Published: Thursday, 9th July, 2009 3:09pm

Too much of a good thing?

The Torchwood Team. Picture courtesy of the BBC.
Pic by: The Torchwood Team. Picture courtesy of the BBC.

Well it would appear the Doctor Who effect knows no bounds. Four years after its return to TV after decades in the wilderness as a geeky British joke, the Time Lord has ensure sci fi is cool again.

BBC One has cleared out its schedule at 9pm every night for a week for the grown-up Who spin-off Torchwood. Science fiction in prime time for five nights in a row. Has that ever happened before? I'm fairly sure it hasn't (although I'm sure you'll comment and let me know if I'm wrong). The Doctor Who / Russell T Davies machine seems to have made the genre cool again.

But while this, and the plethora of other British scifi/fantasy shows like Being Human, Primeval (perhaps unfairly cancelled) and (the admittedly fairly maligned) Demons can only be a good thing for the geeks among us, half way through the blitz, it's feeling rather full on.

I'm all for the idea of event television but, even in this day of iPlayer, watching every episode and avoiding spoilers if you miss one and need to catch up is a lot of effort. And while, actually, the show seems more coherent, more interesting, and with less padding than the longer 12-episode series, I'm getting close to my natural limit of John Barrowman for one week - and that's even being used to the man turning up on pretty much every programme going even before he puts on Captain Jack's long coat.

Don't get me wrong, Children of Earth has been good so far. Peter Capaldi is brilliant and the 456 are very sinister indeed for baddies named after a bus route. But with this and the Doctor Who specials (pencilled in for late autumn, Christmas and early next year) seeming to herald a new way of showing TV, I'm wondering if this really is the way forward. We do badly in relation to our cousins across the Pond, whose TV seasons last usually for at least two or three times as many episodes as our dramas do. But this miniseries style format for my money, while different again, isn't that rewarding either. So we get one (or maybe if we're lucky two) week long batches of good quality shows in a year and then we're back to fly on the wall documentaries about police, dogs, police dogs and other cheaply mad, junk food style television. Is this really the way forward? If not, what can we do instead? What do you think? Have your say in the comments below.