Sunday 5 July 2009

For more information...

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

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)

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

TW Children of Earth preview by the Circuit

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/

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 The Dead Line

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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.

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

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

Creation of the Daleks Documentary

Who Cares- Doctor in Distress Single 1985 single with Video!

DW Theme By Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

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.

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…

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/

TW Children of Earth Countdown 3 Days to go

TW golden Age

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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

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/

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/

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/

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.

TW Children of Earth Countdown 4 days to Go

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/

http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/

Wednesday 1 July 2009

TW Children of Earth BBC HD Trailer

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/

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!

Countdown to Children of Earth

Barrowman Talks to Wales Online

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.

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!

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