By John Scott Lewinski
Naoko Mori had mixed feelings when she learned the fate awaiting her Torchwood character, Toshiko "Tosh" Sato, in the British sci-fi series' second season.
Tosh, a scientist on the Torchwood Institute's extraterrestrial-battling team, has come a long way since the character's initial cameo appearance in the Doctor Who episode "Aliens of London," from that show's first comeback season.
From a terrified and confused government doctor forced to identify a half-dwarf, half-pig creature as The Doctor fought gaseous Slitheen nearby, Tosh developed into a key member of the Torchwood team and a complex woman wrestling with life and death.
Delicate performances by Mori (pictured, second from right) gave shape to Tosh's journey, which is documented in the entertaining and comprehensive Torchwood Season 2 DVD box set released Tuesday.
(Spoiler alert: Major plot points about * Torchwood's second season follow.)*
"She died saving the world, and I loved that," Mori said from London of the character's death. "But it was a real shocker to me."
Torchwood, a Doctor Who spinoff, follows a small band of flawed heroes protecting Earth from aliens that crawl through a dimensional rift located (conveniently) in show creator Russell T. Davies' hometown of Cardiff, Wales. If the other Who spinoff (The Sarah Jane Adventures) is aimed at kids, Torchwood is unapologetically adult -- featuring piles of omnisexual innuendo and cross-species snogging.
In fact, the show's first season often suffered for all of that would-be controversial content. There was a sense of Davies and company trying too hard to be edgy and different -- often at the expense of the natural flow of good storytelling.
That first season also focused heavily on the main characters of Capt. Jack Harkness (played by leading man John Barrowman) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles). That's a necessary step to take as a new series looks to find its footing, but supporting players like Mori were relegated to two-dimensional background roles.
Both of those problems disappeared in Torchwood's much stronger second outing.
"With any series, I like to say that a show suffers from 'first season-itis,' said Mori. "The producers, writers and actors are all working to identify the tone and pace of the show.... By the second season, we had all learned so much and were able to make the show much more character-driven.... We found our identity and were able to give the whole show a little more oomph -- another layer for the audience to enjoy."
No character benefited more from that deeper development than Tosh, and the overall viewing of the entire second season reveals that. Becoming more aggressive and self-assured intellectually and romantically, Tosh becomes less pathos-driven comic relief and more full-fledged hero. In fact, if you exclude the plight of Torchwood member Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), Tosh presents Season 2's most dramatic evolution. (It's not really a fair fight when you consider Harper was wrestling with life as a living cadaver for most of the year.)
"In retrospect, Tosh's character really went through a major arc," Mori said. "She seems to stand out because she goes through very emotional stuff in her relationship with Owen. I really enjoyed seeing her come out of her shell."
Sadly for fans, Tosh's true self arrived just in time for her great sacrifice at the end of Season 2's finale, "Exit Wounds."
"When I read the script (for "Exit Wounds"), Tosh's death made absolute sense," Mori said. "She came full circle. She had evolved. And, her death was the right move for the show, also. To keep improving and growing, Torchwood needs to change."
"One thing I can say, hand on heart, is that I trust the writers. I trusted them while I was doing the show, and I trusted them when it came time to leave. You knew that when that script came to you, it came only after every syllable, every word was carefully chosen and edited."
It take long for Torchwood fans to bombard Mori with queries as to her true fate.
"I get asked if Tosh is really dead," she said. "Is she coming back? There's a part of me that wishes she could come back. But, it has to be for the right reason. I wouldn't want to cheapen what was a great death for Tosh."
The American-born Mori grew up in the United Kingdom and knows the dynamics of TV shows moving back and forth across the Atlantic. Torchwood is a rare phenomenon, as the show proved more popular in the United States than on British TV, with Capt. Jack and company pulling down bigger ratings than Doctor Who on BBC America.
Now that Tosh is sci-fi dead, Mori holds down gigs in Japan and the United Kingdom while visiting Hollywood in hopes of nailing down American TV and movie roles.
"In the U.K., actors are used to having big American shows coming over here and becoming hits," Mori said. "We didn't know a little British show would move over there. But Torchwood is special."
Photo courtesy BBC America
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