Abstract

The contemporary audience has grown more sophisticated and discerning in their reception of media texts, a fact that has been embedded into the identity and discourse of the Torchwood brand. As well as dealing with the extra-terrestrial, the series also embraces the extra-textual as a narrative device. This chapter will argue that the extra-textual dimension of Torchwood is not limited to the programmes relationship with its co-productions Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures, or from such fare as book releases and DVDs, but that the extra-textual nature also embraces the audience itself. This chapter proposes that Torchwood marks a point of transition between common-place ‘fourth wall’ television drama and a new form of drama where the position of the audience as a ‘critical, experience-laden’ element has an effect on the way stories are told on screen. The storylines and characters portrayed are distorted by the overriding presence of the audience as they no longer peer inside the narrative, but are inside, peering around. In this chapter I will discuss how this post-modern shift to co-presence leads to new approaches to re-enable the audience’s ability to achieve a satisfaction of engagement with a text. These new approaches are borne-out through the processes of writing, acting and directing. In this chapter I will focus on two specific episodes, “Everything Changes” and “Reset”, to investigate how the narrative and direction within them has been influenced by the extra-textual co-presence of the audience. I will discuss this in relation to works on narrative strategies, and notions of co-presence and immediacy, to argue that Torchwood takes advantage of such notions to ‘play to the crowd’ in ways that have previously been the domain of live television and entertainment programmes. Torchwood knows we’re watching.