Talking of Torchwood

... As I mentioned it in passing yesterday. I am going to have a bit of a rant today. Why oh why did they make it for grown ups? No 1 is spitting mad that she can't watch it. I thought perhaps once we'd vetted it, we might let her, but on the evidence of the half of the show I watched, I don't think so.

If you were the other person in the country who didn't see it, the plot revolved around an alien who needed orgasmic energy (they must have had a laugh in their editorial meetings!) to sustain itself. Consequently it had infiltrated a girl who was going round shagging everyone. And turning them into little piles of dust afterwards (as you do) - a novel way of ending a relationship...

Not only that said nymphomaniac also got to snog the lead female (as I missed the beginning I'm not yet up to speed with all the characters yet) - which frankly was gratuitous as it turned out that the orgasmic energy thing only worked with blokes.

Now call me a reactionary old bat (it's ok I know what I am), but how much of this was strictly necessary? I can see that the makers of Dr Who might have got fed up with the inevitable restrictions from working on a show for kids. And I don't mind sex on tv if it advances the story, but quite frankly this didn't. They could easily have the alien feeding off another kind of energy - how about mobile phones for example? - or even as Spouse said they could have done the same thing with snogging. SF films are full of aliens who kiss the life force out of their prey - it could have worked here and still been suitable for small children.

The thing that really really peeves me about this, is that Dr Who is a fabulous intergenerational watching experience, and as a family we all sit down on a Saturday to watch it together (so far Robin of the Hood hasn't quite matched up) - and all the kids know about Torchwood. Russell T Davies and the Beeb must have known that they would want to watch it. It seems like shooting yourself in the foot to cut off half your audience like that. Never mind that up and down the country parents are cursing him for depriving their offspring.

I think that is an act of breathtaking arrogance to stamp on the dreams of half their audience like this. If it was another section of the population, think of the outcry. But kids? That's ok, they don't count. The fact that said kids will grow up to be potentially lifelong fans should be exercising the good folk at the Beeb. You stamp on their dreams at your peril.

No 1 is so cross she has even sent Russell Davies a letter about it, as she thinks this is majorly unfair.

And she is right.

I'm not going to let her know that simply by going to the website she can watch again... So it's actually going to be hard to prevent kids from watching it if we're not careful. (OK so she has parental controls on her account, but what's to prevent her logging onto mine and working it out. She's a savvy kid. I'm sure it won't take her long).

I am also sure there are parents who won't be as scrupulous about letting kids watch Torchwood as I am. But it really really isn't suitable.

And I think that is a great pity. Because with a little tweaking it could so easily be perfectly ok for Dr Who's younger fans, and I think it's shortchanging them to have left them out like this.

I will still be watching.

But I wish the kids could be sitting next to me when I do...