Cardiff Bay. "Torchwood"
Posted by: 
GeoRams
N 51° 27.299 W 003° 09.781
30U E 488673 N 5700435
Dr Who spin off "Torchwood" is filmed here in Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Waymark Code: WM1ZZ2
Location: United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/12/2007
Views: 125
"Torchwood" is an anagram of "Doctor Who". When the first series of "Doctor Who" (2005) was being made, television pirates were desperate to acquire the preview tapes. One of the people in the office had the idea of labeling the tapes with the anagram "Torchwood" rather than "Doctor Who", as a security measure to disguise the tapes when they were delivered from Cardiff to London. Writer Russell T. Davies liked this idea so much that it later inspired him to use it as a title when creating this spin-off series.
Although "Torchwood" is officially a spin-off of "Doctor Who" (2005), Russell T. Davies had the idea for the series before working on "Doctor Who".
"Torchwood" is the first Doctor Who spin-off to make it to series, and the first dramatic spin-off of "Doctor Who" (2005). A failed attempt to spin-off a series from the original "Doctor Who" (1963) resulted in the television special, K-9 and Company (1981) (TV), featuring the characters K9 and Sarah Jane Smith. After failing to produce a series, the pilot was broadcast as a seasonal special.
Two of the regular characters - Jack Harkness, and Toshiko Sato - originally appeared on the parent series, "Doctor Who" (2005). Toshiko (Naoko Mori) was the government forensic pathologist called in to perform the autopsy on the alien corpse in "Doctor Who: Aliens of London (#1.4)" (2005). Jack (John Barrowman) first appeared in "Doctor Who: The Empty Child (#1.9)" (2005) and became one of the Doctor's companions. He was last seen in "Doctor Who: The Parting of the Ways (#1.13)" (2005), in which the character had experiences that would impact his role in "Torchwood". Eve Myles played a similarly named character on the parent series in the episode, "Doctor Who: The Unquiet Dead (#1.3)" (2005); it has not yet been established whether the two characters are related (unlike Freema Agyeman's two appearances on "Doctor Who", first as a supporting character in "Doctor Who: Army of Ghosts (#2.12)" (2006) and later as a series regular in series three; the two characters were explained to be cousins).
In certain episodes, Torchwood members use a drug called "Retcon" to wipe the memories of people who know too much about the organization. Retcon is a term derived from "Retroactive Continuity" and is used in serialized fiction, especially comic books, for when new events effectively change or erase the established history of a series.
Torchwood was the subject of a background arc during the 2006 series of "Doctor Who" (2005), with most episodes containing at least one reference to the Torchwood Institute, beginning with the 2005 series episode "Bad Wolf" and culminating in the Institute's appearance in "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday". The 2006 episode "Tooth and Claw" details the origins of Torchwood. After "Torchwood"'s debut, it was referenced again in the Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride".
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