History YMMV / Torchwood

** "Cyberwoman" focuses on a woman who has been partially converted into a cyberman, having been rescued halfway through the process. Sadly, this is represented by her wearing what can only be described as "cyberman-themed bondage gear", complete with metal panties and inbuilt high-heels. It's a ''bafflingly'' {{Stripperiffic}} choice in an otherwise bleak and tragic episode, and makes every dramatic scene laughable as she laments her terrible fate and struggles to resist her programming while looking like a comic-con strippergram.

** John Hart who manipulates everyone for his own gain, brings Jack's brother Gray to have his revenge, and sets off a chain of events that kills Owen and Tosh. Yet the fandom adores him and often claims his arguable love for Jack as a redeeming quality. Possibly a case of EvilIsSexy as well.

* {{Narm}}: The first series tried to take advantage of its post-Watershed time slot by making some of its episodes as violent and nihilistic as possible, but ironically that just made it seem as juvenile as a morbid, edgy teenager. That's how we ended up with Creator/OwenTeale whispering he eats people because it makes him happy. Fortunately, the second season struck a much better balance at being mature without so much mindless crass vulgarity.

* TheScrappy: Owen, an apparent attempt to create a [[TheCharmer Jack-the-Lad]] type character that failed dismally. In the story world he's supposed to be some kind of [[TheCasanova love god]], but [[Creator/BurnGorman]]'s performance comes off strangely froglike and charm-free. It doesn't help that when we first see him he's getting women to sleep with him by using a special spray he nicked from Torchwood supplies that made him irresistible (which more than a few fans saw as essentially Owen raping unwilling sexual partners). However, in the second series, the writers acknowledged all of this and took constant digs at him early on. His popularity increased with his character arc through the second season, only for [[spoiler:him to be killed off in a heartbreaking final episode]].

* {{Narm}}: "[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E4Cyberwoman Cyberwoman]]". You would expect the producers would use their newfound ability to show gore to really play up the BodyHorror of the Cybermen, and show what it's like to have a lover's body be stripped of its organic material and violently replaced with machinery. Instead, we got an actress in a cyber-thong and bendy plastic top that doesn't even slightly look like it's part of her skin.

* TheScrappy: Owen, an apparent attempt to create a [[TheCharmer Jack-the-Lad]] type character that failed dismally. In the story world he's supposed to be some kind of [[TheCasanova love god]], but Creator/BurnGorman is strangely froglike and charm-free. It doesn't help that when we first see him he's getting women to sleep with him by using a special spray he nicked from Torchwood supplies that made him irresistible (which more than a few fans saw as essentially Owen raping unwilling sexual partners). However, in the second series, the writers acknowledged all of this and early on took constant digs at him. His popularity increased with his character arc through the second season, only for [[spoiler:him to be killed off in a heartbreaking final episode]].

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: By the end of the first two series of Torchwood, Toshiko suffers from a lack of notable episodes centered around her besides [[LoveInterests a love interest]] for the [[MacGuffin MacGuffin of the week]] or a SatelliteLoveInterest for Owen Harper. Torchwood is a five-man ensemble show with the series focusing the most on Gwen and Jack, with Owen getting CharacterDevelopment through Series 2 and Ianto having some serious moments in [[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth Children of Earth]]. Even Rhys has more exposure and and CharacterDevelopment than Toshiko in the entire run. While Toshiko has had a [[Recap/TorchwoodS2E12Fragments rather depressing backstory]], it doesn't make up for the fact that Toshiko rarely has a chance to stand alone as a character without being used as a love interest or a supporting character to either Jack, Gwen, or post-death Owen.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: By the end of the first two series of Torchwood, Toshiko suffers from a lack of notable episodes centered around her besides [[LoveInterests a love interest]] for the [[MacGuffin MacGuffin of the week]] or a SatelliteLoveInterest for Owen Harper. Torchwood is a five-man ensemble show with the series focusing the most on Gwen and Jack, with Owen getting CharacterDevelopment through Series 2 and Ianto having some serious moments in [[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth]]. Even Rhys has more exposure and and CharacterDevelopment than Toshiko in the entire run. While Toshiko has had a [[Recap/TorchwoodS2E12Fragments rather depressing backstory]], it doesn't make up for the fact that Toshiko rarely has a chance to stand alone as a character without being used as a love interest or a supporting character to either Jack, Gwen, or post-death Owen.

** PC Andy Lane is well-liked for his cheery, optimistic, down-to-earth demeanour and for being one of the few genuinely likeable characters in the show.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
** It has Ianto Jones. Meek tea-boy, or a secretive BadassNormal who conned the con man? Ianto was originally intended as a much darker character, how much of this lingers on?

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Ianto's offhand comment that his dad was a master tailor in "[[{{Recap/TorchwoodS2E9SomethingBorrowed}} Something Borrowed]]" leaves a different taste in your mouth after ''Children of Earth''.

** "Bloody Torchwood!" [[note]] The reaction of an elderly lady with ''the'' thickest Welsh accent imaginable to Torchwood's antics in ''Recap/TorchwoodS2E1KissKissBangBang'' [[/note]]

** "Bloody Torchwood!" [[note]] The reaction of an elderly lady with ''the'' thickest Welsh accent imaginable to Torchwood's antics in ''Recap/TorchwoodS2E1KissKissBangBang''

* {{Moe}}: Tosh is a cute and shy dork who has [[AllLoveIsUnrequited unrequited love]] for her coworker Owen, who is unfortunately both a {{Jerkass}} toward her and also oblivious to her feelings [[SleepsWithEveryoneButYou while having interest in nearly everyone else.]] Between that, dealing with IntelligenceEqualsIsolation, and [[spoiler:her tragic death]] in Season 2, she is widely considered one of the show’s biggest {{Woobie}}s and a character that most fans like to shower with love and sympathy. The HotLibrarian {{Meganekko}} look that she sports helps a lot too.

* MoralEventHorizon: Gray burying Jack alive for almost 2000 years. He was planning on eternity. Even John [[EvenEvilHasStandards protests when he finds out]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Gwen has a bad case of this trope in Series 1, when she decides that the only way to cope with all the new and frightening things she's discovering about the universe is to cheat on her boyfriend with the office JerkAss, confessing to said boyfriend to assuage her guilt, and drug said boyfriend so he'd have no memory of the event and she could feel better without facing the consequences. Her boyfriend even calls her a "selfish bitch" to her face for the sheer cruelty and selfishness she exhibits while drugging him. Despite this, she's shown as TheWoobie in the scenes after Rhys' reaction.

** Then there's Tosh. She was forced to [[spoiler: commit treason because her mother was being held hostage. Then, instead of getting rescued, UNIT sentences her to isolation]] until Jack shows up and recruits her for Torchwood. The man she has a crush on is a jerk who won't give her the time of day, but at least she has regular contact with him. Another interest was a soldier suffering from PSTD who had to go back to a time that didn't understand the disorder. Then there was her other love interest Mary who was revealed to [[spoiler: have been using her the entire time.]] When Tosh finally does tell Owen she loves him, [[spoiler: she's dying from a gunshot wound and it turns out he didn't even hear it.]] That poor woman never got a break.

** Old-school Torchwood collectively. Practically every TV episode or ''Doctor Who'' Expanded Universe work that discusses Torchwood London (which fell in the ''Doctor Who'' two-parter [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E12ArmyOfGhosts "Army of Ghosts"]]/[[/Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday "Doomsday"]]), and Torchwood Cardiff before Jack became the man in charge and cut ties with London, makes it clear that they were outright evil, being dedicated to robbing and murdering innocent aliens in order to get weapons in the service of extreme imperialistic and racist British nationalism. By contrast, fanfic and commentary treats them like, at worst, ruthless people doing what they had to do to save humanity, and more often just a fun-loving hero team. Just because it's implied that some of them might have been LGBT at a time when British society as a whole was violently homophobic.

** Old-school Torchwood collectively. Practically every TV episode or ''Doctor Who'' Expanded Universe work that discusses Torchwood London (which fell in the ''Doctor Who'' two-parter "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday"), and Torchwood Cardiff before Jack became the man in charge and cut ties with London, makes it clear that they were outright evil, being dedicated to robbing and murdering innocent aliens in order to get weapons in the service of extreme imperialistic and racist British nationalism. By contrast, fanfic and commentary treats them like, at worst, ruthless people doing what they had to do to save humanity, and more often just a fun-loving hero team. Just because it's implied that some of them might have been LGBT at a time when British society as a whole was violently homophobic.

** Old-school Torchwood collectively. Practically every TV episode or Doctor Who Expanded Universe work that discusses Torchwood London (which fell in the ''Doctor Who'' two-parter "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday"), and Torchwood Cardiff before Jack became the man in charge and cut ties with London, makes it clear that they were outright evil, being dedicated to robbing and murdering innocent aliens in order to get weapons in the service of extreme imperialistic and racist British nationalism. By contrast, fanfic and commentary treats them like, at worst, ruthless people doing what they had to do to save humanity, and more often just a fun-loving hero team. Just because it's implied that some of them might have been LGBT at a time when British society as a whole was violently homophobic.

** Torchwood collectively. Practically every TV episode or Doctor Who Expanded Universe work that discusses pre-"Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" Torchwood makes it clear that they were outright evil, being dedicated to robbing and murdering innocent aliens in order to get weapons to kill non-British people in the service of extreme imperialistic and racist British nationalism. By contrast, fanfic and commentary treats them like, at worst, ruthless people doing what they had to do to save humanity, and more often just a fun-loving hero team. Just because it's implied that some of them might have been LGBT at a time when British society as a whole was violently homophobic.

** Gray is either this or a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds, given that the reason he's criminally insane and psychotic is because he was kidnapped and tortured as a child after his beloved older brother let go of his hand. This doesn't stop him from crossing the MoralEventHorizon later though, and even John Hart tells Jack that the chances of redeeming him after what he's seen and done are slim to none.

*** As revealed in "Exit Wounds", Owen had a fiancée, a fellow doctor named Katie, and they were very much in love, but she was infested by an alien brain parasite that disguised itself as a tumor and gave her ''very'' early-onset Alzheimer's symptoms. When she was operated on, it released a gas that killed her and everyone else in the room. That's how Owen and Jack met.

* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: The audience’s general reaction to Tosh’s crush on Owen. Owen is almost always being a {{Jerkass}} to her at worst, or just ignoring her completely at best. With how cute and kind Tosh is, viewers really wanted to see her find someone that would treat her with more respect, rather than seeing her continue to pine for TheScrappy of the show’s cast.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[EvilFormerFriend Suzie Costello]] and [[LoveableRogue Captain John Hart]] are both incredibly popular antagonists despite each of them only appearing in two episodes, Suzie's both [[StarterVillain at the beginning of Season 1]] and John Hart's [[TheDragon both at the end of Season 2]].