A fan of Doctor Who since its relaunch with Christopher Eccleston a few years ago (I know, I know, I need to go back and watch the old Doctor Who; I will – in my defense, I bought my brother-in-law a DVD collection of Doctor Who episodes with the VERY FIRST Doctor ever from the early 1960s, and it was … pretty much what you’d expect of science fiction from the early 1960s), I was very upset to find that Torchwood would only air on BBC America in the United States.

BBC America, you see, has exclusivity contracts with the cable providers that carry it, and no other competing provider is allowed to carry it, or something like that. All I know is that meant I couldn’t get Torchwood on my cable provider and, well, online TV watching has come a long way since then.

I know, I know, that was less than three years ago. Who knows, maybe I’m saying that as an excuse for the fact that I just prefer to watch TV on my TV (note to self: download boxee) rather than on my ‘puter.

Whatever.

I loved John Barrowman’s Capt. Jack Harkness when he appeared in “The Empty Child” — come on, I’m a red-blooded American girl. I know lesbians who are in love with Capt. Jack. (And, naturally, lots of gay men, too.) And the idea of him heading a Doctor Who spinoff (trivia: “Torchwood” is an anagram of “Doctor Who”) about some top-secret extra-governmental agency that hunted aliens just made me giddy.

OK, maybe not giddy, but I sure as heck wanted to watch it.

There are, however, only so many hours in the day, and I never got around to renting it from Blockbuster or via Netflix or any such way. This Chrismukkah, however, my husband surprised me with the very lovely purchase of Season 1 on DVD.

Now I can watch Capt. Jack anytime I want. Hee hee.

As I’m going to be traveling in Italy for the next week (and so I won’t be able to watch the final Battlestar Galactica episodes EVER until I return home because lately Hulu’s not been airing BSG until a week after the original broadcast date!!!!), I decided to watch the entire first season, blog about it and post daily reflections on the episodes while I’m gone.

My recaps start tomorrow (Sunday), but I’ll be checking in and probably sharing some thoughts on the bizarre mess that is Italian television in the interim, too. I’d love to hear what others have thought about the series. Fortunately, there have only been two seasons so far, so I might even catch up before Torchwood: Children of Earth (a five-episode Torchwood series focused on one threat that airs later this year on BBC) airs.

Photo courtesy of BBC (you can download all sorts of Capt. Jack wallpaper here.)