Torchwoody

Note: I'm going to discuss the Torchwood books and the series here, so consider this spoiler warning. But, really, aside from one running plot theme, I'm not giving anything substantial away, so I'm not going to use white text.

If there is one thing that is immediately appearant after reading the books, it's that the writers had the first few scripts of the series, with at least two of the books dropping in references to Cyberwoman which hadn't happened yet. (Which, incidentally, gives the Torchwood universe a lot more cohesion than the series had at that point.) And the lack of references to Ghost Machine make me wonder if they had that script, was it just not worth referring to, or was GM a late drop in as episode three? [I vaguely recall them maybe discussing this in the Torchwood Declassified episode, but may be imagining it. Anyone remember?]

The main lack of reference, and something that cropped up from Cyberwoman onwards, of course, is to Gwen and Owen's budding... romance isn't the right word, more "working colleagues with benefits" as they might say. I do wonder just what the writers might have done with that concept had they known about it (especially as it would have created even more tension in Border Princes). There doesn't appear to be a second set of Torchwood novels coming out, so we'll likely never know (unless someone interviews the writers and asks them about it).

The other thing that comes across is how well the main characters are consistent with the whole series. Eitehr those initial scripts were very comprehensive, or maybe the writers got decent character breakdowns... or it could be that the characters are so generic really that it's hard to screw them up. (And I'm pretty sure Another Life and Slow Decay give two different reasons for why Owen became a doctor.)

Hopefully the second series of Torchwood will also have accompanying novels, and if the DW books are anything to go by then there'll be two authors in common (hopefully not Dan "Not a Torchwood Book!" Abnett), and then we'll get a chance to really see how these authors handle the series now they've seen more of it.