u/Ok-Bluebird7260

I’ve never written a Reddit thread but I wanted to say my piece. I was a Torchwood fan back when it aired and rediscovering it through Big Finish (yes I’m a sucker for Torchwood Monthly Range, and only just given The Story Continues series a go). Torchwood was nothing like anything on tv at the time, an adult-orientated sci-fi show.

But I remember how some episodes were absolute duds. Big Finish has delivered so much good content after the fact, but at the time I felt too many people knew it as ‘Captain Jack’s edgy little show with swearing and sex ghosts’. And yeah, there were some were poorly written or just plain crap (From Out the Rain and Small Worlds come to mind).

Here’s my scenario: Torchwood gets greenlit for a reboot or remake Series One. The same characters and setting remains, and observing The Rift is still the mission. Gwen Cooper, Torchwood Three, Weevils, Cardiff, etc. Recasted or original actors, doesn’t matter. But there are a few ground rules:

It cannot have any connection or copyright to Doctor Who, with the exception of Capt. Jack Harkness. Torchwood can hold its own as a series without crossover references. Martha Jones, UNIT, Time Agency, all of that. Maybe Captain Jack Harkness has another reason for his immortality? And I absolutely love Yvonne Hartman but her appearance in DW’s Army of Ghosts would make her ineligible. As a copyrighted named character, would you reinvent her or recreate the fantastic Tracy-Ann Oberman in spirit?

You can keep the best episodes or ditch the worst, and any changes to arcs or characters are welcome. But keep to an episodic format with a through line, rather than one epic story. This is a Series One rebuild, from Everything Changes to End of Days.

Big Finish creations or stories are fair game, including characters like Norton or Colchester as well as Monthly Range stories. Bear in mind that elements like Orr and the Sorvix are heavily tied to The Story Continues.

Torchwood is adult, not immature. Be faithful. Remember why some episodes failed and dated, while others are long remembered.

What do you think? My example would changing two major things in the pilot Everything Changes: the active existence of Torchwood One as this corporate giant located in London, and Suzie Costello >!surviving her suicide either by a rude intervention or happenstance, becoming a recurring anti-villain!<.

Edit: I did use AI to help write the detailed original post I placed on Reddit, but I think it gave the wrong impression to the community. My bad I used it as a tool to give structure, not generate clickbait.

Torchwood at its best was genuinely unlike anything else on television. At its worst, it mistook shock value for maturity. Big Finish has spent years proving the concept still has teeth - so let’s do this properly.

The Premise: a full television reboot. Same core cast (Gwen, Jack, Ianto, Owen, Tosh), same Cardiff, same Weevils. You can keep the best episodes, gut the worst, reshape character arcs. But Russell T. Davis wants his thirteen episodes of Series One, from Everything Changes to End of Days.

My own pitch to get things started:
Everything Changes gets a full rethink. Torchwood One never fell: that branch is still operational, still crypto-fascistic, and Jack’s Torchwood Three is seen as the awkward, distrusted outpost of a massive corporation. A reimagined Yvonne is already several moves ahead of Jack before the pilot ends… where Suzie Costello survives (suicide intervention, plain luck, doesn’t matter) and she becomes this recurring anti-villain threading through everything that follows. Gwen and Andy are jointly recruited and pitted against each other, Ianto arrives as a Torchwood One transfer, Jack discovers evidence of an alien conspiracy nobody believes, and Bilis Manger arrives in Cardiff far earlier than he himself expected, alarming even himself.

The ground rules:

1. No Doctor Who connections beyond Captain Jack Harkness. No time travel, no wibbly-wobbly references, no crossover events like Martha Jones or UNIT. Sadly this would also include Yvonne Hartman who appeared Doctor Who’s Army of Ghosts first: remake her entirely, or just carbon copy the fantastic Tracy-Ann Oberman.
2. This is a rework of Series One, but the overall narrative structure would remain the same: Series One, Series Two, Children of Earth, Miracle Day and The Story Continues audio series. If you want a series-specific character early, get creative.
3. Big Finish is fully on the table: from the Monthly Range through to the Specials like Outbreak, Believe, and The Torchwood Archive. Characters like Norton Folgate and Mr. Colchester are fair game. If you want to include characters like

Ng or

1. Orr, bear in mind they’re

introduction is

1. closely tied to the Aliens Among Us audio

series

1. . We are only dealing with a reboot of Series One.
2. Keep it adult. Keep it faithful. But remember the difference between the episodes that handled difficult material with care, and the ones aiming for shock value. That line matters here. Remember why the good episodes worked and the bad ones didn’t.

A note before you dive in:
Too many people still remember Torchwood as Captain Jack’s edgy little show with swearing and the sex ghost, and leave it there. The Big Finish audios have delivered years of genuinely excellent content that most TV fans have never touched - and this thread is as much for them as for anyone who’s never gone beyond Series Two! Whatever your entry point, the question is the same: what stays, what gets cut, and what do you finally fix?

Now go crazy. Let’s see what sticks to the wall.