"Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile. We are all vulnerable and we will all, at some point in our lives, fall. We will all fall. We must carry this in our hearts that what we have is special, that it can be taken from us, and that when it is taken from us we will be tested… we will be tested to our very souls."
- Coach Eric Taylor, Pilot

When people talk about the great American TV shows, there are names you usually see pop up repeatedly: The Wire, The West Wing, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Mad Men. You all know them, you've probably seen some of them. But a name that almost never seems to pop up is Friday Night Lights and that's an absolute tragedy on every level. This show is every bit as good as those, a complete masterpiece right from its breathtakingly good pilot episode to its staggeringly beautiful series finale. But it's somehow failed to acquire the praise and attention it deserves (aside from some vindication at this year's Emmy awards). Still, it's relatively easy to understand why it's been so ignored. A show about football in small-town Texas with a predominately teenage cast is potentially very easy to dismiss, isn't it? Another banal teen drama, like One Tree Hill, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. You couldn't be more wrong.

In the way that The Wire is an all-encompassing exploration of Baltimore, Friday Night Lights is an intimate yet emotionally mammoth examination of what goes on in Dillon, Texas - a town that lives and dies by the performance of its high school football team, the Dillon Panthers. Dillon itself is an astoundingly populated place of characters that are instantly recognisable and wonderfully realistic. And while football is very much at the core of the show (the hyper-kinetic, impossibly exciting games in the show are less games and more like epic battles), it's by no means the be all and end all. Make no mistake, this isn't a series about sport, it's a series about people; about their struggles and tribulations and victories. Sometimes it's deceptively brutal, other times it's more uplifting than any other show.

Friday Night Lights is bound together by Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler, who deservedly won an Emmy for his performance) and his wife Tami (Connie Britton, who also deserved one). Not only are they the heart and soul of the show but they represent the most well-rounded portrait of marriage ever seen on television. That old cliché about a happy, healthy relationship being boring to watch feels truly ludicrous after you see these two together. And while Chandler and Britton are endlessly brilliant, the rest of the cast deserve a whole ton of praise, too. There are so many unforgettable characters brought to life by a ridiculously talented group of actors that it'd take me an awfully long time to do them all justice. So I won't, you'll just have to see for yourself.

And it's not just the characters, the acting or the deeply moving, understated writing; everything else about Friday Night Lights is nigh-on perfect. The show is shot practically documentary-style, allowing the cameras to pick up moments that would otherwise be lost. It's almost mind-blowing to discover that the actors didn't actually know where the cameras were half the time, which adds to the realism in their performances. The cinematic visuals capture Texas in a way that's both hauntingly stark and incredibly beautiful: you've never seen skies like these before. The music, by The West Wing's W.G. Snuffy Walden and instrumental, post-rock band Explosions in the Sky is entirely guitar-based, unlike any other television soundtrack, and is all kinds of brilliant

Friday Night Lights is something every TV drama fan should watch. It's a television classic, every bit as good as anything HBO have ever done and certainly worthy of anyone's time. I don't even need to add a caveat about it having a weak start, because it doesn't, it's amazing right from the very beginning. I apologise if I've been overly-gushy, but it frustrates me how often it gets overlooked - this really is a series you desperately need to see.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

Top 10 Episodes:
1.01 - Pilot
1.20 - Mud Bowl
1.22 - State
2.10 - There Goes the Neighbourhood
3.13 - Tomorrow Blues
4.01 - East of Dillon
4.05 - The Son
4.13 - Thanksgiving
5.05 - Kingdom
5.13 - Always

Torchwood's new album We Are A Disgrace out July 4th.

The second and final instalment in my "which episodes of Torchwood have any lasting value and I'd honestly rewatch" trawl.

As logic dictates, season two is going under the microscope. Expect surprising results.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Oh I see, after the generally scathing critical reaction the first season got, we've gone all self-parody have we? To be honest it feels a bit desperate rather than cute ("Bloody Torchwood" do ho ho ho), but I remember finding this one awfully entertaining in a shallow sort of way. It's an improvement but not an especially dramatic one, although it does have the good taste not to be dreadfully boring like the vast majority of the first season's episodes. The team work much better together and it looks far less cheap, but it's still riddled with problems: The Blowfish describing everyone's personalities and secrets at the beginning is a pants bit of writing and the Gwen/Jack stuff feels bizarre and out of place, especially considering they never mention it again. Also, it feels like an episode of Angel, which isn't helped by Spike Captain John running around. Fun fact: it's the only episode of the season where Captain Jack isn't completely insufferable.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

Sleeper
I enjoyed this one at the time, but my memories of it really aren't that great and certainly don't inspire me to revisit it. There's Jack being a colossal cunt, Ianto's dialogue being replaced with endless quips, a dodgy main guest star, a veritable boatload of Terminator rip-off moments and an exciting climax that looks like something out of a fan film.
Would I Rewatch It? No. I think I can live without seeing it again.

To the Last Man
In which Helen Raynor mixes together all the elements of the more successful episodes from the first season (and her own Ghost Machine) and produces something that feels rather faceless and tired. It's not terrible but I just couldn't stop thinking that I'd seen it all before. And I sort of had.
Would I Rewatch It? No.

Meat

Delicious.

"What have they done to you my dear friend?" I like how Jack gets all wobbly-lipped in this one despite being a dickhead of such epic proportions for the vast majority of the season, and all it took was an unconvincing CGI space whale. I remember liking this one quite a bit, because of good stuff like Gwen and Rhys' realistic blazing row, to Ianto getting to kick a bit of arse, to the giant hypodermic needle. Probably the weakest of Catherine Tregenna's episodes, but still pretty decent.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes, my dear friend.

Adam
The best episode of the season, but my god does John Barrowman do everything in his power to sink it. Barrowman's performances were of a much lower standard this season and Adam is full of some quality moments of pure Barrowman Cheese. Who will ever forget "MUM JOINS US!!!"? Thankfully he doesn't do much damage, because this is generally a surprisingly good episode, full of out of character stuff that ranges from charming to really fucking disturbing. Ianto gets to do some more crying, but this time it feels justified because the episode utterly destroys him.
Would I Rewatch It? Yessir.

Reset
Evil Jim Robinson. Martha. Insects. Owen bites it, albeit temporarily. The camera contact lenses make their first appearance. A bit dodgy at the start, but it becomes pretty gripping and exciting stuff.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

Dead Man Walking

Burn Gorman forced to watch the season one boxset.

Oh fuck right off. Season two pretty much hits the "QUALITY ABORT" button with this horribly misguided offering. To give you an idea of the epic levels of fail we're looking at here, they actually manage to make the Grim Reaper, the single most feared symbol in the history of human expression, rubbish. That takes some doing. Owen's cripplingly hilarious tussle with Death itself is almost the worst thing the Whoniverse has shit out since its return to telly in 2005. And why does Jack revive Owen anyway? Because he's a selfish fucking bastard, that's why. And is this the one with the Captain Jack dressed as a knight trading card? I think it is. But really, the problem with this one is there's just too much Owen. He's in every scene. Honestly, I seriously think they misjudged the audience's tolerance of how much Owen content per episode they could possibly take. Martha is in this one, apparently. I think I sneezed and missed her.
Would I Rewatch It? Maybe the scene with the upside down puking. Apart from that it's a big fat no.

A Day in the Death
God, not more Owen stuff. I mean, Joseph Lidster's script is really rather good, if a bit pretentious at times. It could've been an excellent episode if it focused on any other character (even Jack!). Unfortunately it asks us to care about Owen, which is quite frankly completely and utterly impossible. I couldn't care less about Owen - he's a rapist and a complete dickhead. Whenever I think of Torchwood I'm more likely to think of the gap between Eve Myles' teeth than Owen. You can be as profound as you want with a bloody alien lava lamp and you can bring in Richard Briers as well, but my god, you cannot make me care about Owen. Jack is so terrible in this I almost chewed through my arm in disgust. Martha has about one line. It feels like it's about ten hours long. The scene where Toshiko fades into the background is quality, though.
Would I Rewatch It? No. It was hard enough the first time round.

Something Borrowed

This is literally the worst show.

I find it difficult to be too hard on this load of absolute bollocks. Phil Ford, a writer whose work I have an awful lot of time for, absolutely went to town here and made it as gleefully stupid as possible. It's not even remotely close to being decent, but it's strangely good-natured, like a likeable Cyberwoman. I love how Gwen is essentially barking mad in this one, constantly referring to the alien hell spawn inside her as "the baby" and insisting that the wedding goes ahead NO MATTER WHAT. But nothing could prepare me for John Barrowman's turn as the campest monster in the history of science fiction. Just watch him as he sniffs Owen's lifeless corpse and then flounces out of the room like a vampiric transvestite.
Would I Rewatch It? No. But with regret!

From Out of the Rain
I could be forgiven for thinking this episode was going to be great, couldn't I? PJ Hammond, the writer of Small Worlds and Sapphire & Steel (one of the bestest things ever) was back, and the episode was about an evil circus! Brilliant! What I got was a big pile of shite, which isn't really a substitute for a good episode of telly, is it? I knew this episode was doomed when we got to the scene where the nurse hears Jack saying "From out of the rain" and says "Where have I heard those words before?". Really? It's not like it's some bloody super obscure phrase, is it? After that we get the slaughter of a small child's entire family being treated optimistically, the hilarious climax, the Blink-copying final scene with the film canister, and the awfully un-scary scene where the Night Travellers come out of the film in the cinema, with Ianto and Jack peering out from behind the stalls like a couple of teenagers who've sneaked into a porno. Julian Bleach's Paul Darrow impression is great, though.
Would I Rewatch It? No.

Adrift
I think Chris Chibnall wanted this to be his "masterpiece". I can see him straining and sweating in front of his computer, desperate to produce an episode that will be emotional and disturbing, an episode that the fans will love and forgive him for his multitude of prior sins. Adrift is not that episode. It tries way too hard. Everything could've been sorted if Jack had stopped being such an enigmatic cunt and had an actual conversation with Gwen. Speaking of which, Gwen is at her worst ever in this episode. Even PC Andy is unlikeable and annoying! There are so many plotholes. The lovely Ruth Jones is completely wasted. You can't scream non-stop for 20 hours - it's not disturbing, it's just bloody stupid.
Would I Rewatch It? No. Nice try Chris but no cigar.

Fragments
Torchwood: Secret Origins. I have problems with the whole bomb framework of this episode, but apart from that it really was well past time that we got to see the back stories of this team of idiots. John Barrowman is ghastly for most of it, but otherwise this is easily Chibnall's best episode. Toshiko and Owen's stories are great (ah, so that's why he's horrible!) and even Jack's has its moments, namely the scene where the previous Torchwood leader has a complete meltdown. Ianto's story was pants and unfunny, though. That pterodactyl was a crap idea and I don't know why they didn't drop it at the earliest possible opportunity.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

Exit Wounds

John Barrow-HAM. I'm hilarious.

More like Execrable Wounds. One of the worst season finales of all time, even worse than End of Days if that's possible. Gray is amazing: the result of some kind of magical happenstance where a truly terrible actor portrays an utterly shit character. It's quite obvious that he was cast due to his physical resemblance to Barrowman, because otherwise I really don't know what they were thinking. And speaking of Barrowman, he gives his all time worst performance here. There really are no words for the depths he plumbs. I was tempted to give this episode a free ride, but it truly fucks up beyond redemption when it buries Jack alive for about two thousand years, an event that doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest. He doesn't even look all that dirty when he gets dug up! I was hoping he'd look all emaciated and hairy, with massively long fingernails or something like in that Red Dwarf episode, but they completely bottled it. That Toshiko, the only really likeable character in the series, dies in this episode is the ultimate insult. Her death scene and goodbye video are the only highlights of this thankless load of arse, so I guess we should be grateful. Oh, and Owen finally dies for good. Woo.
Would I Rewatch It? Fuck off.

And after all that, what have we learnt? Absolutely nothing. I don't ever want to talk Torchwood ever again.

Possbly the worst team in a sci-fi show ever.

With Miracle Day on the way, not to mention the surprising excellence of 2009's Children of Earth, I have a strangely misplaced desire to go back and rewatch some of the better instalments from Torchwood's original 26 episodes.

But exactly which ones are really worth watching?! Using the means of my memory alone, I've briefly dissected each episode and wondered whether or not I'd revisit them.

First up, season one. Or, season howling despair as some would call it.

Everything Changes
Let's face it, there are much worse first episodes. It's not going to win a bloody Hugo Award, but it doesn't do that bad a job of setting up the series. I mean, I could bang on all day about the fundamental flaws in the very framework of the show itself, but I won't. Turning Captain Jack into Captain Scarlet was a colossal mistake, though. It's plainly obvious to me from this episode that Russell T Davies should've written more episodes of the series and not handed it over to Chris Chibnall, because I'm almost positive it would've turned out better. Unfortunately, it's got the Owen date rape scene in it. Fuck.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes. I can't get enough of Gwen saying "let's stop playing silly buggers".

Day One
Not to be confused with Children of Earth: Day One, as the results of such a mix-up wouldn't really be all that pleasant. Torchwood tries to say "look at us, we're all adult and mature and there's shagging and stuff", but gets it all wrong thanks to the amazingly cheesy and hackneyed "sex alien" plot. There's something terrifyingly un-sexy and sleazy about this episode (possibly the point, but it makes you want to take a shower when its finished) - the disgusting scene where a security man wanks off over a CCTV screen showing two teenagers having sex in a bathroom will haunt me forever. The sudden, jarring attempts at poignancy in the climax where Jack kills the alien and then says "travel halfway across the universe for the greatest sex, still end up dying alone" is like something out of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Also, Gwen is essentially responsible for every single one of the many sex-deaths and suffers zero consequences. Brilliant.
Would I Rewatch It? No. Although the Sir Digby Chicken Caesar camera stuff was really funny.

Ghost Machine
Wake me up when it's finished, mum. Possibly the most tedious hour of TV I've ever seen, wasting a decent idea with a considerably less decent execution (I'll be saying this a lot) - Helen Raynor's stodgy script must shoulder much of blame. Gwen makes lots of silly faces and ends up stabbing Blake out of Blake's 7. There's also a ridiculous scene involving a shooting range that made me want to claw my face off. The rest of the episode is so crushingly, mind-numbingly boring I can't remember very much else, although at least it looks and feels a bit more like actual adult drama, excruciatingly dull as it is.
Would I Rewatch It? No. I'd rather watch Evolution of the Daleks. It was actually fun, in a mad sort of way.

Cyberwoman

A bloo bloo bloo.

Oh god, this one. Where do I start? It's just so, so bad I'm not sure there really is a good place to start, so I'll try and wing it. Chris Chibnall strikes again with an episode that has now become infamous, and rightly so: The Firefly rip-off opening scene. Cyber-tits and high heels. Barbeque sauce. That stupid pterodactyl. Clichéd sci-fi red lighting. Ianto blubbering and gurning like a complete mental. Some dialogue about a dog pissing on a tent? Gwen and Owen getting it on in a locker. Mentioning hard-ons. The brain transplant. And yet, and yet, despite all that madness and awfulness it still manages to be really boring
Would I Rewatch It? Yes. And by yes I mean absolutely not.

Small Worlds
What's this, a legitimately good episode? And from the writer of Sapphire & Steel, too! This one was a bit good, wasn't it? It was creepy and had a nicely downbeat ending (which would soon become the Torchwood norm, oh well). And while the human/CGI fairy interaction was really pretty amateurish it had the cool stuff with people coughing up rose petals.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

Countrycide
In a way this is even worse than Cyberwoman. Yes, it has the famous, much-LiveJournal icon'd scene with Ianto and the fridge, and there's Toshiko with a gun, but that's literally it. Nothing with the deathless line of dialogue "have you ever cum so hard and so fast you forgot where you were?" can be good, and that's very much the case here. This episode is pure horseshit, spectacularly ruining another decent idea. Chibnall's script is so bad and clichéd that it defies belief, especially the pre-titles scene with the girl in a car. The bit where Jack comes bursting in, all guns blazing, might be one of the worst scenes of anything ever. And that final scene with Gwen and Owen is harrowing for all the wrong reasons.
Would I Rewatch It? No. If you've seen more than three horror movies you've already seen it anyway and it's not even remotely scary.

Torchwood needed more of this.

Greeks Bearing Gifts
This episode probably turns out to be quite decent partly because it's Toshiko-centric, but mainly because Toby "Being Human" Whithouse's script is actually rather good and does some interesting things with the "one of the main characters can hear other people's thoughts" plot. It's still not brilliant, suffering as it does from season one's annoying, rushed production stodginess, but it ain't bad.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

They Keep Killing Suzie
I don't remember a whole lot about this one, apart from the fact that it squicked me up quite a bit on a few occasions and that it totally reinforced why they should never have killed off Suzie in the first place. Indira Varma a much better actor than the others by miles, not to mention rather gorgeous. I do remember some daft stuff with a beefy man in a club, but overall I think my impression was mostly favourable.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

Random Shoes
It couldn't last. My overriding memory of this one is bursting out laughing when Eugene's dad starts singing 'Danny Boy' at his funeral. For ages. I nearly choked. Apart from that it's Love & Monsters with less conviction and has Gwen being a right dozy cow. And it just goes on and on and on.
Would I Rewatch It? No. Not unless it has the very fitting Children's BBC logo in the corner like it did when it first went out on BBC3.

Come for the eye candy, stay for the thrilling plots.

Combat
It's Fight Club with Weevils and bloody nothing happens until the last ten minutes. Owen (yes, it's Owen-centric) has lots of homoerotic tension with a man who looks like a living puppet.
Would I Rewatch It? No.

Out of Time
Christ, finally! A genuinely good episode! Catherine Tregenna's script is quite excellent: sensitive, thought-provoking and a tiny bit disturbing. Owen suddenly feels like a real human being! Brilliantly acted, with some wonderful moral dilemmas at its core.
Would I Rewatch It? I would. 

Captain Jack Harkness
People love this one but I can barely remember it, apart from Toshiko cutting herself with a manky bit of tin and the two Jacks having a snog in the middle of the dance floor which definitely wouldn't have met with the reaction it did in real life back in the 40s. There's also a Vote Saxon poster in there.
Would I Rewatch It? Yes.

End of Days

Very funny guys, now where's the real season finale?

God, what were they thinking? Who thought this would be fit for broadcast? Why didn't The Mill go on strike and refuse to render the final Big Bad? Torchwood was slowly building up an ounce of credibility and then Chibnall comes barging in and destroys it. There's some horribly un-compelling and nihilistic inter-team drama (oh gosh, I do so love a TV series where all the characters are completely horrible and hate each other!). Some nice moments and ideas (the black plague, the vision of Toshiko's mum) are ruined by the catastrophically shit climax in which a CGI demon stomps around Cardiff and John Barrowman shouts on a hill. The TARDIS cameo surprisingly fails to make up for it.
Would I Rewatch It? No. CHIBNAAAALLLLLL.

I'd hate to call Ultraviolet a forgotten gem, but in a way it kind of is. Shown on Channel 4 back in 1998, Ultraviolet was a six-episode series that was very much billed as Britain's answer to both The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (despite it being absolutely nothing like the latter in any shape or form). It's essentially a modern update of the vampire myth, revolving around a government-funded paramilitary organisation with connections to the Roman Catholic Church fighting a secret war against a worldwide vampire conspiracy. If that doesn't sound utterly awesome to you then you might as well stop reading right now. Alternatively you could read on and let me convince you of its absolute greatness. Jack Davenport is our main character Mike Colefield, a decent sort of chap with a thing for his best friend's fiancée. When his friend (a pre-True Blood Stephen Moyer's first foray into vampire territory) disappears, Mike is sucked into a dark world of "leeches", shadowy organisations and all sorts of disturbing blood-related unpleasantness.

Take every embarrassing cliché about vampires that's built up over the years, remove said embarrassments and add a slightly unsettling streak of grim reality and you've got Ultraviolet. What if vampires were real, how would they really behave? And that's where Ultraviolet really pulls its punches, in the sheer bloody reality of it all. There are no implausible stunts, no fangs, no hissing, no stakes in the heart (well, sort of), just a disturbing sense of realism that really gets under your skin. "This could actually happen!", you think. "Maybe vampires are real!" Well, that's what I thought anyway, but I have a ridiculously childlike, overactive imagination.

The storylines are, without exception, completely great. Different aspects of the show's mythology are explored, expanding into an overall story that is really quite terrifying. Every episode has a subtle but gradual build in intensity, ramping up the tension for all its worth until you're hanging to the edge of your seat by a sort of home-made cable. This is especially well done in episode five, Terra Incognita, possibly one of the finest TV episodes of all time, and one so unbearably tense I guarantee you'll be digging your fingernails into the palms of your hands.

Before Torchwood aired and people discovered how ridiculous it was, fans were using this series as a benchmark for what Torchwood should aspire to, which shows the high esteem in which it's quite rightly held. It's not hard to see why it's remembered so fondly, because Ultraviolet really is fucking brilliant in every department. It's slick and beautifully made. It's incredibly well written and directed by Joe Ahearne (director of all the best episodes of the first series of New Doctor Who). It's blessed with a tremendously atmospheric musical score. Every episode is plotted to perfection, and all the regulars are excellently cast with not a duff note among them, particular praise having to go to the insanely talented Idris Elba.

It's a shame that there wasn't a second series, but I can understand why. As great as it would've been to have more episodes, Ultraviolet nonetheless works beautifully the way it is, achieving more in six hours than most series do in twenty. If you're a genre TV fan, if you dig horror and vampires, if you like The X-Files, if you just generally love great television then this is a must-see. You won't regret it.