped in a doomed relationship with a woman partially converted into a Cyberwoman. But as Torchwood’s first season progresses, Ianto begins to flirt with Jack; the two are implied to have hooked up in “They Keep Killing Suzie” (2006), with season two’s debut, “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” (2008), making their relationship official as Jack asks Ianto on a date. Gwen later walks in on a steamy, shirtless moment between the two in the episode “Adrift” (2008).
By the time the third season rolled around in 2009, Torchwood’s already slight core cast had been decimated, creating more space for exploration of Ianto’s relationship with his newfound queerness. The season opens with Ianto nervously exhilarated by the idea that people recognize him and Jack as a couple. When Jack asks if it matters, Ianto admits it’s “all a bit new to [him].” Later in the same episode, in response to his sister asking him if he has “gone bender” (a British slang term for gay, usually used as an insult), Ianto explains that “it’s weird. It’s just different. It’s not men, it’s… It’s just him. It’s only him.”
While I know plenty of bisexuals who aren’t thrilled by the trope of a character only being attracted to one specific person of the same gender, the idea that you might not know you’re queer until you know really struck a chord with me. Years later, when I came to the gradual realization that I was a lesbian in my early 20s, I thought of Ianto Jones. There was no singular dashing Captain who unlocked my queerness. But it was all a bit new to me, too.
Ianto sadly did not survive the season. Following the grand tradition of burying your gays (and Torchwood’s own compulsive need to murder most of its cast), “Day Four” ends with Ianto dying in Jack’s arms, heartbreakingly telling the immortal man that “In a thousand year’s time, you won’t remember me,” with Jack promising that “I will.”
Fans remember him, too. A shrine to Ianto Jones exists in Cardiff Bay to this day.
Torchwood was Flawed Yet Formative — and Often Very Fun
I never finished Torchwood. By the time the fourth and final season rolled around, I was preparing to leave for university, had already dropped off Doctor Who, and was slowly graduating to more explicit horror media. Torchwood wasn’t what I needed anymore, especially in its newly Americanized form. I watched a few episodes but never found out how it ended.
A few years later, I would kiss a woman for the first time, and a few years after that I would finally admit to myself that yes, I was queer (duh). Another deeply queer, horror-tinged TV series, Hannibal (2013–2015), would play a crucial role in that self-acceptance, helping me find a queer community that made it easier to finally come out.
But for all its flaws and problematic tropes and BBQ-slathered sexy Cyberwomen, I can’t deny that Torchwood played a role, too.
We are gathered here today in memory of our dearly departed. Joining his brothers and sisters in the great syndication run in the sky, alongside the likes of Blood Drive and Haven—the good who died young. We are here to mourn the renewal of the SyFy original series Chucky. But more importantly, we’re here to ask: so how is this even going to work?
As most of you have already seen on social media in the past week, SyFy has not picked Chucky up for a fourth season. The show had been in renewal limbo for long enough that it felt like the writing was on the wall. This didn’t temper our disappointment when the word officially broke from Chucky mastermind Don Mancini himself on Twitter on September 27th, confirming an article published in Deadline three hours prior.
Despite everyone (including myself in another article on Horror Press) demanding the shows continuation, and despite the hashtag #RenewChucky seeing thousands of devoted fans storm social media to go to bat for the killer doll, SyFy has left the show behind. Since then the fandom has pivoted to a #SaveChucky movement, which is carrying the same speed and fervor as its predecessor.
While some shows have been brought back from the brink of cancellation, the extended bout to renew the show makes it seem unlikely we’ll be getting that fourth season (or a teased episode helmed by Joe Lynch) now.
Which puts the future of the franchise in an awkward place.
CAN A NEW CHUCKY MOVIE FIX THINGS?
Assuming Chucky’s rights aren’t entangled too deeply in SyFy’s affairs, and that the series can continue independent of them, the road forward might suggest a Chucky film in the future that carries on from the point we left things off at. But balancing a film like that seems like more of a nightmare than any of the murderous dolls we’ve seen so far.
While the show may have begun with Jake’s fateful finding of Chucky at a yard sale, the series has thus far relied on an ensemble cast to drive much of its plot. Between Jake, Devon, Lexy, Caroline, Nica, and of course, Chucky & Tiffany, the number of plotlines and character arcs left to close up are far from easy to juggle from a writing standpoint. And even if hypothetical endings were plotted out for each character cleanly, as suggested by Mancini’s petitioning for a fourth season, bringing them all to a satisfying conclusion is nearly impossible in any shorter format.
THE FORK IN THE CHILD’S PLAY FRANCHISE ROAD
So, that leaves only two feasible options if the Chucky team moves forward with a film. The first is to pick up directly where things left off in a film and pull off the miracle of wrapping up a season’s worth of television in under two and a half hours. While I have faith Don Mancini has at the very least a dozen more great Chucky movies in him, continuing from Season 3’s sort of bummer ending wouldn’t only be difficult, it would really alienate anybody who hasn’t kept up with the previous 24-episode saga.
Imagine having to satisfyingly explain how the last season ended with Chucky going to the afterlife, meeting Damballa, coming back as a White House ghost, and eventually luring all of the protagonists to be trapped in dolls…in under 2 hours.
There would then be option two: ignore all the other characters in the Chucky series, or ignore Chucky outright, and pickup with the deranged killer couples’ newly renewed spree. Maybe you could lower the scope down to a select few characters, with Nica, Andy, and Kyle leading the hunt this time as they try to figure out a way to save the Hackensack Trio from eternity as marionettes. But I feel like that would then only serve to alienate fans who have pleaded for months to save the show and have grown incredibly attached to the Hackensack trio.
WHO COULD #SAVECHUCKY?
In an ideal world, Chucky would see an eleventh-hour hail mary from a television network footing the bill on production and letting it live to fight another day. The likelihood of this isn’t so fantastic, as many fans will remember the reason for its unique simultaneous release on SyFy and USA Network, which resulted from a split between the networks to fund the show. So that leaves mostly streaming services. Then who could #SaveChucky?
Shudder seems like the obvious answer thanks to its horror slant, fueling shows like The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and the upcoming The Creep Tapes. With AMC having regained stability compared to previous years, which saw layoffs and a significant drop in Shudder staff, I would say it certainly holds water theoretically.
Peacock’s previous connection with Chucky, however, leads me to believe they’re the more likely option. Despite its streaming platform seeing an abundance of technical issues, NBC’s Peacock has been a leader for the past few years alongside Amazon and Hulu when it comes to pumping out new original programming. A steady flow of new miniseries and runs at prestige television makes me believe that money-wise, they’re the network to keep an eye on, and the ones I’d bet have the highest chances of giving the series a second wind.
This all may seem like wishful thinking, but I see it as cautious optimism. Don Mancini is still at the helm, all of the cast have shared their full-throated support for renewal, and certainly, stranger things have happened in the TV landscape than a show finding a new home.
So however the future of the Chucky franchise comes to pass, I have a strong feeling the journey there won’t disappoint.
What’s your current theory on the future of the Chucky franchise? Would you want another season, or a new film? Let us know on Twitter and Instagram @HorrorPressLLC! And for more articles on everything horror in movies, television, and more, stay tuned to Horror Press!
TV
Horror 101: Disney’s ZOMBIES Franchise From A to Zed
The ZOMBIES movies (2018’s ZOMBIES, 2020’s ZOMBIES 2, and 2022’s ZOMBIES 3) all take place in a town called Seabrook, populated by both humans and zombies, where Zombietown is separated from the rest of the population by an enormous wall. You may notice that this sounds a little like apartheid. The franchise begins on the day when zombie teens are finally allowed to attend the human high school. You may notice that that sounds a lot like American school reintegration. You may also notice that all of this sounds like a variety of other race-related social issues. You’re great at noticing things. These movies have a lot of progressive social metaphors on their minds. In fact, they have so much on their minds that the overstuffed central metaphor immediately shoots out of their grasp like an over-lathered bar of soap.
As far as Disney Channel original musical franchises go, I will eat my keyboard if you’ve never heard of High School Musical. Descendants is also big enough that you may have heard of those misbegotten movies and the multimedia franchise they spawned. And the Teen Beach Movie duology has maybe come across your desk if you were really digging into the history of Ross Lynch after seeing him shirtless on Instagram. But one of the most exciting Disney Channel musical franchises, ZOMBIES, is relatively unknown among modern childless adults, possibly due to its more recent vintage. I’m here to fix that today.
A quick note: The titles of the movies are technically stylized as Z-O-M-B-I-E-S, but I wouldn’t want to torture my poor fingers by sticking to that bit of grammatical nonsense throughout the entire piece.
What On Earth Are the ZOMBIES Movies?
The ZOMBIES movies (2018’s ZOMBIES, 2020’s ZOMBIES 2, and 2022’s ZOMBIES 3) all take place in a town called Seabrook, populated by both humans and zombies, where Zombietown is separated from the rest of the population by an enormous wall. You may notice that this sounds a little like apartheid. The franchise begins on the day when zombie teens are finally allowed to attend the human high school. You may notice that that sounds a lot like American school reintegration. You may also notice that all of this sounds like a variety of other race-related social issues. You’re great at noticing things. These movies have a lot of progressive social metaphors on their minds. In fact, they have so much on their minds that the overstuffed central metaphor immediately shoots out of their grasp like an over-lathered bar of soap.
The first movie follows the Romeo & Juliet-inflected love story between the wannabe football player zombie Zed (Milo Manheim) and the human cheerleader Addison (Meg Donnelly), who is hiding her own secret from the too-perfect town of Seabrook: she secretly has white hair. Gasp! Addison’s search for an identity and the couple’s struggle to stay together while coming of age will form the spine of the two sequels.
All three movies were written by David Light and Joseph Raso and directed by Paul Hoen (who drapes the world of Seabrook in garish colors, typically pinks and greens, that clash horribly but deliver a vibrant live-action cartoon feel) with music by George S. Clinton and Amit May Cohen. The rest of the ensemble cast is mostly notable for not being notable, but the trilogy has also featured social media star Ariel Martin, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series alum Matt Cornett, enby icon Terry Hu, and – somehow – a voice-only cameo from RuPaul.
How Do the Zombies Work in ZOMBIES?
The zombies at the center of the franchise were created fifty years ago by a vague incident at the Seabrook Power Plant involving soda. Surprisingly, in spite of how Disneyfied the monsters are, they actually are bloodthirsty cannibalistic revenants at their core. Their base urges to eat brains are controlled by Z-bands, which are Apple Watch-like devices strapped to their wrists, and kept at bay by eating vegan cauliflower brains. However, these devices can be hacked, either partially (to give Zed a boost while playing football, Teen Wolf style) or entirely (at which point the characters begin to mindlessly chase down any humans in their vicinity).
It’s a concept that is less toothless than you’d expect, though of course nobody ever actually gets eaten. And forget about them having any ability to turn humans into zombies, via biting or any other means. This is never addressed and doesn’t seem to be possible in this universe.
Naturally, the dangerous side of the characters is largely kept in the background. The way to recognize a zombie in ZOMBIES is the fact that they all have green hair and their names all have Z’s in them. The zombies also have their own language, to the point that one character, the himbo Bonzo (James Godfrey), only speaks Zombie.
How do zombie parents have children who are also zombies who seem to be able to grow up? And why does Zed have an absent mother, as is Disney tradition, in spite of the fact that she certainly couldn’t be dead considering the fact that she’s a zombie? It’s best not to pull at those threads.
Oh, and did I mention that both Zed and Addison have the ability to directly address the camera like they’re a couple of Fleabags? There is simply too much to cover in just one article, but I shall bravely soldier on.
What Other Monsters Can Be Found In The ZOMBIES Universe?
So here’s the thing. So far, each movie in the ZOMBIES trilogy has introduced a new type of monster to the franchise. The original movie had a West Side Story vibe, with two ensembles on opposite sides squaring off against one another. So the filmmakers figured why stop there? When ZOMBIES 2 introduces werewolves, there’s a whole new ensemble of characters joining the returning cast, with three new main characters leading the pack. Ditto when aliens are introduced in ZOMBIES 3, overflowing the ensemble cast in a way that perfectly evokes the already overstuffed plotting of the franchise.
Naturally, these creatures are largely differentiated by their hair. The werewolves (a deeply iffy metaphor for Indigenous Americans) all have W names and white streaks in their hair. Their powers are less authentic than the zombies, as they mostly just involve roaring and having some vague CGI fang and eye effects applied to their faces. Then there’s the aliens, who have blue hair and A names. They are a metaphor for… immigration? Model minorities? Look, the screenwriters are really trying their best here.
What’s the Music of ZOMBIES Like?
Let us never forget that, on top of everything else, these movies are musicals! The music itself is generally unexceptional bubblegum pop mixed with clunky hip-hop as performed by overeager theater kids. However, as the franchise goes on, it brings in musical motifs for its new monsters that add more variety to the songs including peppering them with R&B and dubstep flavors.
But the choreography? Now here’s where things get really interesting. There’s a reason Milo Manheim blasted past the competition when he was on Dancing with the Stars at age 17. The boy can move. So can the rest of the cast, despite the spotty acting and uneven rapping. The untenably massive size of the cast finally becomes a strength when it comes to showing dozens of bodies moving in unison with tremendously satisfying, athletic choreography.
The franchise also frequently busts out some keen visual ideas that prove that somebody behind the camera was actively trying at all times. This includes an incredible trampoline floor sequence in ZOMBIES’ “BAMM” and the Looney Tunes mayhem of the ZOMBIES 3 number “Ain’t No Doubt About It,” which sees Zed and Addison dancing and accidentally avoiding peril at every turn while trying to mask their doubts about the future of their relationship.
What’s Next for the ZOMBIES Franchise?
Currently, the new release spinoff Zombies: The Re-Animated Series is streaming on Disney+, if you’ve ever wanted to see poorly rendered CG versions of your favorite characters jerkily do dance moves that aren’t really impressive considering their bodies are made of pixels. Fortunately, the proper sequel, ZOMBIES 4: Dawn of the Vampires, is right around the corner. Probably out of necessity, the cast has been severely cut down this time, but it does feature the return of Zed and Addison (on a post-high school road trip), many of their friends, and vampires who are sure to be a clunky metaphor for… something. I can’t wait!
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