johnbarrowman

Online sources have been informed that Torchwood has been picked up for a fourth season. This is not surprising considering the excellent ratings received by the BBC for Season 3, despite relegating that season to a five-episode mini-series.

Spoilers follow. You have been warned.

The brilliant thing about the next season of Torchwood is that the creators have a chance to start from scratch. Ianto is dead. Jack is gone. Gwen is pregnant. Gwen could decide after the baby is born to start a new team. Or, Jack could come back. Or Ianto could return from the dead (it's happened on the show before).

The powers that be could even decide to start a new team from scratch, although I think something would be missing without at least Captain Jack around. Torchwood (the organization, not the show) has gone through many incarnations and survived much worse than the slaughter or dissolution of a particular set of members. Whatever is decided, I look forward to it.

Gwen is a badass. And that Ianto sure is one clever boy. With Captain Jack busy growing back his body parts, Torchwood's non-super-powered players took center stage in Children of Earth's fast and furious second hour.

Day two started out with a rush of action movie awesomeness as Gwen blasted her way out of a scary situation. I don't remember the danger ever feeling so immediate and real in Torchwood. The opening minutes were edge-of-your-seat tense, and the swift pace rarely let up.

Like I mentioned earlier today on SciFi Squad, Torchwood: Children of Earth finally makes its U.S. premiere tonight with a gripping first hour on BBC America. We'll be covering the five-part miniseries through Friday with news and daily episode reviews.

Torchwood's own Captain Jack Harkness, John Barrowman, talked to Pop Candy's Whitney Matheson recently. The interview is a good read with Barrowman talking about the show, his career, his love of sci-fi (he's a Space: 1999 fan!) and his thoughts on the new Doctor Who, Matt Smith. Here are some highlights:

When asked which Torchwood agent is the best kisser, Barrowman responded: "It depends how you're looking at it, because Jack kisses them in different ways. Jack will kiss Ianto very passionately ... He would kiss Gwen on the cheek, but with a little bit of trepidation, because there's almost a sensuality there that he doesn't want to go to. And with Toshiko, it's more of a kind of a playful, pecky kiss. So I'd still have to say Ianto's the best kisser."

Following its smash hit run on BBC1 in the U.K., Torchwood: "Children of Earth" is heralding its U.S. arrival next week by presenting the first seven minutes of the first episode, "Day One."

The week-long, five episode mini-series has already generated enough spoilers here at TV Squad and around the web, so we'll take care to avoid repeat performances here. For now, stateside viewers can visit BBC America's video page to watch the first seven minutes of the third season's first show in which Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) dies of Ptomaine poisoning.

The first 20 minutes of the same episode were already available on the BBC America On Demand channel included with some cable services.

Premiering to an audience of almost 6 million viewers and holding fairly steady all week long, the BBC's "event programming" of Torchwood: "Children of Earth" looks like a success.

Series star John Barrowman griped last week about the BBC producing only a five-episode series for Torchwood's third season. But, the week-long mini-series turned the 2009 appearance of the Doctor Who spinoff into a TV phenomena desperately awaited by its fans.

Torchwood's move to BBC One more than doubled the show's season two ratings, and there's no telling how high those numbers could go for tonight's mini-series finale.

With the premiere of Torchwood: Children of Earth closing in at BBC America, John Barrowman is picking an unusual time to kick BBC executives in the pants.

The leading man and variety host told the British papers that he feels like the BBC is punishing him and Torchwood by cutting the show down to a week-long, five-episode mini-series run.

Barrowman's timing is odd, as there were no reports of dissatisfaction before, during or after filming on the short run. Meanwhile, there's plenty of positive publicity buzzing around the new season, and there was no desperate need to get people interested via a complaint.

BBC Video will be releasing some new DVDs in North America come July that includes Torchwood: Children of Earth and Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead. I immediately took note of the fact that nobody mentioned releasing the last Doctor Who Christmas special which was broadcast in England in December 2008, The Next Doctor.

Way back in 1996, the BBC co-produced a Doctor Who television movie with Fox in the United States which starred Paul McGann as the Doctor. Since then, the rights regarding reproduction or broadcast of that movie in North America has been somewhat convoluted at best. In the last Christmas special, a clip of Paul McGann from that TV movie was shown, and I cannot help but wonder if that clip is holding up release of the video.

Of course, it could simply be a case of the BBC waiting until Christmas or any one of a dozen other reasons. But I have a suspicious mind and I cannot help but think that it was a mistake for the BBC to ever co-produce Doctor Who with an American company if it is such a hindrance to the American release of their own DVDs.

John Barrowman isn't just Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and Torchwood. He also is a variety show host for a BBC series called Tonight's The Night which allows contestants to live out their performance dreams. Using his association with the former, he actually gave a contestant on the latter the chance to live out his dream of appearing on Doctor Who.

It's a cute scene which obviously doesn't fit into any sort of show continuity (or as much continuity as Doctor Who can have). David Tennant himself makes a special appearance in the episode and steals the show. Watching Tennant's brief cameo in this show, I'm even more convinced that Matt Smith has big shoes to fill when he eventually takes over the role.

On the other hand, if your dream is to appear on an episode of Doctor Who, why would you allow your face to be covered by a blue mask? Watch the video after the jump.

Despite having a shortened upcoming third season, episodes of Torchwood continue to be made. This next one, however, will be on the radio rather than television. The episode is called "Lost Souls" and was written by Joseph Lidster.

The episode takes place after the season two finale "Exit Wounds." It will star the surviving members of that slaughter played by the actors John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Gareth David-Lloyd. Freema Agyeman will also appear in the episode as former Doctor Who companion Martha Jones.

I managed to get my hands on a few of the Doctor Who audio adventures put out by Big Finish Productions and have enjoyed them tremendously (particularly since they give me a chance to hear what Paul McGann would have been like as the Doctor had he continued in the role). With that in mind, I'm looking forward to what an audio adventure of Torchwood has to offer.

The episode will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on September 10th.

TV Guide reports some good news and bad news for fans of the BBC series Torchwood.

The good: the series has been renewed and John Barrowman will be back to play the role of Captain Jack Harkness.

The bad: so far, the BBC has only authorized five episodes for next year so it may play more like a mini-series than a full season.

(S02E13) Well, despite some ups and downs throughout the season, to say that this second run went out with a bang, both literally and emotionally, would be an understatement. Definitely, this ranks as one of the best episodes of the series so far and so amazingly surpasses the first season finale in every way. Where that was a silly overblown giant monster romp, this one existed on a much more intimate level within the lives of our cast of characters.

The cast and crew spent all season really fleshing out this team for us and making us learn to love and care for each of them; all of it leading to this stunning finale. Now the events herein could really resonate. Now you might be asking why such a generic Torchwood picture for such a key episode? I see it as a tribute. To what? Well, if you've seen the episode, maybe you know what. If not, what the hell are you doing here? Go watch it already.

(S02E12) The penultimate episode of the second season delivers in a big way, both setting up the season finale as a major event with huge stakes for Captain Jack as well as delivering some great looks back at what brought each member of Torchwood to the team. Using the framing sequence of a massive explosion, we spend the majority of the episode in Lost-like flashbacks.

What's so brilliant about the stories we get is that in most cases the back-stories are nothing like I would have expected for that character, and yet at the same time it so perfectly serves the personality and drives of each individual on the team. Suddenly, Tosh's meekness, Ianto's eagerness and Owen's boorishness make perfect sense in the context of their past experiences. Even Jack's cavalier behavior and obsessive dedication to Torchwood make sense considering his own history with it. What they've managed is to add more depth to our relationship with each of the individual Torchwood members just in time for all hell to break loose in the finale.

(S02E11) "Always room for one more. We could have used you an hour ago for naked hide-and-seek." Jack to Gwen after she walked in on him and Ianto having an intimate moment

Well, it was a vast improvement over last week's episode. And it actually revealed some significant information about the rift and its activities, but that's not to say the episode was without some logistical problems and "conveniences." As seems to be par for the course on Torchwood, there was at least one ridiculously convenient coincidence that the emotional hook of the episode hinged on.

Speaking of that emotional hook, you know how you can tell this is a British television show? Because it didn't get all wrapped up in the end in a nice, easy bow. This is a mainstream show in the UK. How many mainstream shows in the US would allow the whole show to get wrapped up in misery and shame and leave us there? Torchwood has always been the darker, more mature cousin of Doctor Who, and this episode lived up to that title.

(S02E10) I guess everyone at Torchwood Creative was still exhausted from the Owen three-parter, because this episode was even more of a letdown than the previous one. While the notion of these "night travelers" somehow being able to step out of old film and into the real world is interesting enough, it seems a better fit for a show like Supernatural than Torchwood, which tries to explain everything away with the Cardiff rifts and space aliens.

It was cool to think of Jack exploiting his immortality by performing as "The Man Who Could Not Die" in a traveling freak show a hundred years ago or so. It would make perfect sense that he'd go into that line of work. But then we learned that he did so while investigating the "night travelers," but he wouldn't say for whom and why he was investigating. Another layer of the Captain Jack onion almost peeled.

(S02E07) The death of Owen Harper trilogy continued. But does death mean the same thing in the world of Torchwood as it does in our world? Do you really need to ask? Aside from an incredibly hokey introductory sequence in which Jack stormed into the above scene, struck a very theatrical pose and said "Nobody touches him until I return!" before abruptly disappearing again, this was a pretty solid episode. I do have to say that the point of Martha's continuing involvement is escaping me as she didn't really have anything to add to this installment.