So some of you might be wondering what's going on with the blog at the moment and stuff, for more information just click here and you will be redirected to Combom's site, which was the main victim of Thomas's copying.
I myself was certainly not a fan of this blog, and will probably not update it, I might just leave it alone to never be updated again, but will not be deleting it as I want the posts to be proof.
Thomas, let's say, was a strange person for many reasons. some of them include; Having Multiple Identities (posting on his cbox as chris, mike, john, phil etc.), and another being that he wanted to meet up with some of the regular visitors on Combom's site. Most of them being under age, which is well, yeah....
So that is all, and just to make it clear, Radio Doctor Who will no longer be copying/stealing news posts, let alone, even post news anymore.
And if you make contact with Thomas again, just be careful and don't give out personal details, as he requests...
Sylar
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Hi There! :)
My name is sylar, thomas actually fell for my trick and hes no longer part of the site, I am the new owner. I might do what shouldve been done a long time ago, remove the site. But should I? Does he deserve that? You decide! Just comment on the cbox!! Byeee
(After all he always copied posts)
(After all he always copied posts)
DW S3 on Watch
On Saturday 11th of July UKTV Watch has a Doctor Who weekend, which incorporates the start of a repeat showing of series 3, which will be on every Saturday at 8pm (+1 9pm), taking us into October!
Saturdays at 8pm - PLUS Doctor Who Weekend from Saturday 11th July
This month Watch dedicates a whole weekend to Doctor Who, Britain’s iconic Timelord, complete with back-to-back episodes that culminates in the start of series three.
Series three starts when a young medical student’s life takes an unexpected turn when the hospital she works in is transported to the moon. She is plunged her into a battle with a gang of bureaucratic stormtroopers called the Judoon and her first meeting with the Doctor… a meeting that will change Martha Jones’ life forever.
With a new companion in tow, the Doctor embarks on a new set of adventures, including a brush with Shakespeare in Elizabethan England, and a trip back to 1930s New York, where an old foe has been busy reconstituting its army for a showdown at the top of the Empire State Building.
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://uktv.co.uk/watch/homepage/sid/6833
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Series_3_%28Doctor_Who%29
Saturdays at 8pm - PLUS Doctor Who Weekend from Saturday 11th July
This month Watch dedicates a whole weekend to Doctor Who, Britain’s iconic Timelord, complete with back-to-back episodes that culminates in the start of series three.
Series three starts when a young medical student’s life takes an unexpected turn when the hospital she works in is transported to the moon. She is plunged her into a battle with a gang of bureaucratic stormtroopers called the Judoon and her first meeting with the Doctor… a meeting that will change Martha Jones’ life forever.
With a new companion in tow, the Doctor embarks on a new set of adventures, including a brush with Shakespeare in Elizabethan England, and a trip back to 1930s New York, where an old foe has been busy reconstituting its army for a showdown at the top of the Empire State Building.
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://uktv.co.uk/watch/homepage/sid/6833
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Series_3_%28Doctor_Who%29
TW Children of Earth Countdown 1 day to go
If you didn’t know already, the new series of Torchwood kicks off on BBC One TOMORROW NIGHT at 9PM, and here’s our penultimate countdown to celebrate its anticipated return!
Saturday, 4 July 2009
2010 Annuals and StoryBook Covers released
The final covers for the official Doctor Who annual and storybook for 2010 have been released.
The annual, which will be published on 6th August 2009, is listed as being the perfect gift for any budding Time Lord, and is packed with exclusive comics, stories, features and activities.
Meanwhile, the latest storybook - like previous years - contains eight stunning new illustrated Tenth Doctor adventures, and will be available to buy from 1st August 2009. Full details (including stories, authors and artists information etc…) will be released closer to the book’s publication.
DW Scripts
The Following are links to DW Scripts
http://www.thewriterstale.com/scr.html
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Doctor_Who/
http://homepages.bw.edu/~jcurtis/Scripts/scripts_project.htm
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.thewriterstale.com/scr.html
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Doctor_Who/
http://homepages.bw.edu/~jcurtis/Scripts/scripts_project.htm
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
TW Children of Earth Countdown
We’re so excited about the third series of Torchwood, Children of Earth - which starts Monday on BBC One at 9PM - that we’ve been posting our very own countdown videos all week to mark the return of the team onto our screens.
TW Blog
With the transmission of the three Torchwood Radio plays now complete, the BBC has published a blog, written by producer Kate McAll, looking at how the series was created.
The blog looks at how the programme was cast and how the series was put together. It features several pictures from the recording session.
All three of the Torchwood Plays can be heard on the BBC iPlayer and, for the first time, listeners in the United Kingdom can download permanent copies of the programmes as MP3 files.
The blog looks at how the programme was cast and how the series was put together. It features several pictures from the recording session.
All three of the Torchwood Plays can be heard on the BBC iPlayer and, for the first time, listeners in the United Kingdom can download permanent copies of the programmes as MP3 files.
Friday, 3 July 2009
Download TW The Dead Line Unrestricted International Version
It appears the download for Torchwood The Dead Line works for the UK and Europe, but not for all the USA (some people are having issues)! Whats more the BBC download is only open for a week, so here is a download for every country, and its there forever (I hope
Its a .rar mp3 file. If you can't deal with a rar file, google for the free download!
Who can't access the BBC MP3 files, and what country are you in?
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.filefactory.com/file/aha683a/n/TWdeadline_rar
Its a .rar mp3 file. If you can't deal with a rar file, google for the free download!
Who can't access the BBC MP3 files, and what country are you in?
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.filefactory.com/file/aha683a/n/TWdeadline_rar
TW- The Dead Line BBC R4 Drama Full Report/synopsis
At 2.15 today, BBC Radio 4 transmitted Torchwood The Dead Line Audio Drama by Phil Ford. It is a play, starring the cast, NOT just a reading of a story!
Spoiler warning - An abbreviated synopsis of the story follows, you may like to stop reading now.
Ianto Jones makes a phone call, he says Jack Harkness is dying. Jack is in a Cardiff hospital, he has something Gwen calls worse than death!
Time flashes back - A Cardiff hospital starts being inundated with patients who have fallen into coma-like trances, Torchwood start to investigate, and it seems to be caused by recieving a strange phonecall.
They work out the number that has called all the people in a coma, 2059, Jack calls it, but its dead, then it calls him back! Jack answers the phone and falls into a coma.
Back to today - Gwen calls Rhys and warns him not to answer the phone. Ianto stays with Jack in hospital, Rhys helps Gwen.
They find where the calls originate from, Maddock House, now standing empty. Rhys breaks in, there is a terrible smell inside, athough the building is disconnected, the phones start ringing. They find a rotting dead body, the origin of the smell!
In hospital Ianto is telling Jack how he feels about him, but it doesnt do anything, Jack doesn't move.
Gwen and Rhys investage further, they find the owner of Maddock House, Mr Turner, he takes them to a private nursing home, full of people in comas. These people all fell into comas in Maddock House. Turner blames a thunder-storm in 1976 for all this, the house was struck by lightning, it made the lightbulbs blow, but the phones rang, and it all started! This date also marked the end of a national drought.
It appears its an organic computer-style virus, that attacks peoples brains, spread by the telephone system. The virus starts calling all phones, trying to spread further, but Gwen and Rhys stop it, Jack comes round and its all over.
Typed as I listened, yeah I can do better, as can you (and I invite you to), but its just a synopsis! I will have this episode as an MP3 for download shortly :)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lg4vz
Spoiler warning - An abbreviated synopsis of the story follows, you may like to stop reading now.
Ianto Jones makes a phone call, he says Jack Harkness is dying. Jack is in a Cardiff hospital, he has something Gwen calls worse than death!
Time flashes back - A Cardiff hospital starts being inundated with patients who have fallen into coma-like trances, Torchwood start to investigate, and it seems to be caused by recieving a strange phonecall.
They work out the number that has called all the people in a coma, 2059, Jack calls it, but its dead, then it calls him back! Jack answers the phone and falls into a coma.
Back to today - Gwen calls Rhys and warns him not to answer the phone. Ianto stays with Jack in hospital, Rhys helps Gwen.
They find where the calls originate from, Maddock House, now standing empty. Rhys breaks in, there is a terrible smell inside, athough the building is disconnected, the phones start ringing. They find a rotting dead body, the origin of the smell!
In hospital Ianto is telling Jack how he feels about him, but it doesnt do anything, Jack doesn't move.
Gwen and Rhys investage further, they find the owner of Maddock House, Mr Turner, he takes them to a private nursing home, full of people in comas. These people all fell into comas in Maddock House. Turner blames a thunder-storm in 1976 for all this, the house was struck by lightning, it made the lightbulbs blow, but the phones rang, and it all started! This date also marked the end of a national drought.
It appears its an organic computer-style virus, that attacks peoples brains, spread by the telephone system. The virus starts calling all phones, trying to spread further, but Gwen and Rhys stop it, Jack comes round and its all over.
Typed as I listened, yeah I can do better, as can you (and I invite you to), but its just a synopsis! I will have this episode as an MP3 for download shortly :)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lg4vz
TW The Dead Line On BBC R4 Today
Don’t forget that the final Torchwood radio story, The Dead Line by Phil Ford, will be on BBC Radio 4 later this afternoon.
When a Cardiff hospital is inundated with patients who have fallen into coma-like trances, Torchwood move in to investigate. But the trances appear to have been triggered by phone calls, all received on retro phones and made from a number that hadn’t been active for over 30 years…
Determined to find out who has been calling the unfortunate victims, Jack rings the mysterious number, but the line is dead. But then it calls Jack back.
The Dead Line, which is the third pre-series audio play to have aired this week, will transmit at 2:15PM on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon. To listen to it again afterwards, head over to the BBC’s iPlayer service. It’ll also be available to buy on CD, along with yesterday’s episode, Golden Age, from 8th July 2009.
When a Cardiff hospital is inundated with patients who have fallen into coma-like trances, Torchwood move in to investigate. But the trances appear to have been triggered by phone calls, all received on retro phones and made from a number that hadn’t been active for over 30 years…
Determined to find out who has been calling the unfortunate victims, Jack rings the mysterious number, but the line is dead. But then it calls Jack back.
The Dead Line, which is the third pre-series audio play to have aired this week, will transmit at 2:15PM on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon. To listen to it again afterwards, head over to the BBC’s iPlayer service. It’ll also be available to buy on CD, along with yesterday’s episode, Golden Age, from 8th July 2009.
More news Of Confirmation of a DW Movie
Plans for a new Doctor Who movie featuring the Tenth Doctor will be unveiled at the end of the month, various sources have claimed.
According to the reports, Russell T Davies and David Tennant are expected to confirm the breaking news when they attend the San Diego Comic-Con on Sunday 26th July 2009, where they’ll be taking part in a Q&A session. Some would say that that’s the perfect time to make the big announcement…
Rumours of a possible movie have been circulating for years now, but they were recently brought to light again when it was confirmed that BBC Films are currently developing a script for a big screen adventure. The speculation was given more fuel earlier this year when ‘Doctor Who - The Movie’ appeared on Russell’s agency portfolio, but it was later removed when fans discovered the update (news leaked too soon perhaps?). As well as that, the outgoing showrunner has promised that some big news that’s ‘worth the wait’ will be confirmed in due course…
So, is the Doctor heading to the big screen? Only time will tell…
According to the reports, Russell T Davies and David Tennant are expected to confirm the breaking news when they attend the San Diego Comic-Con on Sunday 26th July 2009, where they’ll be taking part in a Q&A session. Some would say that that’s the perfect time to make the big announcement…
Rumours of a possible movie have been circulating for years now, but they were recently brought to light again when it was confirmed that BBC Films are currently developing a script for a big screen adventure. The speculation was given more fuel earlier this year when ‘Doctor Who - The Movie’ appeared on Russell’s agency portfolio, but it was later removed when fans discovered the update (news leaked too soon perhaps?). As well as that, the outgoing showrunner has promised that some big news that’s ‘worth the wait’ will be confirmed in due course…
So, is the Doctor heading to the big screen? Only time will tell…
Hundreds of Photos from Filming TW Children of Earth
With the show about to show next week, here are 500+ photographs from the filming of Torchwood Children Of Earth.
Thanx to Alun.Vega for these fantastic photographs.
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alun_vega/sets/72157606984557285/
Thanx to Alun.Vega for these fantastic photographs.
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alun_vega/sets/72157606984557285/
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Download TW Golden Age Unrestricted international Version
t appears the download for Torchwood Golden Age works for the UK and Europe, but not for all the USA (some people are having issues)! Whats more the BBC download is only open for a week, so here is a download for every country, and its there forever (I hope :) )
Its a .rar mp3 file. If you can't deal with a rar file, google for the free download!
Who can't access the BBC MP3 files, and what country are you in?
I will put the other Torchwood audio, transmitted tomorrow, for download too (now I am aware of the international problems
http://www.filefactory.com/file/aha2gd8/n/TWGolden_Age_rar
lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com
Its a .rar mp3 file. If you can't deal with a rar file, google for the free download!
Who can't access the BBC MP3 files, and what country are you in?
I will put the other Torchwood audio, transmitted tomorrow, for download too (now I am aware of the international problems
http://www.filefactory.com/file/aha2gd8/n/TWGolden_Age_rar
lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com
TW Golden age BBC R4 Drama Full report/synopsis
At 2.15 today, BBC Radio 4 transmitted Torchwood Golden Age Audio Drama by James Goss. It is a play, starring the cast, NOT just a reading of a story!
Spoiler warning - An abbreviated synopsis of the story follows, you may like to stop reading now.
The Torchwood team go to India and find a steam-train unloading high-tec equipment, that are addressed to Captain Jack Harness, much to Jacks surprise!
They witness hundreds of people disappear in Deli and Jack finds Torchwood India, a building he closed down in 1924. It now it appears to be an colonial club which is strangely stuck in the past, as is its young and beautiful owner, Eleanor, the Duchess - who is an old flame of Jacks, and hasn't aged a day!
After talking with the Duchess, they agree to split up to search the club (Scooby Doo anyone?) looking for the source of an energy field they detect. The people in the club claim its residual radiation from alien artifacts that has kept them looking young, but the residents can't leave the club, or they die of old age!
Gwen and Ianto are overpowered and chloreformed, the club still has one piece of alien technology, a time store, it preserves life inside while time outside moves on. The dissapering people are being used to feed the time store, the further away they get from 1924, the more power they need, and its starting to need a lot of people!
Gwen and Ianto are to be used to feed the time store, but escape, meanwhile Jack learns they intend to put the whole world back to 1924, and use all the people as fuel for the machine, so Jack starts closing the time store down, and everyone who is in its world, dies. The club is gone forever.
Typed as I listened, the last one is on tomorrow afternoon at the same time! I will have this episode as an MP3 for download shortly :) IMHO this is a better show than yesterdays Asylum BTW!
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Spoiler warning - An abbreviated synopsis of the story follows, you may like to stop reading now.
The Torchwood team go to India and find a steam-train unloading high-tec equipment, that are addressed to Captain Jack Harness, much to Jacks surprise!
They witness hundreds of people disappear in Deli and Jack finds Torchwood India, a building he closed down in 1924. It now it appears to be an colonial club which is strangely stuck in the past, as is its young and beautiful owner, Eleanor, the Duchess - who is an old flame of Jacks, and hasn't aged a day!
After talking with the Duchess, they agree to split up to search the club (Scooby Doo anyone?) looking for the source of an energy field they detect. The people in the club claim its residual radiation from alien artifacts that has kept them looking young, but the residents can't leave the club, or they die of old age!
Gwen and Ianto are overpowered and chloreformed, the club still has one piece of alien technology, a time store, it preserves life inside while time outside moves on. The dissapering people are being used to feed the time store, the further away they get from 1924, the more power they need, and its starting to need a lot of people!
Gwen and Ianto are to be used to feed the time store, but escape, meanwhile Jack learns they intend to put the whole world back to 1924, and use all the people as fuel for the machine, so Jack starts closing the time store down, and everyone who is in its world, dies. The club is gone forever.
Typed as I listened, the last one is on tomorrow afternoon at the same time! I will have this episode as an MP3 for download shortly :) IMHO this is a better show than yesterdays Asylum BTW!
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Is a DW Movie about to be Announced
Forums are alive with wild speculation about a Doctor Who movie, but its just that - speculation!
Many fans are expecting official news of a movie to come at this months San Diego Comic Con. Russell T Davies and David Tennant are to be there, along with executive producer Julie Gardner and director Euros Lyn, and even John Barrowman will show up!
Back in April, Tennant told the Sunday Times he had been offered a sci-fi project he was unable to discuss. Could this be a hint at a big-screen adventure?
At the end of May the BBC said ...Doctor Who may be heading for the big screen after a spokeswoman for BBC Films confirmed that 'a script is in development.
The Daily Express recently quoted well-placed show insiders (ahem) as saying that while Tennant may be handing over the Time Lord mantle to Matt Smith on the small screen, he will return to the role for the planned movie.
SPECULATION is continuing to materialise, in true TARDIS style, that a new Doctor Who movie starring David Tennant is soon to be announced.
Many fans are expecting the news to come at this month's San Diego Comic Con.
David Tennant and Doctor Who lead writer and executive producer Russell T Davies will be at the massive sci-fi convention on July 26, along with executive producer Julie Gardner and director Euros Lyn
Tennant is to appear in three remaining TV specials before his character regenerates into the 11th Doctor Matt Smith, with Steven Moffat taking over from Davies as showrunner.
But it's widely thought that 38-year-old Tennant would return to the role for the big screen.
Long-gestating plans for a movie adaptation of the hit sci-fi series have gained credence over the past few months.
Back in April, Tennant told the Sunday Times he had been offered a sci-fi project he was unable to discuss. It could be seen as a hint at a big-screen adventure.
Then, when it was announced at the end of May that Tennant would be appearing in two episodes of the new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which begins in September, the BBC added: "Meanwhile, Doctor Who may be heading for the big screen after a spokeswoman for BBC Films confirmed that 'a script is in development'.
"BBC entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba said there were no guarantees a film would be made and that, if the project went into full production, a release would be a long time away."
A month later, a further clue came in Doctor Who Magazine, in an article in which Russell T Davies announced that a new animated Doctor Who story would be broadcast in the autumn on the BBC's Red Button service and on Children's BBC.
The adventure, called Dreamland and consisting of seven six-minute episodes, will feature an animated version of Tennant along with the actor's voice. Georgia Moffett will return, but not as the Doctor's daughter this time - she will be playing a new character called Cassie Rice.
In the magazine article, Russell T Davies added: "With the Doctor's appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures as Special Project 1, and the Dreamland animation as Special Project 2, it would be nice to round things off for Doctor Who in 2009 with a Special Project 3, don't you think?
"Well, keep watching. We're working on it. News as and when, but I can promise, it's worth waiting for."
The Daily Express recently quoted "well-placed show insiders" saying that while Tennant may be handing over the Time Lord mantle to Matt Smith on the small screen, he will return to the role for the planned movie.
An insider told the newspaper: "The script is still in the early stages but David wants to be in the film. There have already been discussions and David needs to feel the story is right but right now things are looking very positive.
"Potentially, it's the perfect scenario for him. He understandably wants to go off and do different roles but he still loves Doctor Who. If the film takes off and there's demand for more, he can continue to play the Doctor occasionally without having the pressure of the relentless schedule that the TV series demands.
Doctor Who last appeared in cinemas when the late Peter Cushing played the character in Dr. Who and the Daleks, released in 1965, and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. released in 1966. Both were big-budget retellings of the first two Dalek serials on TV.
Paul McGann starred as the Time Lord in a 1996 TV movie, the only small-screen appearance of the Eighth Doctor.
The insider added: "It's certainly feasible that David could be the Doctor on film while Matt does the series. As all fans know, as it's Doctor Who, David's story can easily be set in a different time to Matt's. That's one of the great things about the show - anything can happen."
Further rumours have arisen with the news that Tennant and Davies will be at San Diego Comic Con.
"Time to announce a film?", suggested the Doctor Who fansite Kasterborous (named after the constellation in which the Time Lord's planet Gallifrey was located) amid the online speculation that has been simmering these past few months.
Torchwood will also be at Comic Con, with star John Barrowman joining Davies, Gardner and Lyn on a panel later the same day.
So will it happen? Well a movie has a lot of pre-production, so for a summer 2011 movie, it would be starting around now, lets wait and see
http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/2009/07/-speculation-is-continuing-to.html
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Many fans are expecting official news of a movie to come at this months San Diego Comic Con. Russell T Davies and David Tennant are to be there, along with executive producer Julie Gardner and director Euros Lyn, and even John Barrowman will show up!
Back in April, Tennant told the Sunday Times he had been offered a sci-fi project he was unable to discuss. Could this be a hint at a big-screen adventure?
At the end of May the BBC said ...Doctor Who may be heading for the big screen after a spokeswoman for BBC Films confirmed that 'a script is in development.
The Daily Express recently quoted well-placed show insiders (ahem) as saying that while Tennant may be handing over the Time Lord mantle to Matt Smith on the small screen, he will return to the role for the planned movie.
SPECULATION is continuing to materialise, in true TARDIS style, that a new Doctor Who movie starring David Tennant is soon to be announced.
Many fans are expecting the news to come at this month's San Diego Comic Con.
David Tennant and Doctor Who lead writer and executive producer Russell T Davies will be at the massive sci-fi convention on July 26, along with executive producer Julie Gardner and director Euros Lyn
Tennant is to appear in three remaining TV specials before his character regenerates into the 11th Doctor Matt Smith, with Steven Moffat taking over from Davies as showrunner.
But it's widely thought that 38-year-old Tennant would return to the role for the big screen.
Long-gestating plans for a movie adaptation of the hit sci-fi series have gained credence over the past few months.
Back in April, Tennant told the Sunday Times he had been offered a sci-fi project he was unable to discuss. It could be seen as a hint at a big-screen adventure.
Then, when it was announced at the end of May that Tennant would be appearing in two episodes of the new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which begins in September, the BBC added: "Meanwhile, Doctor Who may be heading for the big screen after a spokeswoman for BBC Films confirmed that 'a script is in development'.
"BBC entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba said there were no guarantees a film would be made and that, if the project went into full production, a release would be a long time away."
A month later, a further clue came in Doctor Who Magazine, in an article in which Russell T Davies announced that a new animated Doctor Who story would be broadcast in the autumn on the BBC's Red Button service and on Children's BBC.
The adventure, called Dreamland and consisting of seven six-minute episodes, will feature an animated version of Tennant along with the actor's voice. Georgia Moffett will return, but not as the Doctor's daughter this time - she will be playing a new character called Cassie Rice.
In the magazine article, Russell T Davies added: "With the Doctor's appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures as Special Project 1, and the Dreamland animation as Special Project 2, it would be nice to round things off for Doctor Who in 2009 with a Special Project 3, don't you think?
"Well, keep watching. We're working on it. News as and when, but I can promise, it's worth waiting for."
The Daily Express recently quoted "well-placed show insiders" saying that while Tennant may be handing over the Time Lord mantle to Matt Smith on the small screen, he will return to the role for the planned movie.
An insider told the newspaper: "The script is still in the early stages but David wants to be in the film. There have already been discussions and David needs to feel the story is right but right now things are looking very positive.
"Potentially, it's the perfect scenario for him. He understandably wants to go off and do different roles but he still loves Doctor Who. If the film takes off and there's demand for more, he can continue to play the Doctor occasionally without having the pressure of the relentless schedule that the TV series demands.
Doctor Who last appeared in cinemas when the late Peter Cushing played the character in Dr. Who and the Daleks, released in 1965, and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. released in 1966. Both were big-budget retellings of the first two Dalek serials on TV.
Paul McGann starred as the Time Lord in a 1996 TV movie, the only small-screen appearance of the Eighth Doctor.
The insider added: "It's certainly feasible that David could be the Doctor on film while Matt does the series. As all fans know, as it's Doctor Who, David's story can easily be set in a different time to Matt's. That's one of the great things about the show - anything can happen."
Further rumours have arisen with the news that Tennant and Davies will be at San Diego Comic Con.
"Time to announce a film?", suggested the Doctor Who fansite Kasterborous (named after the constellation in which the Time Lord's planet Gallifrey was located) amid the online speculation that has been simmering these past few months.
Torchwood will also be at Comic Con, with star John Barrowman joining Davies, Gardner and Lyn on a panel later the same day.
So will it happen? Well a movie has a lot of pre-production, so for a summer 2011 movie, it would be starting around now, lets wait and see
http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/2009/07/-speculation-is-continuing-to.html
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Download TW Asylum Unrestricted international version
It appears the download for Torchwood Asylum here works for the UK and Europe, but not for the USA (no doubt some USA person will now tell me he can get them OK, but at least some are having issues)! Whats more the BBC download is only open for a week, so here is a download for every country, and its there forever (I hope :) )
Its a .rar mp3 file. If you can't deal with a rar file, google for the free download!
Who can't access the BBC MP3 files, and what country are you in?
I will put the other 2 Torchwood audios, transmitted today and tomorrow, for download too (now I am aware of the international problems) :)
http://www.filefactory.com/file/aha1353/n/TWAsylum_rar
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Its a .rar mp3 file. If you can't deal with a rar file, google for the free download!
Who can't access the BBC MP3 files, and what country are you in?
I will put the other 2 Torchwood audios, transmitted today and tomorrow, for download too (now I am aware of the international problems) :)
http://www.filefactory.com/file/aha1353/n/TWAsylum_rar
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
TW Golden age on BBC R4 Today
As if there wasn’t already enough to get us excited for Series 3, the second Torchwood radio play, Golden Age, will play out on BBC Radio 4 later today.
In today’s episode, which is written by James Goss, the Torchwood team are led to Delhi on the trail of a dangerous energy field, but as the field grows, they witness the simultaneous disappearance of hundreds of people, and Jack discovers that the field centres on an old colonial mansion, Torchwood India…
Not only is he shocked to find out that Torchwood India is still going strong after he shut it down himself over 80 years ago, but he is even more surprised to find that its members, including his old flame the Duchess, haven’t aged a single day…
Don’t miss Golden Age at 2:15PM on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon. After it’s aired, you’ll be able to listen to it again via the BBC’s iPlayer service. Golden Age will be available to purchase on CD from 8th July 2009.
In today’s episode, which is written by James Goss, the Torchwood team are led to Delhi on the trail of a dangerous energy field, but as the field grows, they witness the simultaneous disappearance of hundreds of people, and Jack discovers that the field centres on an old colonial mansion, Torchwood India…
Not only is he shocked to find out that Torchwood India is still going strong after he shut it down himself over 80 years ago, but he is even more surprised to find that its members, including his old flame the Duchess, haven’t aged a single day…
Don’t miss Golden Age at 2:15PM on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon. After it’s aired, you’ll be able to listen to it again via the BBC’s iPlayer service. Golden Age will be available to purchase on CD from 8th July 2009.
Listen to/download TW Radio Play Asylum
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
or you download in MP3 format here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/torchwood/download/
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
or you download in MP3 format here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/torchwood/download/
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
TW Asylum BBC Radio 4 afternoon Play Full synopsis/report
At 2.15 today, BBC Radio 4 transmitted Torchwood Asylum Audio Drama by Anita Sullivan. It is a play, starring the cast, NOT just a reading of a story!
Spoiler warning - An abbreviated synopsis of the story follows, you may like to stop reading now.
PC Andy Davidson arrests a soaking wet shoplifter, called Frida. Because of the strange gun found on her, he calls Torchwood. At first they can't get anything out of Frida, she seems to think water is rationed, the team suspect she has come through the rift.
The gun is revelled as an URC, a Universal Remote Control, which replaces money and stops security cameras working. She explains she fell out of the sky, into the river, which explains why she is wet through.
She keeps speaking of Ghosties, and escapes by jumping through a closed glass window, to a 20 foot drop, cutting her arms, but it dosen't make her bleed, it is obvious she isn't human! Frida is heading for her supposed contact in Lundy Street.
PC Andy learns more about Torchwood and what they do (ready for Children of Earth I expect).
Jack Harkness tries to arrest Frida at gunpoint, but she escapes on a motor-cycle, the team suspect she is heading for the river. They catch up with her, Frida is feeling lost, there is no way she can return home. We learn Frida is one of 13 aliens who settled here, in our future, and where helped by Torchwood from the future to come here, so can Torchwood in the future control the rift? But did Torchwood of the future send her here for Fridas welfare, or ours? The mystery remains unanswered.
Typed as I listened, the next one is on tomorrow afternoon at the same time! I hope to have this episode as MP3 for download soon :)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
Spoiler warning - An abbreviated synopsis of the story follows, you may like to stop reading now.
PC Andy Davidson arrests a soaking wet shoplifter, called Frida. Because of the strange gun found on her, he calls Torchwood. At first they can't get anything out of Frida, she seems to think water is rationed, the team suspect she has come through the rift.
The gun is revelled as an URC, a Universal Remote Control, which replaces money and stops security cameras working. She explains she fell out of the sky, into the river, which explains why she is wet through.
She keeps speaking of Ghosties, and escapes by jumping through a closed glass window, to a 20 foot drop, cutting her arms, but it dosen't make her bleed, it is obvious she isn't human! Frida is heading for her supposed contact in Lundy Street.
PC Andy learns more about Torchwood and what they do (ready for Children of Earth I expect).
Jack Harkness tries to arrest Frida at gunpoint, but she escapes on a motor-cycle, the team suspect she is heading for the river. They catch up with her, Frida is feeling lost, there is no way she can return home. We learn Frida is one of 13 aliens who settled here, in our future, and where helped by Torchwood from the future to come here, so can Torchwood in the future control the rift? But did Torchwood of the future send her here for Fridas welfare, or ours? The mystery remains unanswered.
Typed as I listened, the next one is on tomorrow afternoon at the same time! I hope to have this episode as MP3 for download soon :)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
TW Radio Plays On R4 Today Starting with Asylum
Don’t forget that the first of the three new exclusive Torchwood radio plays, Asylum by Anita Sullivan, will be on later this afternoon.
In the story, PC Andy calls in Torchwood after he arrests a teenage shoplifter who he finds carrying a mysterious weapon. Under questioning from Gwen, the girl remembers her name but little else, and when she speaks it’s in a strange mix of English and Scandinavian, but with a Cardiff accent. When the girl’s blood tests come through, the team is faced with a dilemma…
Asylum will be on at 2:15PM today on BBC Radio 4, and after it’s aired, you’ll be able to listen to it again for 7 days via the BBC’s iPlayer service. It’ll also be available to purchase on CD from tomorrow. Enjoy!
In the story, PC Andy calls in Torchwood after he arrests a teenage shoplifter who he finds carrying a mysterious weapon. Under questioning from Gwen, the girl remembers her name but little else, and when she speaks it’s in a strange mix of English and Scandinavian, but with a Cardiff accent. When the girl’s blood tests come through, the team is faced with a dilemma…
Asylum will be on at 2:15PM today on BBC Radio 4, and after it’s aired, you’ll be able to listen to it again for 7 days via the BBC’s iPlayer service. It’ll also be available to purchase on CD from tomorrow. Enjoy!
Barrowman speaks to RT
The new issue of Radio Times features a special fold out cover of Torchwood promoting Children of Earth which starts next Monday.
Inside is an interview with John Barrowman in which he criticises the BBC for cutting the series to five episodes following its move to BBC1.
Barrowman said "We were the most successful show on BBC3, ever. We moved to BBC2 because the ratings were so good, the ratings were great again and we were beating shows that had been on BBC2 for a long time. The decision was made to go to BBC1, and then we were cut. From 13 episodes down to five.
"The five episodes, the miniseries as I call it, are incredible, I have no doubt about that, but personally, I felt like we were being punished. Other shows move from BBC3 and 2 to 1, and they don't get cut. So why are we? It felt like every time we moved we had to prove ourselves."
A BBC spokesman has denied Torchwood was being "punished", saying they wanted to create an "event" to launch the show on BBC1, with the new series stripped across one week.
Inside is an interview with John Barrowman in which he criticises the BBC for cutting the series to five episodes following its move to BBC1.
Barrowman said "We were the most successful show on BBC3, ever. We moved to BBC2 because the ratings were so good, the ratings were great again and we were beating shows that had been on BBC2 for a long time. The decision was made to go to BBC1, and then we were cut. From 13 episodes down to five.
"The five episodes, the miniseries as I call it, are incredible, I have no doubt about that, but personally, I felt like we were being punished. Other shows move from BBC3 and 2 to 1, and they don't get cut. So why are we? It felt like every time we moved we had to prove ourselves."
A BBC spokesman has denied Torchwood was being "punished", saying they wanted to create an "event" to launch the show on BBC1, with the new series stripped across one week.
SFX interview RTD
The third series of Torchwood, Children Of Earth, starts airing on Monday on BBC One. In this exclusive Q&A, writer/creator Russell T Davies discusses how the shift to BBC One has changed the series, how the loss of two members has affected the Torchwood team, and talks about Jack's relationship with his daughter...
So Torchwood is returning for a third season that’s only five episodes long – why’s that? When we first heard the news we wondered if John Barrowman was too busy to commit to more.
Oh no, it’s not that - that’s tail wagging dog, that is. If we’d wanted 13 episodes we’d have booked him up for 13 episodes and he would have done 13 episodes. It’s just the shift onto BBC One. I don’t think it was ever likely to get a run of 13 hours on BBC One, I don’t think BBC One could actually afford that any more, Seriously, is there anything that’s 13 hours long? Hmm, Spooks has eight... this isn’t because of cutbacks, that just doesn’t exist on BBC One, apart from the Saturday night shows... does it? Does anything run for 13? Not in the week. And the thought of doing something we’ve never done, which is a five parter, was very exciting.
So you never even started thinking about doing a 13-part season?
No, there were no plans that we then discarded, not at all - there was nothing written, nothing commissioned. It was commissioned at the stage where we would have started thinking of a normal third series, so nothing had to be junked - although there were a couple of scripts in development in series two that were still in development, so we had to politely park those writers. And y’know, who knows, anything could happen in the future: it could go back, the money could appear for BBC One for a longer run, it could go onto BBC Two, it could be back onto BBC Three - we literally don’t know.
Torchwood is so targeted, it’s like an Exocet missile: get the digital audience in, then get the BBC Two audience in, now try BBC One... it’s television for the modern age! (laughs) But that’s where we're very effective. For “Planet Of The Dead” we had the highest-rated BBC HD figures ever, Torchwood is still BBC Three’s highest ever figure, Sarah Jane Adventures is the number one children’s show. These shows are designed to hit specific markets, and you have to shape them to hit those markets, you have to really design them to fit. That's why Doctor Who is what it is, because it goes out at seven o'clock on a Saturday. If it was going on BBC Three at nine o’clock on a Monday it'd be a very, very different show. So they’re all highly designed shows for their timeslot.
How has shifting to BBC One changed the show - have you had to reinvent it to some extent?
Well, it’s not like a reboot; it doesn’t start from scratch at the beginning. At the beginning, Gwen walks into The Hub and there it is, there’s the water tower and all the computers, and there’s not a great long explanation saying, ‘Hello, we are people who live underneath the pavement in Cardiff!’ There is a new character to whom some new things can be explained: Rupesh, played by Rik Makarem. He comes in as a new character, so things would be explained to him anyway, but it’s not done from scratch. It’s not like Gwen sits down at the beginning and says, ‘Hello, I’m Gwen Cooper and three years ago I met these extraordinary people, blah blah blah’. Because Torchwood’s been in Doctor Who as well, and John’s very well known as Captain Jack, way beyond the programme – it’s referenced in his stage shows and his variety shows and things like that. So there’s an assumption that you know what’s going on, and if you don’t, catch up! We just got on with telling a good story really.
But it’s not just a story about Cardiff anymore. There are moments that are about the difference between England and Wales, which we’d never had a chance to express before. They actually go to London in this, which is... I'm not saying that’s exciting for Welsh people, but Welsh people are always quite aware of it. There’s a very funny moment when Gwen crosses the Severn Bridge, saying she’s off into England. I hesitate to say it’s a little bit more real because that’s something people say in science fiction contexts as though they’re criticising the science fiction, and I don’t mean that at all. What’s important is that there are government characters like Mr Frobisher [a civil servant] in it, and it’s very much their story as well. They’re not subplots in it: it’s the story of what the government is doing, and what the Prime Minister’s up to as well.
And as Mr Frobisher you’ve got Peter Capaldi of course, who was in Doctor Who recently.
Yes, Peter Capaldi, who as you can imagine is related to a man from Pompeii 2000 years ago... no, not really! (laughs). Actually when you’ve seen episode five I will run past my theory: it’ll probably be on a podcast commentary or something - I have a theory that there’s something at work there, but that’s just in my spare time. No, we just wanted him on board because he’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He’s a middle man, that’s what I love about him, and he finds himself more and more out of his depth... except he rises to it as well. I think that’s the lovely thing about him, that he’s never completely out of his depth, and he’s cleverer than he realised, though more compromised than you might realise at first as well. So it’s a lovely part. And Susan Brown, she plays his loyal secretary. She doesn’t do much through the first three episodes but just keep an eye on her... she’s been working for him faithfully for 30 years and will do anything to defend him. She quietly ticks away at his side and there’s great stuff at the end with her when she comes centre stage. Marvellous!
It sounds like by the end you’ll know a lot more about who Torchwood are, what their responsibilities are, and how they fit into the big picture.
Yes, though I think you know that by the end of episode one, actually! It’s not a long process of doing that - that’s made absolutely clear in episode one, because the most important thing is to get on with the story. You and I could talk about Torchwood and their role, and who are they and how they relate to all these official bodies at great length, but actually we’ve got a story to tell - all of that is probably clear 20 minutes into episode one. Twenty minutes in you get meetings between the government where they’re discussing Torchwood and you get contact between the government and Torchwood, which is very clearly, quickly laid out and defined, and then it can move onwards, then it all starts changing. So it’s not too complicated because the most important thing is the story.
There are two less regulars since the death of Owen and Tosh in season two. Does that change the dynamic? Do the surviving team members become different types of characters with different responsibilities?
Not madly, to be honest. I mean, in the first episode you see the team in need of a doctor and that’s where Dr Rupesh Patanjali, played by Rik Makarem comes in. He’s sort of on their list to recruit because they feel they need someone with knowledge of biology. But y’know, you’ve got Ianto to cover the computer side of things that Tosh used to do, you see Gwen quite happily using the computers too... I’m not saying they’re not missed - there’s a fleeting reference to them. But it’s time to move on. If it had gone out very soon after season two you’d have done a lot more mourning, and there was a Radio Four play that took on the burden of expressing some of the grief. And actually, even if this had been a normal season three starter you don’t spend that long looking back. So no, to be blunt, they work very well as a team of three.
That’s part of the story as well - I’m not saying they’re walking around going, ‘We're very happy with three’, I was talking about that from a writer's point of view. They’re keen to expand and they very rapidly start to find themselves out of their depth. They find a story that’s simply beyond them, that’s worldwide and you have to question then who they are, and what authority do they have, and they quickly discover they have none - except they’ve got more answers than anyone else has. So that’s part of their battle, to be heard and seen and to be trusted.
Two other writers collaborated with you on this five-parter – James Moran, who wrote for season two, and John Fay, who’s a newcomer to Torchwood. Did that help to bring different flavours to the story?
It does, and that’s nice actually. Episode two is written by John, who wrote a series called Mobile for TV. We’ve been trying to get to write for Doctor Who and Torchwood for ages because I love him. He used to write the best episodes of Coronation Street ever - I can hear the science fiction meltdown as soon as I say that - the Richard Hillman episodes and things like that, he’s a properly good writer. Mobile was a borderline fantasy show, where evil assassins were being activated via mobile phones, a really powerful piece of work. Dawn Airey, who was head of ITV, stood up at the time and said, ‘John Fay is the future of ITV drama’. It’s a really odd piece, a thriller, about an ordinary family who find themselves suddenly thrown into a world of hitmen and police and assassins, but with some really eccentric stuff, and I used to sit and watch that and think, ‘That man should be writing Doctor Who, because he’s got a lunacy about him and a boldness’. It’s not a bog-standard thriller: chase chase, shoot shoot. He’s quite wild and he keeps the whole thing on a domestic level at the same time, that they’re ordinary people with wives and husbands and loss and laughter and things like that - lovely writing.
John’s from Liverpool, and there’s a Scouse guard in episode two who only has five lines, and every single one of those lines is hilarious, brilliant, it’s a magical thing, and I sit there thinking, ‘I could never write that, go make every one of those five lines so brilliant’. So he’s very vivid and very much his own man, has his own style, but gets Torchwood as well.
So yes, there’s a story to be told but within that you hand it over to people and go, ‘Off you go, boys’. There was a lot of liaison between us and it wasn’t helped because John delivered episode two and James delivered episode three before I'd written episode one, because I was too busy! So that was odd. But we had constant meetings all the time. We all met, first of all, in St David's Hotel in Cardiff before a word was written and thrashed out the whole thing. It was very unusual, because we had Pete the producer there and Euros the director. I've never done that before on any show, to have the producer and director there at the very beginning of the concept, before a single line of plot is written, and that was fantastic, that’s how television should work. And they were chipping in with the plot as well - there were no boundaries. That was lovely, and I think that’s why it’s been so well made, because they felt part of its creation. Normally the director comes in and picks up the first script, and that’s when their job starts, but to have them there right at the start was gorgeous, I loved that, and the more we can do that the better. So it was just constant liaison between us all, and we had script editors and were emailing each other, all that stuff. A lot of television is written that way - that’s how you work on soaps, basically - so it’s not like we reinvented the wheel. But it’s easier with soaps, you just follow a storyline, whereas a thriller’s much more elliptical and punchy and you've got to hit the right beats and get the characters in the right place, so that was interesting.
Was there a point in those early discussions where you said, “We’re getting a bit carried away here, we need to pull it back a bit?”
No, not really because the point is you start with that in episode one but by the point of episode five we’d decided to push it absolutely as far as you can go. I also think Torchwood still inherits a sort of lunacy from Doctor Who, by being connected to that world.
It always happens, with all science fiction shows, they get so wrapped in their science fiction world and we all get into it so much that by the time you’re two or three seasons in you watch it thinking, ‘Where did we start here?’ I was watching an original Welsh drama on TV recently that was conceived to be about the lives and loves of Welsh people. It was its last episode after 10 years, and it ended up in a hotel with Polish strip club gangster millionaires, and I sat watching thinking, ‘Go back 10 years and wasn't this supposed to be about ordinary families? How has it wandered into this?’ And the same thing happens with science fiction. You can look at Rose Tyler: you start with the story of an ordinary shop girl and you just can’t help it, by the time you’re four years into it she’s walking around with a great big gun fighting Daleks, and that’s the normal progression of science fiction. But you’ve got to watch that you don’t go too far away.
So coming back to Torchwood - and this is what I would have done even if this was a normal series three – the thing is to bring it back and say, ‘Who are they? Where are they from?’, to give Ianto a sister, and Captain Jack’s got a daughter. Once the programme's gone off into the realms of James Marsters as Captain John, that’s fantastic, but you mustn’t take that as your starting point. That’s as far as it can go and once it’s gone that far you’ve got to say, ‘Right, back to the beginning, back to where we started, which was an ordinary policewoman delivering pizza and finding all sorts of extraordinary things going on under her nose’. It’s the first time for me to write Torchwood in three years, so coming back to it that’s where the heartland is, I think, that’s when the fantastical things work, when you’ve got all that around it.
Can you tell us a bit more about Jack’s daughter?
Lucy Cohu - she's a big name, an Emmy winner, she was in a drama about Princess Margaret. She’s amazing, and she’s Captain Jack’s daughter, Alice Carter. You discover that he’s always known she was there. She has her reasons for having nothing to do with him. Nonetheless, he pays her, he subsidises the family - because she’s got a son as well - so he’s been a very good father in that sense. And they just have a very different relationship. What I love about it is Lucy is roughly the same age as John, so you get father and daughter and they’re both the same age. And she’s gonna get older than him, so no wonder you distance yourself from that, because it does your head in!
We gather it’s been a more director-led project than Torchwood normally is. What has Euros Lyn brought to it, does it have a very different look?
Not particularly, it’s just a good, handsome look. Again, we’re not reinventing the wheel. He’s specifically a good director in terms of actors, because directors isn’t all pictures, it’s working with that cast and he’s absolutely beautiful at working with the cast, and he’d never done Torchwood before. Frankly, he is absolutely brilliant and partly we conceived the role of a director on this just to keep him at Upper Boat because he’s a very talented man who’s in a lot of demand. Most long-running shows like this would be directed by two directors - every other six parter I've done has been divided into two blocks of three, so it’s very unusual. The only one that I can think of off the top of my head that's a six-parter that was directed by one man was State Of Play actually, which was done by David Yates who now does the Harry Potter films. I think it’s better if you can have one director all the way through, so we designed the entire thing - like inviting Euros to all the meetings - to keep him on board, to keep him at Upper Boat, frankly, and then with the promise of saying, ‘After that you can do the last two hours of David Tennant’. It’s good policy to keep a very good man on board because he would be offered Dickens on BBC One or the latest ITV thriller - with people like that you have to work hard to keep them. So that was part of the plan as well.
Visually it's not a radically different look, it’s just well shot. I personally don’t like radically different looks to drama because frankly I just want to see what’s going on. We’re never, say, gonna go completely handheld or any of that stuff because it doesn’t need that level of invention, it needs an honesty; it doesn’t need flashiness, it just needs great work with great actors. And Euros is absolutely brilliant to work with and the crew love him, and that really is part of it. Five hours is tough for television and if you have a director that the crew love - and he’s Welsh and he speaks Welsh, and a lot of the crew are Welsh - you’re just ahead of the game, frankly. It’s just a nicer set to work on, and that runs better. Never believe those people who say it’s better on a tough set because it’s not true - y’know, those people from the James Cameron school of shouting and screaming. Fair enough, if you want to do it that way... I'd rather not. Blimey, no thanks!
http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=russell_t_davies_talks_torchwood
So Torchwood is returning for a third season that’s only five episodes long – why’s that? When we first heard the news we wondered if John Barrowman was too busy to commit to more.
Oh no, it’s not that - that’s tail wagging dog, that is. If we’d wanted 13 episodes we’d have booked him up for 13 episodes and he would have done 13 episodes. It’s just the shift onto BBC One. I don’t think it was ever likely to get a run of 13 hours on BBC One, I don’t think BBC One could actually afford that any more, Seriously, is there anything that’s 13 hours long? Hmm, Spooks has eight... this isn’t because of cutbacks, that just doesn’t exist on BBC One, apart from the Saturday night shows... does it? Does anything run for 13? Not in the week. And the thought of doing something we’ve never done, which is a five parter, was very exciting.
So you never even started thinking about doing a 13-part season?
No, there were no plans that we then discarded, not at all - there was nothing written, nothing commissioned. It was commissioned at the stage where we would have started thinking of a normal third series, so nothing had to be junked - although there were a couple of scripts in development in series two that were still in development, so we had to politely park those writers. And y’know, who knows, anything could happen in the future: it could go back, the money could appear for BBC One for a longer run, it could go onto BBC Two, it could be back onto BBC Three - we literally don’t know.
Torchwood is so targeted, it’s like an Exocet missile: get the digital audience in, then get the BBC Two audience in, now try BBC One... it’s television for the modern age! (laughs) But that’s where we're very effective. For “Planet Of The Dead” we had the highest-rated BBC HD figures ever, Torchwood is still BBC Three’s highest ever figure, Sarah Jane Adventures is the number one children’s show. These shows are designed to hit specific markets, and you have to shape them to hit those markets, you have to really design them to fit. That's why Doctor Who is what it is, because it goes out at seven o'clock on a Saturday. If it was going on BBC Three at nine o’clock on a Monday it'd be a very, very different show. So they’re all highly designed shows for their timeslot.
How has shifting to BBC One changed the show - have you had to reinvent it to some extent?
Well, it’s not like a reboot; it doesn’t start from scratch at the beginning. At the beginning, Gwen walks into The Hub and there it is, there’s the water tower and all the computers, and there’s not a great long explanation saying, ‘Hello, we are people who live underneath the pavement in Cardiff!’ There is a new character to whom some new things can be explained: Rupesh, played by Rik Makarem. He comes in as a new character, so things would be explained to him anyway, but it’s not done from scratch. It’s not like Gwen sits down at the beginning and says, ‘Hello, I’m Gwen Cooper and three years ago I met these extraordinary people, blah blah blah’. Because Torchwood’s been in Doctor Who as well, and John’s very well known as Captain Jack, way beyond the programme – it’s referenced in his stage shows and his variety shows and things like that. So there’s an assumption that you know what’s going on, and if you don’t, catch up! We just got on with telling a good story really.
But it’s not just a story about Cardiff anymore. There are moments that are about the difference between England and Wales, which we’d never had a chance to express before. They actually go to London in this, which is... I'm not saying that’s exciting for Welsh people, but Welsh people are always quite aware of it. There’s a very funny moment when Gwen crosses the Severn Bridge, saying she’s off into England. I hesitate to say it’s a little bit more real because that’s something people say in science fiction contexts as though they’re criticising the science fiction, and I don’t mean that at all. What’s important is that there are government characters like Mr Frobisher [a civil servant] in it, and it’s very much their story as well. They’re not subplots in it: it’s the story of what the government is doing, and what the Prime Minister’s up to as well.
And as Mr Frobisher you’ve got Peter Capaldi of course, who was in Doctor Who recently.
Yes, Peter Capaldi, who as you can imagine is related to a man from Pompeii 2000 years ago... no, not really! (laughs). Actually when you’ve seen episode five I will run past my theory: it’ll probably be on a podcast commentary or something - I have a theory that there’s something at work there, but that’s just in my spare time. No, we just wanted him on board because he’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He’s a middle man, that’s what I love about him, and he finds himself more and more out of his depth... except he rises to it as well. I think that’s the lovely thing about him, that he’s never completely out of his depth, and he’s cleverer than he realised, though more compromised than you might realise at first as well. So it’s a lovely part. And Susan Brown, she plays his loyal secretary. She doesn’t do much through the first three episodes but just keep an eye on her... she’s been working for him faithfully for 30 years and will do anything to defend him. She quietly ticks away at his side and there’s great stuff at the end with her when she comes centre stage. Marvellous!
It sounds like by the end you’ll know a lot more about who Torchwood are, what their responsibilities are, and how they fit into the big picture.
Yes, though I think you know that by the end of episode one, actually! It’s not a long process of doing that - that’s made absolutely clear in episode one, because the most important thing is to get on with the story. You and I could talk about Torchwood and their role, and who are they and how they relate to all these official bodies at great length, but actually we’ve got a story to tell - all of that is probably clear 20 minutes into episode one. Twenty minutes in you get meetings between the government where they’re discussing Torchwood and you get contact between the government and Torchwood, which is very clearly, quickly laid out and defined, and then it can move onwards, then it all starts changing. So it’s not too complicated because the most important thing is the story.
There are two less regulars since the death of Owen and Tosh in season two. Does that change the dynamic? Do the surviving team members become different types of characters with different responsibilities?
Not madly, to be honest. I mean, in the first episode you see the team in need of a doctor and that’s where Dr Rupesh Patanjali, played by Rik Makarem comes in. He’s sort of on their list to recruit because they feel they need someone with knowledge of biology. But y’know, you’ve got Ianto to cover the computer side of things that Tosh used to do, you see Gwen quite happily using the computers too... I’m not saying they’re not missed - there’s a fleeting reference to them. But it’s time to move on. If it had gone out very soon after season two you’d have done a lot more mourning, and there was a Radio Four play that took on the burden of expressing some of the grief. And actually, even if this had been a normal season three starter you don’t spend that long looking back. So no, to be blunt, they work very well as a team of three.
That’s part of the story as well - I’m not saying they’re walking around going, ‘We're very happy with three’, I was talking about that from a writer's point of view. They’re keen to expand and they very rapidly start to find themselves out of their depth. They find a story that’s simply beyond them, that’s worldwide and you have to question then who they are, and what authority do they have, and they quickly discover they have none - except they’ve got more answers than anyone else has. So that’s part of their battle, to be heard and seen and to be trusted.
Two other writers collaborated with you on this five-parter – James Moran, who wrote for season two, and John Fay, who’s a newcomer to Torchwood. Did that help to bring different flavours to the story?
It does, and that’s nice actually. Episode two is written by John, who wrote a series called Mobile for TV. We’ve been trying to get to write for Doctor Who and Torchwood for ages because I love him. He used to write the best episodes of Coronation Street ever - I can hear the science fiction meltdown as soon as I say that - the Richard Hillman episodes and things like that, he’s a properly good writer. Mobile was a borderline fantasy show, where evil assassins were being activated via mobile phones, a really powerful piece of work. Dawn Airey, who was head of ITV, stood up at the time and said, ‘John Fay is the future of ITV drama’. It’s a really odd piece, a thriller, about an ordinary family who find themselves suddenly thrown into a world of hitmen and police and assassins, but with some really eccentric stuff, and I used to sit and watch that and think, ‘That man should be writing Doctor Who, because he’s got a lunacy about him and a boldness’. It’s not a bog-standard thriller: chase chase, shoot shoot. He’s quite wild and he keeps the whole thing on a domestic level at the same time, that they’re ordinary people with wives and husbands and loss and laughter and things like that - lovely writing.
John’s from Liverpool, and there’s a Scouse guard in episode two who only has five lines, and every single one of those lines is hilarious, brilliant, it’s a magical thing, and I sit there thinking, ‘I could never write that, go make every one of those five lines so brilliant’. So he’s very vivid and very much his own man, has his own style, but gets Torchwood as well.
So yes, there’s a story to be told but within that you hand it over to people and go, ‘Off you go, boys’. There was a lot of liaison between us and it wasn’t helped because John delivered episode two and James delivered episode three before I'd written episode one, because I was too busy! So that was odd. But we had constant meetings all the time. We all met, first of all, in St David's Hotel in Cardiff before a word was written and thrashed out the whole thing. It was very unusual, because we had Pete the producer there and Euros the director. I've never done that before on any show, to have the producer and director there at the very beginning of the concept, before a single line of plot is written, and that was fantastic, that’s how television should work. And they were chipping in with the plot as well - there were no boundaries. That was lovely, and I think that’s why it’s been so well made, because they felt part of its creation. Normally the director comes in and picks up the first script, and that’s when their job starts, but to have them there right at the start was gorgeous, I loved that, and the more we can do that the better. So it was just constant liaison between us all, and we had script editors and were emailing each other, all that stuff. A lot of television is written that way - that’s how you work on soaps, basically - so it’s not like we reinvented the wheel. But it’s easier with soaps, you just follow a storyline, whereas a thriller’s much more elliptical and punchy and you've got to hit the right beats and get the characters in the right place, so that was interesting.
Was there a point in those early discussions where you said, “We’re getting a bit carried away here, we need to pull it back a bit?”
No, not really because the point is you start with that in episode one but by the point of episode five we’d decided to push it absolutely as far as you can go. I also think Torchwood still inherits a sort of lunacy from Doctor Who, by being connected to that world.
It always happens, with all science fiction shows, they get so wrapped in their science fiction world and we all get into it so much that by the time you’re two or three seasons in you watch it thinking, ‘Where did we start here?’ I was watching an original Welsh drama on TV recently that was conceived to be about the lives and loves of Welsh people. It was its last episode after 10 years, and it ended up in a hotel with Polish strip club gangster millionaires, and I sat watching thinking, ‘Go back 10 years and wasn't this supposed to be about ordinary families? How has it wandered into this?’ And the same thing happens with science fiction. You can look at Rose Tyler: you start with the story of an ordinary shop girl and you just can’t help it, by the time you’re four years into it she’s walking around with a great big gun fighting Daleks, and that’s the normal progression of science fiction. But you’ve got to watch that you don’t go too far away.
So coming back to Torchwood - and this is what I would have done even if this was a normal series three – the thing is to bring it back and say, ‘Who are they? Where are they from?’, to give Ianto a sister, and Captain Jack’s got a daughter. Once the programme's gone off into the realms of James Marsters as Captain John, that’s fantastic, but you mustn’t take that as your starting point. That’s as far as it can go and once it’s gone that far you’ve got to say, ‘Right, back to the beginning, back to where we started, which was an ordinary policewoman delivering pizza and finding all sorts of extraordinary things going on under her nose’. It’s the first time for me to write Torchwood in three years, so coming back to it that’s where the heartland is, I think, that’s when the fantastical things work, when you’ve got all that around it.
Can you tell us a bit more about Jack’s daughter?
Lucy Cohu - she's a big name, an Emmy winner, she was in a drama about Princess Margaret. She’s amazing, and she’s Captain Jack’s daughter, Alice Carter. You discover that he’s always known she was there. She has her reasons for having nothing to do with him. Nonetheless, he pays her, he subsidises the family - because she’s got a son as well - so he’s been a very good father in that sense. And they just have a very different relationship. What I love about it is Lucy is roughly the same age as John, so you get father and daughter and they’re both the same age. And she’s gonna get older than him, so no wonder you distance yourself from that, because it does your head in!
We gather it’s been a more director-led project than Torchwood normally is. What has Euros Lyn brought to it, does it have a very different look?
Not particularly, it’s just a good, handsome look. Again, we’re not reinventing the wheel. He’s specifically a good director in terms of actors, because directors isn’t all pictures, it’s working with that cast and he’s absolutely beautiful at working with the cast, and he’d never done Torchwood before. Frankly, he is absolutely brilliant and partly we conceived the role of a director on this just to keep him at Upper Boat because he’s a very talented man who’s in a lot of demand. Most long-running shows like this would be directed by two directors - every other six parter I've done has been divided into two blocks of three, so it’s very unusual. The only one that I can think of off the top of my head that's a six-parter that was directed by one man was State Of Play actually, which was done by David Yates who now does the Harry Potter films. I think it’s better if you can have one director all the way through, so we designed the entire thing - like inviting Euros to all the meetings - to keep him on board, to keep him at Upper Boat, frankly, and then with the promise of saying, ‘After that you can do the last two hours of David Tennant’. It’s good policy to keep a very good man on board because he would be offered Dickens on BBC One or the latest ITV thriller - with people like that you have to work hard to keep them. So that was part of the plan as well.
Visually it's not a radically different look, it’s just well shot. I personally don’t like radically different looks to drama because frankly I just want to see what’s going on. We’re never, say, gonna go completely handheld or any of that stuff because it doesn’t need that level of invention, it needs an honesty; it doesn’t need flashiness, it just needs great work with great actors. And Euros is absolutely brilliant to work with and the crew love him, and that really is part of it. Five hours is tough for television and if you have a director that the crew love - and he’s Welsh and he speaks Welsh, and a lot of the crew are Welsh - you’re just ahead of the game, frankly. It’s just a nicer set to work on, and that runs better. Never believe those people who say it’s better on a tough set because it’s not true - y’know, those people from the James Cameron school of shouting and screaming. Fair enough, if you want to do it that way... I'd rather not. Blimey, no thanks!
http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=russell_t_davies_talks_torchwood
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Captains Jacks Daughter
So far, this is the only photograph of Captain Jack Harkness daughter Alice, played by Lucy Cohu (blown up from a small one in a magazine), I doubt her surname is Harkness! She is rumoured to have a son too, who will be Jacks grandson!
Jack and Alice look the same age, I get older, and you stay the same, says Alice, heartbroken.
lifetheuniverseandcombom.com
More News of the TW Radio Times Special Edition
The latest issue of Radio Times boasts a stunning gatefold cover for Children of Earth, which features Captain Jack on the front with the tagline “Five episodes… five nights… and one great big explosive story”. The cover folds out to reveal Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones and Rhys Williams standing in the wreckage of the Torchwood Hub.
Inside the magazine, there’s an exclusive preview of the mini-series as well as interviews with the cast and crew, which include some controversial comments made by John Barrowman, picked up by various tabloids and websites today, regarding the BBC’s decision to cut down Series 3 to just 5 episodes.
You can read the full interviews, and check out the tantalizing previews, in the latest issue of Radio Times, out now at the usual price of £1.10. And with just under a week to go until the series officially hits our screens, expect lots more media coverage as we get ever nearer to launch day! 6 days to go!
Inside the magazine, there’s an exclusive preview of the mini-series as well as interviews with the cast and crew, which include some controversial comments made by John Barrowman, picked up by various tabloids and websites today, regarding the BBC’s decision to cut down Series 3 to just 5 episodes.
You can read the full interviews, and check out the tantalizing previews, in the latest issue of Radio Times, out now at the usual price of £1.10. And with just under a week to go until the series officially hits our screens, expect lots more media coverage as we get ever nearer to launch day! 6 days to go!
Hidden Message in the TW Radio times Image
Heres a section of one of the Radio Times Torchwood Children Of Earth photographs, can you spot the hidden message? Its pretty easy really, the aliens are called the 456, and you can clearly see 456 in the picture!
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
TW Children of Earth Radio Times Scan (30/06/09)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://blogtorwho.blogspot.com/
Another RTD Interview
NJ.com has an interview with Russell T Davies, which has a very interesting paragraph.
In conjunction with tomorrow's American debut of "Doctor Who: The Next Doctor," the first of five "Doctor Who" specials that will conclude the tenure of both star David Tennant and producer Russell T. Davies (you can read my review here), I spoke with Davies about saying goodbye to the character he helped resurrect, and about the upcoming miniseries "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which BBC America will be airing July 20-24.
Davies called me as I was finishing up the third episode of "Children of Earth" -- an exciting, epic story in which Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and his team deal with alien invaders who can make our world's children do whatever they want -- and so our discussion begins with that.
What was the impetus behind telling this particular "Torchwood" story?
The main impetus came because in Britain, we were shifting channels. We'd been on a smaller channel as a sci-fi cult show, but this is moving it onto BBC1. It's the main primetime channel, so we needed to do something bit. Also, although I created "Torchwood," I'd been away from it for a while. I wanted to do something new, a different type of storytelling, to give it a big kick and stretch myself as well. So all of that thinking led to a new format. They've been doing this (miniseries) format quite a bit in Britain, where you'll do five shows in five nights. It's a new form of storytelling that I loved, and when the offer came to make "Torchwood" part of this five nights a week thing, I jumped at it. I loved it.
So do you think, if BBC orders another series, you'll stick with this format?
I think it's hard to revert to the previous format having done this, but if BBC1 says, "We want to do 13 weeks like before," of course we're going to do 13 weeks. We can do all sorts of things. The six-part weekly thriller is another standard British format that we haven't tried yet. That's what's nice in this digital world: the platforms change, the digital tier gives you new options, and "Torchwood"s been at the forefront of it, since we started on a digital channel.
"Children of Earth" seems more epic, both in its scope and in the production values, than anything you did in the first two series.
Glad you said so. That was the aim. "Epic" was one of the keywords that we used. And it's quite important for newcomers to the show to know they can watch it from scratch. We're going to give them this big huge story where they can understand everything important in the first five minutes and go from there. I love telling stories about scale, and it's a big international story. But at the same time, even if you make things epic, no matter how big the threat is, you've got to have great characters, great actors at the center of it, so everything works on a personal level. So we've got John Barrowman doing wonderful work as Captain Jack, Eve (Myles) as Gwen Cooper, and everyone.
But when you're making an event, five nights a week, it would be wrong to tell a small, detailed domestic story. It's a brilliant production team, because we didn't have any increase in budget. It just looks like we did because they simply worked like dogs. The cast have worked hard, and it's made by people who love this, and with real passion. And the end result shines through.
You said before that you love stories about scale, which anyone watching your version of "Doctor Who" would already know. Every year, it seemed like the finales got bigger and bigger. Is one of the reasons you're leaving that you realized you couldn't top yourself anymore?
There's always further to go. I don't just increase things in scale because I'm mad. With "Doctor Who," every year the finale got bigger, and every year the rating got bigger. We were adding, like, 2 million viewers every year. That's been a great joy, and part of the whole game of "Doctor Who" is that the public joins in, word spreads, and more people watch. Increasing the scale of the program has literally paid off. If the viewers had been deserting the show, I would have done something different. When we get to David Tennant's finale, you will not believe the scale of it. But it's all about the acting in the end. Wait till you see David Tennant in his last episode, and John Barrowman in his last episode of "Children of Earth."
I'm unclear on the timing of this: were these five specials always designed to end David Tennant's time in the role, or did that happen after you started doing them?
No, we always knew they were going to be his last specials. It was his choice. When Steven Moffat took over the show, of course David wondered if he should be continuing, because of course Steven will be the most brilliant showrunner in the world.
It's funny, we've now all moved on, for the most part. We all feel that we've done the right thing. There's not one moment where we'd want to use a TARDIS to go back in and do over again. It's been good, it's been healthy, no regrets. If the handover had gone wrong, I would have felt terrible. We've protected the show, and kept it enshrined for the people in the UK.
I've only seen two of the specials so far, but there's this recurring theme about The Doctor not wanting to take on a new companion because of what happened in "Journey's End."
Poor Donna Noble.
You're a bastard, by the way.
Ha ha ha! He just called me a bastard. Ha ha ha ha!
Well, is there a specific character arc to these specials?
It's what I love about "Doctor Who." It's 46 years old, and now in my final year, we discover there's still a brand new way of telling the stories, which is The Doctor traveling on his own, which was done only once in the old years, Tom Baker with "The Deadly Asssassin." it gives us a chance for him to have a different companion every time. In "Planet of the Dead," we have Michelle Ryan, and in "The Waters of Mars," we've got Lindsey Duncan as the companion; she's almost 60 years old, quite a brilliant actress, a different way than we've gone previously. In the finale, it's Bernie Cribbens, who played Donna Noble's grandfather.
The bigger picture is why The Doctor's traveling alone -- because he's heartbroken, because he loses too much in the end (each time). This is an arc over these last few specials, gradually, especially in "Waters of Mars," which comes up in November, we discover that he travels with a human because he needs a human. He's too powerful, and without that (human with him), he can become a dangerous man. Donna pointed that out to him in her very first story, "The Runaway Bride." That is a story we're telling. We're sort of all heading towards series 5 and the new Doctor and the new companion, played by Karen Gillan. I think it's a nice set-up for her, in that The Doctor needs a companion and we're going to understand why.
Given what you said before about the lack of regrets, I'm guessing the answer's no, but are there any stories you wanted to tell with this series that you didn't get to?
Not really. Obviously, because I knew almost two years ago that I was leaving, I started thinking about stories. Other dramas I wanted to tell. Every now and then an idea will come into my head, though. I think there's a very good "Doctor Who" story to be told about Twitter, about the idea of communicating in 140 characters. There's a story somewhere, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone on the (new writing) team is thinking of that. They don't need me anymore. And I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to being a viewer. Other than the movie (1996's American-produced "Doctor Who" pilot), the last time I got a chance to sit down and watch a brand new series was 21 years ago. So I'm dying!
So have you asked Steven not to tell you anything about what he's doing?
I can't help overhearing little things. I already know far too much. And one or two things he had to check with me to make sure we could overlap material. What I do know is so exciting.
I want to go back to when you took over the franchise. What was the mandate you had in mind for yourself?
Simply, the one very clear thing I wanted to do at the beginning was to get a new audience, and a permanent audience. Because of "Doctor Who"'s long history -- he ran on BBC1 for so many years -- I knew we would get some old viewers who remembered the character fondly, but that simply wasn't enough for me. The BBC is funded by the public in Britain. So we're making a very expensive show, paid for by the public, so I thought I had a duty to spend that money well, and get as many of the public watching as possible, This wasn't a time to make a niche show, and that's so foften what British science fiction is. I knew it had to be lifted out into the mainstream. There was no precedent for that ever happening in Britain.
I wanted children watching. I thought if you're going to bring back this character, you want him to appeal to children; you want a child who, in 40 years time, will be me, bringing the character back again. It deserves the status of being like Robin Hood or Merlin or James Bond -- those rare British cultural figures who just run and run. I worried that, if I'd fumbled it on this reusrrection, it would have been fumbled for a few decades.
And we got lucky in the timing, If we'd been five years later, we would never have been able to afford the program I wanted to make. I wanted it to be expensive. I'm not saying all good television is expensive, because I've worked on some of the cheapest shows in trhe world. But the ambition, and the big picture, and the epic intimacy demanded that. And then all of this was theory, and none of us knew if it would work, but we got on air, and it worked, and it's been wonderful.
And all of that money is very clearly there on the screen, where the original series always looked so incredibly cheap: lots of stories with only one or two settings and minimal movement, where you're all over the place with the action and the special effects.
I so respect those old production teams because having made the show, I can't imagine how they made it on 1/10th of the budget that I had. And they made something I loved all my life. They found different ways of launching themselves into children's memories.
Was Christopher Eccleston always only going to do it for a year?
That was always the plan, and then the plan got fumbled because the newspapers found out about it. Can you imagine what a shock that regeneration would have been if they hadn't known? We got better at that over the years, found ways to keep other secrets. Nonetheless, Chris Eccleston is just a blazing comet of talent, and we are lucky to have had him for even a short time. I'm so grateful to have had him.
And then you got David Tennant, who many people insist is the best Doctor ever.
We cast Chris, and we thought, "Brilliant, but what the hell do we do next? Surely, there's no one who can be on a par with Chris." And the gods were smiling with us when we found David. Just to see him do this, at the same time he's doing "Hamlet" at the Royal Shakespeare Company, I'm so lucky just to have caught hold of that man for a short while.
Was it a coincidence or by design that all of the major companions during your run were women?
It's by design, to be honest. The show has had male companions in the past, and there have been times when he's had three or four companions at the same time, but if you strip the show down to its essentials, it's one man, and one woman. I don't think I would have been happy if it was just two men in the TARDIS. In the year 2009, still, there aren't enough lead roles for women, anyway. At the same time, we introduced Captain Jack, who was a companion for a time before we put him in "Torchwood."
There was that moment where you revealed that Jack would eventually live so long that he'd become the Face of Boe. Was this something you planned all along with the character?
It wasn't exactly planned. I did spend a long time thinking about Jack's immortality, and one day it occured to me there was another immortal character on the show. It made me laugh. To be honest, on the screen, it's couched in terms that are not absolute gospel. There are these spin-off books and comic books, and every now and then I'll see a script for one where they say definitively that he's the Face of Boe, and I always stop those from being printed. I have my own personal theories, but the moment it became very true or very false, the joke dies.
In general, though, how much long-term planning was there in the series? You got a lot of mileage out of cutting off The Doctor's hand in "The Christmas Invasion," for instance.
I did, didn't I? It's hard to say. Some things are planned. There was never a rigid plan that I followed for five years and never deviated. But the important thing is, I was thinking about "Doctor Who" more than I should have every day. Even the strongest fan of "Doctor Who" will think about "Doctor Who" a lot, then go on to their regular job, and I was thinking about "Doctor Who" all day, every day.
It's like having a great big play shop, I would introduce things like The Doctor having his hand cut off, and I realized I could bring it back in "Torchwood." What you don't notice are the things I introduce that I don't bring back. It's a more ruthless process than it is whimsical. Actually, it's very diligent about what makes sense, and I'm very careful about not losing an audience. If their enjoyment depends on them emorizing a bit of dialogue for 40 episodes earlier, you're in trouble. But we cut his hand off in a special that aired on Christmas, that almost ten million people in Britain watched at the time, and I thought they'd remember that. I can't say that I ever knew that three years later it would end up saving his lfie, but the potential was there. I know my own mind and it's always prodding the idea and finding ways to push it forward. If "plan" means having everything constantly in flux, then that is what we had.
In terms of an idea that you introduced and didn't bring back, it's implied at the end of "Journey's End" that Martha and Mickey are going to join "Torchwood," but they're not in "Children of Earth."
That was genuinely a potential idea. We did actually investigate that, and we did plan to use Martha and Mickey, and then Freema (Agyeman) was cast in "Law & Order: UK," and she was absolutely fantastic in it, and this was before we could confirm the commission of "Torchwood," and it's 13 episodes a year instead of five besides, so lovely, lovely Freema has got a job for life, so of course she went and did that. We're friends, we're in constant contact, and we were able to adapt, so we brought in Cush Jumbo as Lois Habiba, who's kind of the Martha figure. She doesn't act like a Martha clone at all, she's much more innocent and out of her depth. It's plate spinning, it's like that, you just keep things spinning. It was a possible plan, didn't work out, but if there's a "Torchwood" 4, and Freema's available, maybe we could use her again.
Getting back to the idea of scale, one of my favorite "Doctor Who" episodes that you wrote was sort of the opposite of that: "Midnight," which was this low-budget but extremely creepy story with The Doctor stuck on the train with the woman who kept repeating everything and the paranoid passengers.
You'd be surprised by how not low-budget that is. That set is four walls, and a very robust set, and we had to book a whole cast every day for two weeks, because they had to be there all the time. Actors are normally split up, and that was very actor-intensive. We didn't do it to be cheap, but I thought with the great big epic arias at the end of that series, it was time to be more intimate right beforehand. I thought of that idea as I was coming to the end of my time on "Doctor Who." That idea had been in my head itching away -- "What if you spoke to someone who repeats everything you've said for the whole episode?" -- and I had to do that episode before I left. I had to see if it worked. And it worked. That's a great big token of the freedom that the BBC gives us. On a great big popular expensive show, they allowed me to experiment.
If you had to pick a moment, or several moments, from your tenure that you're especially proud of -- that exemplify what you were trying to do with "Doctor Who" -- what would you pick?
The problem is, there's hundreds of them. Because I was so stepped in the show, it's very interesting to go back to the very first episode -- and to be blunt, we hit the ground running with it. That episode is the template for everything we did since. It has the companion being as strong as The Doctor, it brings back an old monster. It's in modern-day urban London. The companion's family is important, the emotion is at the forefront, but there's comedy and chase scenes. Normally, you look at episode one of a long-running series and it seems ancient, and I'm very proud of it because I look at it, all your favorite (kinds of) moments are in episode one.
But there are so many. It ranges from Lesley Sharp in "Midnight" giving the most brilliant performance with David Tennant, to when we won the BAFTA Award. When they played the clips of the nominees for Best Drama in this big posh ceremony, those clips are very often people crying in the rain about serious issues -- Iraq war, or illness, or drug addiction, because that's what usually wins awards -- and in the middle of all this, the "Doctor Who" clip played of thousands of Daleks flying through the air, and then we won the award! It just showed that a program that is so much fun and has so many children watching and so much fantasy, to win a big proper televiison award like that was genuinely wonderful.
Can you go back and watch episodes that you wrote and produced and appreciate them as a "Doctor Who" fan? Or are you too occupied thinking of how the sausage got made?
I don't know if this is good or bad, but I've always been able to sit and watch my own stuff and enjoy it. Sometimes, I'll sit down and I'll just catch an episode by chance. I caught the Shakespeare episode ("The Shakespeare Code") by chance the other night and I thought it was magnificent. I really, really can watch it as a viewer. I always cultivated that in my head, you have to train yourself to watch it as brand-new, so you can see its faults and its strengths, so I've always been good at it. So I can watch it on repeats. I still love them. And thankfully, I love watching the old show as much as I did. I can still watch the old classics from the 70s and be as happy as I was when I was a kid.
And its really looking like the Waters of Mars may be broadcast in November, not on Halloween as I have predictod, but a lot can happen before then :)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/06/russell_t_davies_talks_doctor.html
In conjunction with tomorrow's American debut of "Doctor Who: The Next Doctor," the first of five "Doctor Who" specials that will conclude the tenure of both star David Tennant and producer Russell T. Davies (you can read my review here), I spoke with Davies about saying goodbye to the character he helped resurrect, and about the upcoming miniseries "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which BBC America will be airing July 20-24.
Davies called me as I was finishing up the third episode of "Children of Earth" -- an exciting, epic story in which Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and his team deal with alien invaders who can make our world's children do whatever they want -- and so our discussion begins with that.
What was the impetus behind telling this particular "Torchwood" story?
The main impetus came because in Britain, we were shifting channels. We'd been on a smaller channel as a sci-fi cult show, but this is moving it onto BBC1. It's the main primetime channel, so we needed to do something bit. Also, although I created "Torchwood," I'd been away from it for a while. I wanted to do something new, a different type of storytelling, to give it a big kick and stretch myself as well. So all of that thinking led to a new format. They've been doing this (miniseries) format quite a bit in Britain, where you'll do five shows in five nights. It's a new form of storytelling that I loved, and when the offer came to make "Torchwood" part of this five nights a week thing, I jumped at it. I loved it.
So do you think, if BBC orders another series, you'll stick with this format?
I think it's hard to revert to the previous format having done this, but if BBC1 says, "We want to do 13 weeks like before," of course we're going to do 13 weeks. We can do all sorts of things. The six-part weekly thriller is another standard British format that we haven't tried yet. That's what's nice in this digital world: the platforms change, the digital tier gives you new options, and "Torchwood"s been at the forefront of it, since we started on a digital channel.
"Children of Earth" seems more epic, both in its scope and in the production values, than anything you did in the first two series.
Glad you said so. That was the aim. "Epic" was one of the keywords that we used. And it's quite important for newcomers to the show to know they can watch it from scratch. We're going to give them this big huge story where they can understand everything important in the first five minutes and go from there. I love telling stories about scale, and it's a big international story. But at the same time, even if you make things epic, no matter how big the threat is, you've got to have great characters, great actors at the center of it, so everything works on a personal level. So we've got John Barrowman doing wonderful work as Captain Jack, Eve (Myles) as Gwen Cooper, and everyone.
But when you're making an event, five nights a week, it would be wrong to tell a small, detailed domestic story. It's a brilliant production team, because we didn't have any increase in budget. It just looks like we did because they simply worked like dogs. The cast have worked hard, and it's made by people who love this, and with real passion. And the end result shines through.
You said before that you love stories about scale, which anyone watching your version of "Doctor Who" would already know. Every year, it seemed like the finales got bigger and bigger. Is one of the reasons you're leaving that you realized you couldn't top yourself anymore?
There's always further to go. I don't just increase things in scale because I'm mad. With "Doctor Who," every year the finale got bigger, and every year the rating got bigger. We were adding, like, 2 million viewers every year. That's been a great joy, and part of the whole game of "Doctor Who" is that the public joins in, word spreads, and more people watch. Increasing the scale of the program has literally paid off. If the viewers had been deserting the show, I would have done something different. When we get to David Tennant's finale, you will not believe the scale of it. But it's all about the acting in the end. Wait till you see David Tennant in his last episode, and John Barrowman in his last episode of "Children of Earth."
I'm unclear on the timing of this: were these five specials always designed to end David Tennant's time in the role, or did that happen after you started doing them?
No, we always knew they were going to be his last specials. It was his choice. When Steven Moffat took over the show, of course David wondered if he should be continuing, because of course Steven will be the most brilliant showrunner in the world.
It's funny, we've now all moved on, for the most part. We all feel that we've done the right thing. There's not one moment where we'd want to use a TARDIS to go back in and do over again. It's been good, it's been healthy, no regrets. If the handover had gone wrong, I would have felt terrible. We've protected the show, and kept it enshrined for the people in the UK.
I've only seen two of the specials so far, but there's this recurring theme about The Doctor not wanting to take on a new companion because of what happened in "Journey's End."
Poor Donna Noble.
You're a bastard, by the way.
Ha ha ha! He just called me a bastard. Ha ha ha ha!
Well, is there a specific character arc to these specials?
It's what I love about "Doctor Who." It's 46 years old, and now in my final year, we discover there's still a brand new way of telling the stories, which is The Doctor traveling on his own, which was done only once in the old years, Tom Baker with "The Deadly Asssassin." it gives us a chance for him to have a different companion every time. In "Planet of the Dead," we have Michelle Ryan, and in "The Waters of Mars," we've got Lindsey Duncan as the companion; she's almost 60 years old, quite a brilliant actress, a different way than we've gone previously. In the finale, it's Bernie Cribbens, who played Donna Noble's grandfather.
The bigger picture is why The Doctor's traveling alone -- because he's heartbroken, because he loses too much in the end (each time). This is an arc over these last few specials, gradually, especially in "Waters of Mars," which comes up in November, we discover that he travels with a human because he needs a human. He's too powerful, and without that (human with him), he can become a dangerous man. Donna pointed that out to him in her very first story, "The Runaway Bride." That is a story we're telling. We're sort of all heading towards series 5 and the new Doctor and the new companion, played by Karen Gillan. I think it's a nice set-up for her, in that The Doctor needs a companion and we're going to understand why.
Given what you said before about the lack of regrets, I'm guessing the answer's no, but are there any stories you wanted to tell with this series that you didn't get to?
Not really. Obviously, because I knew almost two years ago that I was leaving, I started thinking about stories. Other dramas I wanted to tell. Every now and then an idea will come into my head, though. I think there's a very good "Doctor Who" story to be told about Twitter, about the idea of communicating in 140 characters. There's a story somewhere, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone on the (new writing) team is thinking of that. They don't need me anymore. And I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to being a viewer. Other than the movie (1996's American-produced "Doctor Who" pilot), the last time I got a chance to sit down and watch a brand new series was 21 years ago. So I'm dying!
So have you asked Steven not to tell you anything about what he's doing?
I can't help overhearing little things. I already know far too much. And one or two things he had to check with me to make sure we could overlap material. What I do know is so exciting.
I want to go back to when you took over the franchise. What was the mandate you had in mind for yourself?
Simply, the one very clear thing I wanted to do at the beginning was to get a new audience, and a permanent audience. Because of "Doctor Who"'s long history -- he ran on BBC1 for so many years -- I knew we would get some old viewers who remembered the character fondly, but that simply wasn't enough for me. The BBC is funded by the public in Britain. So we're making a very expensive show, paid for by the public, so I thought I had a duty to spend that money well, and get as many of the public watching as possible, This wasn't a time to make a niche show, and that's so foften what British science fiction is. I knew it had to be lifted out into the mainstream. There was no precedent for that ever happening in Britain.
I wanted children watching. I thought if you're going to bring back this character, you want him to appeal to children; you want a child who, in 40 years time, will be me, bringing the character back again. It deserves the status of being like Robin Hood or Merlin or James Bond -- those rare British cultural figures who just run and run. I worried that, if I'd fumbled it on this reusrrection, it would have been fumbled for a few decades.
And we got lucky in the timing, If we'd been five years later, we would never have been able to afford the program I wanted to make. I wanted it to be expensive. I'm not saying all good television is expensive, because I've worked on some of the cheapest shows in trhe world. But the ambition, and the big picture, and the epic intimacy demanded that. And then all of this was theory, and none of us knew if it would work, but we got on air, and it worked, and it's been wonderful.
And all of that money is very clearly there on the screen, where the original series always looked so incredibly cheap: lots of stories with only one or two settings and minimal movement, where you're all over the place with the action and the special effects.
I so respect those old production teams because having made the show, I can't imagine how they made it on 1/10th of the budget that I had. And they made something I loved all my life. They found different ways of launching themselves into children's memories.
Was Christopher Eccleston always only going to do it for a year?
That was always the plan, and then the plan got fumbled because the newspapers found out about it. Can you imagine what a shock that regeneration would have been if they hadn't known? We got better at that over the years, found ways to keep other secrets. Nonetheless, Chris Eccleston is just a blazing comet of talent, and we are lucky to have had him for even a short time. I'm so grateful to have had him.
And then you got David Tennant, who many people insist is the best Doctor ever.
We cast Chris, and we thought, "Brilliant, but what the hell do we do next? Surely, there's no one who can be on a par with Chris." And the gods were smiling with us when we found David. Just to see him do this, at the same time he's doing "Hamlet" at the Royal Shakespeare Company, I'm so lucky just to have caught hold of that man for a short while.
Was it a coincidence or by design that all of the major companions during your run were women?
It's by design, to be honest. The show has had male companions in the past, and there have been times when he's had three or four companions at the same time, but if you strip the show down to its essentials, it's one man, and one woman. I don't think I would have been happy if it was just two men in the TARDIS. In the year 2009, still, there aren't enough lead roles for women, anyway. At the same time, we introduced Captain Jack, who was a companion for a time before we put him in "Torchwood."
There was that moment where you revealed that Jack would eventually live so long that he'd become the Face of Boe. Was this something you planned all along with the character?
It wasn't exactly planned. I did spend a long time thinking about Jack's immortality, and one day it occured to me there was another immortal character on the show. It made me laugh. To be honest, on the screen, it's couched in terms that are not absolute gospel. There are these spin-off books and comic books, and every now and then I'll see a script for one where they say definitively that he's the Face of Boe, and I always stop those from being printed. I have my own personal theories, but the moment it became very true or very false, the joke dies.
In general, though, how much long-term planning was there in the series? You got a lot of mileage out of cutting off The Doctor's hand in "The Christmas Invasion," for instance.
I did, didn't I? It's hard to say. Some things are planned. There was never a rigid plan that I followed for five years and never deviated. But the important thing is, I was thinking about "Doctor Who" more than I should have every day. Even the strongest fan of "Doctor Who" will think about "Doctor Who" a lot, then go on to their regular job, and I was thinking about "Doctor Who" all day, every day.
It's like having a great big play shop, I would introduce things like The Doctor having his hand cut off, and I realized I could bring it back in "Torchwood." What you don't notice are the things I introduce that I don't bring back. It's a more ruthless process than it is whimsical. Actually, it's very diligent about what makes sense, and I'm very careful about not losing an audience. If their enjoyment depends on them emorizing a bit of dialogue for 40 episodes earlier, you're in trouble. But we cut his hand off in a special that aired on Christmas, that almost ten million people in Britain watched at the time, and I thought they'd remember that. I can't say that I ever knew that three years later it would end up saving his lfie, but the potential was there. I know my own mind and it's always prodding the idea and finding ways to push it forward. If "plan" means having everything constantly in flux, then that is what we had.
In terms of an idea that you introduced and didn't bring back, it's implied at the end of "Journey's End" that Martha and Mickey are going to join "Torchwood," but they're not in "Children of Earth."
That was genuinely a potential idea. We did actually investigate that, and we did plan to use Martha and Mickey, and then Freema (Agyeman) was cast in "Law & Order: UK," and she was absolutely fantastic in it, and this was before we could confirm the commission of "Torchwood," and it's 13 episodes a year instead of five besides, so lovely, lovely Freema has got a job for life, so of course she went and did that. We're friends, we're in constant contact, and we were able to adapt, so we brought in Cush Jumbo as Lois Habiba, who's kind of the Martha figure. She doesn't act like a Martha clone at all, she's much more innocent and out of her depth. It's plate spinning, it's like that, you just keep things spinning. It was a possible plan, didn't work out, but if there's a "Torchwood" 4, and Freema's available, maybe we could use her again.
Getting back to the idea of scale, one of my favorite "Doctor Who" episodes that you wrote was sort of the opposite of that: "Midnight," which was this low-budget but extremely creepy story with The Doctor stuck on the train with the woman who kept repeating everything and the paranoid passengers.
You'd be surprised by how not low-budget that is. That set is four walls, and a very robust set, and we had to book a whole cast every day for two weeks, because they had to be there all the time. Actors are normally split up, and that was very actor-intensive. We didn't do it to be cheap, but I thought with the great big epic arias at the end of that series, it was time to be more intimate right beforehand. I thought of that idea as I was coming to the end of my time on "Doctor Who." That idea had been in my head itching away -- "What if you spoke to someone who repeats everything you've said for the whole episode?" -- and I had to do that episode before I left. I had to see if it worked. And it worked. That's a great big token of the freedom that the BBC gives us. On a great big popular expensive show, they allowed me to experiment.
If you had to pick a moment, or several moments, from your tenure that you're especially proud of -- that exemplify what you were trying to do with "Doctor Who" -- what would you pick?
The problem is, there's hundreds of them. Because I was so stepped in the show, it's very interesting to go back to the very first episode -- and to be blunt, we hit the ground running with it. That episode is the template for everything we did since. It has the companion being as strong as The Doctor, it brings back an old monster. It's in modern-day urban London. The companion's family is important, the emotion is at the forefront, but there's comedy and chase scenes. Normally, you look at episode one of a long-running series and it seems ancient, and I'm very proud of it because I look at it, all your favorite (kinds of) moments are in episode one.
But there are so many. It ranges from Lesley Sharp in "Midnight" giving the most brilliant performance with David Tennant, to when we won the BAFTA Award. When they played the clips of the nominees for Best Drama in this big posh ceremony, those clips are very often people crying in the rain about serious issues -- Iraq war, or illness, or drug addiction, because that's what usually wins awards -- and in the middle of all this, the "Doctor Who" clip played of thousands of Daleks flying through the air, and then we won the award! It just showed that a program that is so much fun and has so many children watching and so much fantasy, to win a big proper televiison award like that was genuinely wonderful.
Can you go back and watch episodes that you wrote and produced and appreciate them as a "Doctor Who" fan? Or are you too occupied thinking of how the sausage got made?
I don't know if this is good or bad, but I've always been able to sit and watch my own stuff and enjoy it. Sometimes, I'll sit down and I'll just catch an episode by chance. I caught the Shakespeare episode ("The Shakespeare Code") by chance the other night and I thought it was magnificent. I really, really can watch it as a viewer. I always cultivated that in my head, you have to train yourself to watch it as brand-new, so you can see its faults and its strengths, so I've always been good at it. So I can watch it on repeats. I still love them. And thankfully, I love watching the old show as much as I did. I can still watch the old classics from the 70s and be as happy as I was when I was a kid.
And its really looking like the Waters of Mars may be broadcast in November, not on Halloween as I have predictod, but a lot can happen before then :)
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/06/russell_t_davies_talks_doctor.html
Filming SJA yesterday at the International gallery (29/06/09)
Alun.Vega for these great photographs.
Digital Spy TW Spoilers
Digital Spy have 10 teasers/spoilers for Torchwood Children Of Earth online, but some are just hints.
The third series of Torchwood finally airs on BBC One next week as an explosive, five-consecutive-days event broadcast. To celebrate, we're going Torchwood-crazy this week on Tube Talk - as well as hints on what to expect from Children Of Earth, we'll also be bringing you exclusive interviews with the returning cast. (If you're not a fan of Torchwood, you may want to deflect your allegiance from Tube Talk to our downmarket sister blog Soap Scoop for this week only).
To kick off Torchwood Week, we present ten tantalising teasers (don't you just love alliteration?) about the first episode, which airs next Monday at 9pm.
1. Children Of Earth has a slightly terrifying premise: all of the children in the world stop dead at exactly the same moment and begin uttering the message "We are coming." All of them. And all in English, too.
2. The "we" is revealed to be an alien race dubbed The 456, not heard from in over 40 years.
3. In addition to the children, there is one other person reciting the message - a psychiatric patient named Timothy White. What connection does this have to an incident in Scotland in 1965?
4. Captain Jack and Ianto are referred to as "a couple" on more than one occasion.
5. As the episode begins, Rhys is looking at new houses for him and Gwen. But by the end of the episode, she has a very large secret she needs to share with him.
6. Both Owen and Tosh make appearances.
7. We meet Ianto's sister, nephew and niece. How will he respond to confirmed sightings of him on a dinner date with a man?
8. We also meet Captain Jack's.... daughter. Yes, daughter.
9. By the end of the episode, both Jack and Gwen have something inside them. Both items will change their worlds forever.
10. The ending to the first episode is probably one of the most compelling cliffhangers the Whoniverse has ever seen.
Expanding some further, warning spoilers...
05) Could this be Gwens pregnancy?
09) Gwen has a baby inside her, but what about Jack? Something from the 456? Or perhaps its Ianto (sorry :) )
10) Torchwood Cardiff explodes.
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a162535/ten-torchwood-teasers.html
The third series of Torchwood finally airs on BBC One next week as an explosive, five-consecutive-days event broadcast. To celebrate, we're going Torchwood-crazy this week on Tube Talk - as well as hints on what to expect from Children Of Earth, we'll also be bringing you exclusive interviews with the returning cast. (If you're not a fan of Torchwood, you may want to deflect your allegiance from Tube Talk to our downmarket sister blog Soap Scoop for this week only).
To kick off Torchwood Week, we present ten tantalising teasers (don't you just love alliteration?) about the first episode, which airs next Monday at 9pm.
1. Children Of Earth has a slightly terrifying premise: all of the children in the world stop dead at exactly the same moment and begin uttering the message "We are coming." All of them. And all in English, too.
2. The "we" is revealed to be an alien race dubbed The 456, not heard from in over 40 years.
3. In addition to the children, there is one other person reciting the message - a psychiatric patient named Timothy White. What connection does this have to an incident in Scotland in 1965?
4. Captain Jack and Ianto are referred to as "a couple" on more than one occasion.
5. As the episode begins, Rhys is looking at new houses for him and Gwen. But by the end of the episode, she has a very large secret she needs to share with him.
6. Both Owen and Tosh make appearances.
7. We meet Ianto's sister, nephew and niece. How will he respond to confirmed sightings of him on a dinner date with a man?
8. We also meet Captain Jack's.... daughter. Yes, daughter.
9. By the end of the episode, both Jack and Gwen have something inside them. Both items will change their worlds forever.
10. The ending to the first episode is probably one of the most compelling cliffhangers the Whoniverse has ever seen.
Expanding some further, warning spoilers...
05) Could this be Gwens pregnancy?
09) Gwen has a baby inside her, but what about Jack? Something from the 456? Or perhaps its Ianto (sorry :) )
10) Torchwood Cardiff explodes.
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a162535/ten-torchwood-teasers.html
RTD Interview
Outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies has given an interview to BBC Radio Four's Front Row.
He talked about Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
The programme can be heard on the BBC iPlayer for the next six days.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l9s0x/Front_Row_29_06_2009/
He talked about Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
The programme can be heard on the BBC iPlayer for the next six days.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l9s0x/Front_Row_29_06_2009/
Monday, 29 June 2009
Second Torchwood trailer airs on BBC One
A second trailer for the third series of Torchwood, Children of Earth, has aired on BBC One!
The latest preview is a slightly reworked version of the first, but still just as epic and with lots of new clips and dialogue from the mini-series, which kicks off on BBC One at 9:00PM on Monday 6th July.
You can see the trailer below:
I hope to have an international version soon if not tomorrow at the latest
The latest preview is a slightly reworked version of the first, but still just as epic and with lots of new clips and dialogue from the mini-series, which kicks off on BBC One at 9:00PM on Monday 6th July.
You can see the trailer below:
I hope to have an international version soon if not tomorrow at the latest
TW Children of Earth First Review (Spoilers)
Digital Spy have the first review of the first three episodes of Torchwood Children of Earth...
It contains spoilers, so beware.
Bloody Torchwood! They've kept us waiting ages for their new adventures following the emotional overload of the brilliant second season. But now that the hankies have dried and Owen and Tosh are but distant memories, is Torchwood: Children Of Earth worth the upgrade to BBC One? Well, we've seen the first three episodes and it's highly impressive. Read on for our spoiler-light verdict...
The amazing opening episode 'Day One' hits the ground running, beginning with a mysterious event in 1965 Scotland before zapping forward to the present day and some possessed children. With the move to BBC One hopefully bringing in a broader audience, Russell T Davies's script economically and seamlessly manages to re-establish the show's trio of surviving regular characters for new viewers without alienating the existing fans. In particular, Jack and Ianto's hospital-based introduction - involving a very nasty hitchhiker blended with some light-hearted banter - is a delight to watch. Twin Peaks fans should keep their eyes peeled for a damn fine in-joke involving an estate agent too.
Evoking the great Quatermass adventures, the episode generates a terrific amount of suspense with the impending arrival of an alien entity on Earth. Just what are they, what do they want and why are they using the world's children, in a sequence of chilling scenes, to announce their intentions? Possible answers gradually emerge, although the second episode does shift the main focus towards the British government's devious exploits and a fight for survival for the Torchwood crew. Liz May Brice is compelling as the uber-mean bitch baddie who makes it her mission to scrap Jack. For a ruthless assassin, she certainly sets the pulse racing!
Creating believable and appealing supporting characters has been RTD's forte in recent years, and 'Children Of Earth' doesn't disappoint. A young NHS Doctor called Rupesh is a seemingly harmless addition, eager to please Captain Jack; a troubled man with a highly disturbed past called Timothy White, played by the ever dependable Paul Copley, generates plenty of pathos; and a Home Office PA called Lois stumbles across something very shocking indeed on her computer - a blank page of all things! All these characters are cleverly interwoven into the plot, although they might not all be what they seem.
At times, 'Day Two' does pale in comparison to the opening instalment, which bears one of the most explosive and ingenious cliffhangers in the history of the Whoniverse. But while the foot is taken off the gas and the various plot threads are not balanced well enough, the episode does allow us some precious time with Deputy Andy, Gwen's bloke Rhys, Ianto's family and someone very precious to Captain Jack - thankfully not his wooden brother Gray.
The fiery arrival of an alien visitor in 'Day Three' is expertly handled by director Euros Lyn. It's a lesson in establishing and sustaining suspense, as we are given quick flashes of what creature is lurking in the mist, accompanied by some horrific sound effects. The power of imagination really takes a horrifying grip while we wait for the grand reveal... which never comes! Well, not until the BBC lets us get our grubby little mitts on 'Day Four'.
Packed full of sparkling lines ("Have you gone bender?"), stunning twists, deep emotions dealing with Jack's immortality and some corking action sequences involving Ianto and a JCB, Torchwood: Children Of Earth is an exciting, funny and creepy enterprise over its first three episodes. It's not perfect, though, as the second and third episodes don't fully capitalise on the masterpiece that is 'Day One'. Despite many inspired moments, there is the nagging feeling that the plot is being stretched too much to fill time when we'd rather devour a Deep Pan than a Thin Crust.
Overall, the shortened third season of Torchwood looks like it's hurtling towards a thrilling final two hours. There's certainly an epic, global feel to the plot - bolstered by the appearance of a familiar American newsreader - and this feels like real event television and deserves to be a success. Just wait until you see the jaw-dropping revelation at the end of 'Day Three'. Someone's been a naughty boy...
It appears we learn Jack not only has a Daughter, but a grandson too!
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a162087/how-good-is-the-new-torchwood-find-out.html
It contains spoilers, so beware.
Bloody Torchwood! They've kept us waiting ages for their new adventures following the emotional overload of the brilliant second season. But now that the hankies have dried and Owen and Tosh are but distant memories, is Torchwood: Children Of Earth worth the upgrade to BBC One? Well, we've seen the first three episodes and it's highly impressive. Read on for our spoiler-light verdict...
The amazing opening episode 'Day One' hits the ground running, beginning with a mysterious event in 1965 Scotland before zapping forward to the present day and some possessed children. With the move to BBC One hopefully bringing in a broader audience, Russell T Davies's script economically and seamlessly manages to re-establish the show's trio of surviving regular characters for new viewers without alienating the existing fans. In particular, Jack and Ianto's hospital-based introduction - involving a very nasty hitchhiker blended with some light-hearted banter - is a delight to watch. Twin Peaks fans should keep their eyes peeled for a damn fine in-joke involving an estate agent too.
Evoking the great Quatermass adventures, the episode generates a terrific amount of suspense with the impending arrival of an alien entity on Earth. Just what are they, what do they want and why are they using the world's children, in a sequence of chilling scenes, to announce their intentions? Possible answers gradually emerge, although the second episode does shift the main focus towards the British government's devious exploits and a fight for survival for the Torchwood crew. Liz May Brice is compelling as the uber-mean bitch baddie who makes it her mission to scrap Jack. For a ruthless assassin, she certainly sets the pulse racing!
Creating believable and appealing supporting characters has been RTD's forte in recent years, and 'Children Of Earth' doesn't disappoint. A young NHS Doctor called Rupesh is a seemingly harmless addition, eager to please Captain Jack; a troubled man with a highly disturbed past called Timothy White, played by the ever dependable Paul Copley, generates plenty of pathos; and a Home Office PA called Lois stumbles across something very shocking indeed on her computer - a blank page of all things! All these characters are cleverly interwoven into the plot, although they might not all be what they seem.
At times, 'Day Two' does pale in comparison to the opening instalment, which bears one of the most explosive and ingenious cliffhangers in the history of the Whoniverse. But while the foot is taken off the gas and the various plot threads are not balanced well enough, the episode does allow us some precious time with Deputy Andy, Gwen's bloke Rhys, Ianto's family and someone very precious to Captain Jack - thankfully not his wooden brother Gray.
The fiery arrival of an alien visitor in 'Day Three' is expertly handled by director Euros Lyn. It's a lesson in establishing and sustaining suspense, as we are given quick flashes of what creature is lurking in the mist, accompanied by some horrific sound effects. The power of imagination really takes a horrifying grip while we wait for the grand reveal... which never comes! Well, not until the BBC lets us get our grubby little mitts on 'Day Four'.
Packed full of sparkling lines ("Have you gone bender?"), stunning twists, deep emotions dealing with Jack's immortality and some corking action sequences involving Ianto and a JCB, Torchwood: Children Of Earth is an exciting, funny and creepy enterprise over its first three episodes. It's not perfect, though, as the second and third episodes don't fully capitalise on the masterpiece that is 'Day One'. Despite many inspired moments, there is the nagging feeling that the plot is being stretched too much to fill time when we'd rather devour a Deep Pan than a Thin Crust.
Overall, the shortened third season of Torchwood looks like it's hurtling towards a thrilling final two hours. There's certainly an epic, global feel to the plot - bolstered by the appearance of a familiar American newsreader - and this feels like real event television and deserves to be a success. Just wait until you see the jaw-dropping revelation at the end of 'Day Three'. Someone's been a naughty boy...
It appears we learn Jack not only has a Daughter, but a grandson too!
http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a162087/how-good-is-the-new-torchwood-find-out.html
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