Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free First Class Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
9 new from £16.49
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2006] [DVD]
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images

Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2006] [DVD]

DVD ~ John Barrowman
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
RRP: £54.99
Price: £17.48 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £37.51 (68%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Usually dispatched within 6 to 10 days.
Items for dispatch to UK will be sold by Amazon's Preferred Merchant. (Why?) Gift-wrap available.

9 new from £16.49
Learn about Lovefilm
Amazon's choice for DVD rental.
With a 14 day FREE trial. Learn more

Frequently Bought Together

Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2006] [DVD] + Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set (2008) [DVD] [2007] + Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2005] [DVD]
Total RRP: £174.97
Price For All Three: £55.44

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2006] [DVD]
86% buy the item featured on this page:
Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2006] [DVD] 4.1 out of 5 stars (48)
£17.48
Torchwood - Series 1-2 [DVD] [2006]
4% buy
Torchwood - Series 1-2 [DVD] [2006] 5.0 out of 5 stars (5)
£39.98
Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2005] [DVD]
4% buy
Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2005] [DVD] 4.3 out of 5 stars (111)
£12.98
Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set (2008) [DVD] [2007]
3% buy
Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set (2008) [DVD] [2007] 4.0 out of 5 stars (48)
£24.98
Explore similar items

Product details

Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
While occasionally clumsy in the way it goes about things, the first season of Torchwood ultimately makes good on its promise to be a science fiction programme for an older market. So while it’s spun out from the more family-friendly Doctor Who, it does carve out an edgy, entertaining niche for itself.

The programme follows the adventures of the Torchwood agency (who we met in far more prestigious form at the end of Doctor Who’s second series), a small team led by John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness who investigate the extra terrestrial and the paranormal. And across the thirteen episodes of this maiden season, they have a lot to look into, from the likes of a sex-craved alien and cyberwoman, through to cannibalistic foes and strange, spooky fairies.

Admittedly, particularly in the early stages when Torchwood is finding its feet, there are a few missteps, and a little too much side-indulgence in exploring material that the more mainstream Doctor Who wouldn’t allow. But it’d be to your folly to write Torchwood off: by the time it gallops into the second half of this first season, the quality is strong, the storylines are interesting, and the show proves to be a real winner.

Intertwining with the narrative of the main Doctor Who show, Torchwood nonetheless then works as an independent programme in its own right, replete with a strong cast of characters (led by the terrific Barrowman) and scripts that have more of an experimental edge to them. It’s certainly one of the most interesting science fiction shows Britain has produced in the last decade or two, and there’s much to enjoy again and again in this box set. --Jon Foster

Synopsis
This exciting and leftfield DOCTOR WHO spin-off finds philanderer of the future, Jack Harness arriving in contemporary Cardiff and being inducted into Torchwood – a covert extra terrestrial and paranormal investigation agency. Included here are all the episodes from the show's premiere series.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set (2008) [DVD] [2007]

Torchwood: Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set (2008) [DVD] [2007]

DVD ~ John Barrowman
4.0 out of 5 stars (48)  £24.98
Doctor Who - The Complete Series 3 Box Set [DVD] [2007]

Doctor Who - The Complete Series 3 Box Set [DVD] [2007]

DVD ~ David Tennant
4.3 out of 5 stars (80)  £19.38
Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set [DVD]

Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 2 Box Set [DVD]

DVD ~ David Tennant
4.5 out of 5 stars (80)  £16.98
Doctor Who : Complete BBC Series 4 [2008] [DVD]

Doctor Who : Complete BBC Series 4 [2008] [DVD]

DVD ~ David Tennant
3.8 out of 5 stars (103)  £35.98
Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2005] [DVD]

Doctor Who - The Complete BBC Series 1 Box Set [2005] [DVD]

DVD ~ Billie Piper
4.3 out of 5 stars (111)  £12.98
› Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below
(12)
(5)
(4)
(3)
(3)
(2)
(1)
(1)
See all 11 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

48 Reviews
5 star:
 (29)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (48 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, inconsistent, entertaining, 3 Jul 2008
By lexo1941 (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
I came late and backwards to Torchwood; I watched the first episode before I'd ever watched any of the relaunch Doctor Who episodes. I quite liked it but mainly I wanted to watch what they'd done to Doctor Who. The revamped Who was so great that it kept me busy until I saw all of it, then I went back to watch Torchwood.

It's a great idea for a series but unfortunately, the writing remains very inconsistent. To my mind, the show is at its weakest when there's a lot of running around after scaly-skinned beasties, and at its best when it stops to think a bit. The series finale, for example, is a disaster - overblown, humourless and silly, it's redeemed only by some subtle acting, mostly from John Barrowman and Eve Myles. However, only a few episodes earlier there was the wonderful 'Out of Time' episode, a quiet and rather sad tale which began at a point where most shows would have ended the story and which dared to be about people rather than about monsters. Elsewhere, the grim farce of 'Countrycide' is a witty homage to slasher movies, just as 'Combat' is an unimaginative and unconvincing rip-off of 'Fight Club'. But there's a refreshingly 21st century openness about sexuality. Captain Jack will flirt with anything that exhibits sentience, and when he finally gets to have a big old snog (with a WW2 airman as chiselled as himself) it's a moment of old-school romance. Elsewhere, both Eve Myles and Naoko Mori's characters find themselves curiously aroused at different times by persons of the same sex. It's a long way from the chaste (but increasingly lovelorn) world of the Doctor.

The acting is as mixed as the writing. John Barrowman is effortlessly charming, but perhaps because his Doctor Who episodes were better written and better script-edited, he's a more convincing hero in Doctor Who than he is in this. Here, the writing sometimes fails him, so that when he's supposed to come across as a leader of men, he seems more like a louche playboy who is a bit exasperated by the whole situation. It's hard to tell whether Burn Gorman is a bad actor, or Owen Harper is a badly-written character, but I suspect it's a bit of both; in any case, the actor relies way too much on narrowing his eyes and trying to look well 'ard. Gareth David-Lloyd is quietly efficient as the support guy Ianto until he has to carry a whole episode - then he goes way over the top. For my money, the best male actor in the show is actually Kai Owen as Gwen's long-suffering but basically chipper boyfriend Rhys. He manages to suggest both ordinariness and a basic sense of his own worth and dignity, a tricky thing to pull off.

The women are on the whole better than the men. Eve Myles is both gorgeous and a really fine actor; Naoko Mori squeezes every drop out of the sometimes exposition-heavy role of Toshiko; it's a bit of a shame that Indira Varma was only used in two episodes, as Suzie was in some ways the most interesting character in the show, just as Varma is in some ways the best actress. (Her performance as the resurrected Suzie is truly chilling.)

My wife and I watched Torchwood over the course of a summer holiday, and we could never be sure in advance if an episode was going to be completely brilliant and original or merely an efficient but generic bit of forgettable sci-fi nonsense. Buy the box set at your peril; it's not as good as Doctor Who, but Doctor Who is (mostly) so very, very good these days that Torchwood still manages to be remarkably fine for a spin-off. Still, the show is frustratingly inconsistent. I do think they could have come up with a better series finale than a CGI demon stomping around Cardiff zapping people.

One last thing - kudos to the creators for setting this thing in Cardiff at all, and making the place seem fascinating, haunted and sexy.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
45 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Darkside of Who..., 22 Oct 2007
The greatest thing about the new-Who series is that it focused on an aspect of Doctor Who that had never really been addressed before, the worlds that the Doctor leaves behind him, the influence he has on the world and how he changes it for the better, or for the worse. Examples of this include the new series episodes: Bad Wolf, Love and Monsters, Blink, Army of Ghosts and (to a lesser extent) the Year Five Billion trilogy. It makes us look back on what might of become of some of the characters from the earlier stories in the franchise, like the humans in 'Dalek Invasion of the Earth'. In the case of Torchwood we get to see the things that lurked in the shadows of Kaldor city, or that were just out of site when Nerva mad a full orbit. Specifically we see the world that the Doctor created when he offended the wrong monarch and dropped off the right, brilliant toothed action hero.

The world of Torchwood is one when we get to see what the camera pans away from in the regular Doctor Who series, mixed with a terriffic cast of actors that have you believing every second of the programme. John Barrowman in particular is a firecracker in a great coat, with a flawless charm and a hilariously liberal attitude. You can't help but love him. That came out wrong...

The magnificent casting, coupled with a no-holds-barred sexual tangent make for great viewing and really treat the long-term Who fans with getting to see things that they'd always wished Leela would do when they were fifteen...

Despite these strong sexy and violent elements in the programme, it doesn't stop it from providing heartfelt storylines like Out of Time and Random Shoes. Nor do you lose out with psychological thrillers like Small Worlds, in which you feel the whole fabric of your world shaken just a bit...

All in all, Torchwood makes for excellent television viewing. The first series is a tribute the phenomenal effort of Russel T. Davies in the ongoing New-Who franchise. As always, can wait for more.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars It's OK but grated on a few issues, 28 Nov 2008
By Ekij (Northern Ireland) - See all my reviews
Why can the BBC not get the volume balanced properly? The menus have blastingly loud music compared to the episodes themselves, so you have to turn the volume down to select the episode and then up again to watch it. Minor irritation but no excuse for it from the BBC. Also the menu links you are forced to watch every time you want to go turn on the subtitles or something are annoyingly long. Let me watch the DVD already!

That said onto the review of the material itself.
Torchwood is based around Captain Jack Harkness from the new Dr Who series and Torchwood the shadowy agency "outside the government, beyond the police" set up to capture and use alien artifacts.
The (13) episodes themselves are a mix of suspence, horror, action and character building. One of them is 100% focused on character buidling of a character thats just dull. Don't watch it (it's called "the alien eye" or something similar).
Darker and with more 'adult' themes than Dr Who, Torchwood is clearly aimed at the adult audience, fair enough.
Captain Jack is Gay, fair enough again except they *keep on* about his sexuality. Gee, OK, he's gay, can we have a episode where he doesn't kiss or shag someone? Or if he has to can we avoid lingering on it like it's the whole point of the episode?
Otherwise it's enjoyable but not outstanding. I'm gald I watched it but in no hurry to buy season 2.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Series, great price!
Torchwood is a great sci-fi series that started as an offshoot of Dr Who.
Unlike Dr Who it deals with mature themes hence the 15 certificate. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Catharenski

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly good!
I'd watched all the new Dr Who stories before discovering Torchwood, and was thrilled to discover a whole set of stories about Captain Jack. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Elizabeth Hammond

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
Like most Doctor Who fans, I was worried when it was announced that there would be a spin off series. I didn't need to worry, though. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ms. Katie L. Mythen

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Series
Language: English
Subtitles: English (HOH)

If you love Dr.Who you will also enjoy watching Torchwood.
Published 1 month ago by Angela Kolb

5.0 out of 5 stars Carrying the torch for humanity
Freed from the moral restraints imposed upon its parent show - Doctor Who - Russell T Davies has produced an adult-themed drama spin-off from the Sci-fi behemoth. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Binro The Heretic

5.0 out of 5 stars Second Time Around
We watched the first series on TV and enjoyed it - but DVDs are even better as they have "extras" including the Declassified shows. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Misty

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyable!
This series was the first in a spin off from Doctor Who, after hearing it was going to be written by Russel T. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Cherry22

5.0 out of 5 stars Hooked!
I asked for this for Christmas after seeing the first episode at a friend's house and was absolutely hooked on it. Read more
Published 6 months ago by S. Wilson

2.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time...and space
The only reason I watched this is because I loved Jack in series one of Doctor Who, a show my best friend recommended to me even though Im no sci fi fan. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Cazanya

5.0 out of 5 stars A nine O clock Doctor Who
Torchwood with very adult style is brillent. The first series sparkled onto on BBC Three in October 2006 and the first two episodes rocked. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Stephen

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (2 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
Torchwood - Complete Season 1 - Product details? 2 April 2008
Does it have subtitles? 1 April 2008
› See all 2 discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

Fun for Everyone

Christmas Gifts
Achieve over 15,000 RPM with our great range of Powerballs.

›Shop the Powerball store

  

Up to 75% off Shoes

Shoe Clearance - 75% off Shoes
Save up to 75% on shoes for the whole family.

›Shop clearance shoes

  

A Close Shave

Philips Nivea Coolskin HS8060 Moisturizing Rotary Shaving System
For all types of hair removal, stay smooth with Amazon.co.uk.

›Discover Shaving & Hair Removal

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4.5 out of 5 stars (72)£3.86
 Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
4.1 out of 5 stars (460)£6.49
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4.1 out of 5 stars (162)£3.99
 The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
4.2 out of 5 stars (80)£3.86

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates