Torchwood: Something Borrowed

The Torchwood episode “Something Borrowed” connects with religion in two very direct ways, both related to conception. The story focuses on Gwen getting bitten by an alien not long before the day of her wedding. Unfortunately, the alien is one that inseminates the one bitten with its offspring through its bite, and as a result, [Read More...]

Torchwood: A Day in the Death

The episode “A Day in the Death” from the second season of Torchwood has not just vague religious themes or overtones, but explicit reference to the story of Jesus. And so it makes for an interesting starting point for a discussion of religion and science fiction. The story focuses on Owen Harper, who died in [Read More...]

Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space


Call for Papers: Religion and Doctor Who: Time, Space, and Faith

Doctor Who is a cultural phenomenon in both the UK and the United States, continuing to go from strength-to-strength as it approaches its 50th anniversary in 2013. Over the show’s long history on television—and in various spin-off TV shows, audio adventures, novels and comic books—religion and religious themes have consistently been a subject of interest. In [Read More...]

Torchwood: Dead Man Walking

As I continue to watch through Torchwood, I am struck by how much this darker, raunchier, more pessimistic spin-off of Doctor Who focuses on religious themes, imagery, stories and symbols. In this episode, “Dead Man Walking,” we learn that a church had been built on top of a site where a resurrection glove had been [Read More...]

Torchwood: Reset

This episode seems like the ultimate LOST/Doctor Who/Torchwood crossover. Martha Jones teams up with Torchwood to take on…Charles Widmore (actually, Professor Copley, played by Alan Dale). The similarity would have been there even if the same actor who played Widmore on LOST had not had the role he did in this episode. We still find [Read More...]

Torchwood: Meat

The Torchwood episode “Meat” touched some more sensitive nerves and emotions than even some of the most powerful and touching episodes thus far. Initially, we simply became aware that someone was selling alien meat. Then, we discovered that they were keeping an alien imprisoned, and cutting pieces off of it while it was still alive [Read More...]

Torchwood: To The Last Man

The Torchwood episode “To The Last Man” from Season 2 marks my return to watching my way through the series from the beginning. I am not sure whether this episode had a different composer score the music, but it was far more striking to me than the music has generally been in the past. It [Read More...]

Torchwood: Sleeper (What It Means To Be Human)

The Torchwood episode “Sleeper” focuses on an idea that was much more popular during the Cold War: the idea that there could be sleeper agents among us who appear to be like us, even a loving spouse, but who can be switched on by a command from our enemy and immediately become a ruthless, murdering [Read More...]

Torchwood: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, “Capt. Jack Harkness”

The first episode of season two of Torchwood makes good use of Jack Harkness’ absence, which quickly ends, but nonetheless is posited and allows for the rest of the team to become much stronger and remain less in Jack’s shadow. The episode, “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” focuses on a previous partner of Jack’s (in more [Read More...]

Torchwood: Weevil Fight Club

The episode “Combat” revolves around the Torchwood team’s investigation into a mysterious group that has been capturing weevils and in some way causing or allowing other human beings to be harmed or killed by them. The episode, for most of its duration, might well have seemed to have little that is of direct interest to [Read More...]