Austin Powers contains a famous joke about the family and friends of various ill-fated henchmen, and most characters like this exist purely to die. We look forward to James Bond brutally dispatching them (and delivering a one-liner that is somehow nastier than putting a man in a shark tank out of his misery by dropping a toaster into it). Torchwood does its best to put them into some sort of relationship with another character. Even the much-derided Day One achieves this admirably. There are consequences besides having your brain mashed open, basically.

Swearing, on the other hand, isn’t that dark. It is pretty funny though. However, it is rare that you see realistic swearing, because in TV world it would just seem too much. The Den of Geek subeditors, for example, will have gone through this article and removed all the various ‘cocks’, ‘bumfaces’ and ‘pissflaps’ that occur every other word.

And finally, Rhys’ bottom. It definitely isn’t dark. Sex is an awkward thing to get right, because it’s so easy to veer into the ridiculous when trying to be all dark and edgy about it. The relationships between the leads in series one are well conceived, but because of various problems (characterisation, dialogue, the fact that there’s no way the stopwatch’s warranty wouldn’t be voided) they just seem a bit over-the-top. Contrast this with a scene in Children of Earth while Jack and Ianto try to get rid of Rhys so they can have sex, with its underplaying of lines and punchline involving beans. There are plenty of nice little moments like this in that series, which provide more than a diversion from the oncoming storms. It’s more impressive when you manage to get something that is funny and dark, such as Dredd or any scene with Gaius Balthar in Battlestar Galactica, and this is something that Torchwood doesn’t get applauded for enough.

Contrast. Characters. Balance. Dynamics. There’s nothing so pitch-black as the darkness that comes after the light. The reason series two and Children of Earth work well is that they balance the comedy with the drama. Captain John, for example, segues from one to the other seamlessly so that you don’t even notice until he’s shot Owen (although I suspect a portion of the audience might have cheered at this point). When it gets it right Torchwood can move from a romp to a thriller effortlessly, putting its arm around you and telling you everything’s going to be fine while surreptitiously slipping a note in your pocket reading ‘Everything is not going to be fine’.

The thing about darkness is its strangely elusive qualities. It often lacks substance, or comes from the style rather than content. Sometimes the presentation is askew and the content is shallow. Getting both right is harder than it looks. Ultimately what people take from the subtext is subjective, so it’s hardly surprising to find people concentrating on getting the presentation right, as that appears to be more than half the battle.