Torchwood star John Barrowman.
© Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
In its latest effort to increase its presence as an originator of dramatic television, the U.S. pay-cable network Starz has snapped up American side of an escalation of the sci-fi series into an international franchise. The next season of Torchwood will be a co-production between Starz, BBC Cymru Wales, and BBC Worldwide and will air simultaneously on BBC1 in the UK and Starz in the U.S. sometime next summer. BBC Worldwide will distributing the series in other international markets.
Best of all, the 10-episode run will keep the show's stars and core creative team. Season 4 will reunite Torchwood's stars, John Barrowman and Eve Myles, reprising their roles as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper. As the original Torchwood team was largely killed off in seasons 2 and 3, the main question in terms of cast being carried over becomes Kai Owen, who plays Gwen's husband Rhys.
Beyond Barrowman, Myles, and possibly Owen, the new Torchwood team will reflect the "more international scope" of the show's new incarnation. The bulk of the story will shift from the U.K. to North America, and key U.S. actors will join the cast.
The shift in locale, cast, and backers is being presented as an opportunity to break free of the confines of the show's original setting, Cardiff, Wales, where (conveniently) the Torchwood Hub was destroyed during season 3.
"This gives Torchwood the chance to feel like a real global drama," BBC Worldwide executive VP Jane Tranter said. "The story of Torchwood will impact worldwide humanity and not just a small area of the U.K. This will scale it up."
And the production team will be led by the show's creator, Russell T. Davies, and Julie Gardner, formerly at BBC Wales where the show was first spun off from Doctor Who, and now head of scripted entertainment at BBC Worldwide. Davies will act as showrunner for the series.
BBC Worldwide has long wanted to expand Torchwood into a transatlantic operation, especially after the high ratings achieved for season 3 on BBC America and on iTunes. Even after a brewing deal with Fox fell through, BBC Worldwide remained confident that Torchwood was the ideal property to build a franchise on both sides of the Atlantic.
Davies noted that the format will be closer to the season 3 mini-series, which ran under the overall title "Children of Earth," rather than the preceding seasons' "monster of the week" style. "It's not a new version, it's not a reboot," Davies explained. "It's not going to be Lost and take 20 years to find out what's going on. It's going to have a most remarkable conclusion after 10 episodes."
In fact "Children of the Earth," which attracted critical acclaim as well as boffo international viewership numbers, seems to have whetted everyone's appetite for a bigger and better Torchwood. "It was too good an opportunity to pass up," Starz president and CEO Chris Albrecht said. "I thought 'Children of Earth' evolved the franchise to a place where it could continue to evolve on pay TV with an American partner that could bring more production resources. I'm interested in doing sci-fi, and what I like a lot about Torchwood is it's a classic sci-fi entry. It's all about the story, not about big effects."
"Russell, Jane, and Julie came to us with a compelling vision for the evolution of the Torchwood saga that really takes the story into whole new areas," added Carmi Zlotnik, Managing Director of Starz Media—the production and development division of Starz. "The compelling story and characters this trio created provide a strong template for driving this narrative in exciting ways."
"Torchwood has attracted remarkable attention and loyalty in both the UK and U.S., and in this new partnership with Starz, the next chapter will not only reward our current fans, but also introduce new viewers to the most impressive installment yet," said Tranter . "Chris Albrecht and his team are committed to delivering quality premium programming to their subscribers, also a core attribute of the BBC, and we are excited to be working with them as the Torchwood adventure continues."
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Comments
This sucks, in the US Starz is a premium pay channel, I dont’ want to pay just for Torchwood, why not BBC America or SyFy
I’m with Sean, but right now BBC America sucks… I hate that you have to have a Starz to watch the show but so glad it is coming back.
He folks welcome to the 21st century….You don’t need STARZ…..you can download ever episode….
I just cancelled Starz with Comcast because the free trial of Starz ended and other then watching a few “kids” movies there wasn’t much to watch on Starz. 2 Days later I read this announcement but at least I have several months before I have to renew my subscription to Starz. I read this announcment on EW and many of the comments stated that Netflix will let you download Starz/Torchwood so I am going to look into that too.
Torchwood on a pay per view will probably make it a more adult orientated show since you can show nudity, swear and other things are would otherwise be censored. Maybe this is a good thing, Just keep Jack the same Jack and I’ll be happy!
Please tell me where I can see the new Torchwood gratis.I subscribe HBO only to see Real Time With Bill Mahre. Thank you, comrades!
Starz Play is the new video download service from Starz Entertainment. Starz Play is only available through Starz Entertainment’s online affiliates. Starz Play lets you download and watch movies anytime, anywhere.
With Starz Play, you can watch great movies and more with Windows PCs and select portable media players for a flat monthly rate. Watch unlimited downloads, playback and streaming of over 2500 high-quality movie and video selections.
Lot’s of talk here about the unfairness of bringing Torchwood onto a premium cable channel and I agree. But it beats BY FAR having FOX ruin it for everyone. As Suzie says, “Just keep Jack the same Jack and I’ll be happy!” Me too, Suzie.
You can download bbc stuff from itunes but it would definitely be easiest if they just played it on bbc america because i’m not going to pay for starz either..hey, atleast its coming back!
Well I for one Torchwood will be on Starz! Comcast does NOT offer BBC America in HD but they do Starz (which I have)!
Starz Play is available on NetFlix too.
I watched the first season in my big screen home theater on HDNet and it looked and sounded fantastic. Seeing it on BBC America in SD was not quite as good – though BBCA is in HD now on Dish Network. Doctor Who is great in HD – despite the commercial interruptions.
I’ll be quite happy to pay for a high quality version of Torchwood if the new series is as good as the original on HDNet.
I came across TorchWood on the BBC net work and was hooked from the get go. I was very disappointed when it ended. Now I see STARZ has picked it up—Yesssss! Finally a show worth watching on TV. Hope James Marsters guest stars on it.
I’m glad I’ll be able to watch it on Starz Play. Personally, I prefer to buy/subscribe to a few shows I can watch online rather than throw a bunch of money at my over-priced cable provider.
Any word on where the extraterrestrial troubles will be filmed? If they’re not going to have a base anymore, it would be really cool if they filmed things in different viewing audience cities.
anytime a bbc program comes to the US it sucks.
ahem… anybody here ever hear of torrents? Free free free.
you know very well that here in the United States they cannot portray Jack as the usual Jack – odds are, he will be damped down considerably – however, time will tell – is conservative suburbia ready for Captain Jack? I think not.
If you have Netflix you have Starz play. Watched all of Spartacus that way and it was available the day the episode aired, so I’d imagine they will do the same thing with Torchwood. I use dirt basic no box cable strictly for local channels. I do most of my watching through Netflix, Hulu and other sources.
Been a fan of Torchwood since it premiered. I think it would’ve been better on Syfy running with Dcotor Who instead of on BBC America when SyFy was still running DW and SJA. BBC America just isn’t as good as it was years ago when it ran actual BBC shows like Casualty instead of American reruns like ST:TNG. Now all I watch it for is Doctor Who.
I’m hoping the move to Starz doesn’t make it darker than it was for S1-S3. If anything I hope it’s lighter and more like Doctor Who. The original promos for S1 made it just look like a Dcotor Who spinoff like the more lighter SJA. You didn’t get a feel it was going to be darker till the show aired.
I liked “Children of Earth” more than the previous seasons because it felt more like a Doctor Who episode due to it’s faster pace. I was shocked bigtime by the ending when they killed Jack’s grandson. I might be wrong but I’ve never seen a child intentionally killed onscreen on DW since it came back in 2005. If anything children are the ones saved the most on the show. If Jack and crew had at least tried to save the boy after they used him to save the other children of earth it wouldn’t have felt so much like a murder. A better ending would’ve been if the boy had made the decision to do it after being told he probably wouldn’t survive and then he willingly sacrificed himself to save all the other children.
I am glad that torchwood is back, when DR.WHO WAS passed from dr10 to dr.11 and even before all of bbc america was pulled off our cable net.We could not even get them to play mr.tenants last shows or the reunion last halve when they were in repeats.sO WE DID NOT SEE MUCH OF TORCHWOOD ,OR OF JOHN B. Iwas so glad when I found his music at least he was back that way. WELCOME BACK TORCHWOOD WE NEED YOU.
This series is so Baad! The acting is awful the script is terrible. The Brit in America jokes, “chips are crisps and lemonade is fizzy over there” are so passe and boring. But the thing that offended me most was the cheap shot at Catholics, “i used to be a Catholic but I got better”. It shows that the writers have no regard for ratings by alienating one of the largest religious group in the US. The only good thing about this series is that it will be quickly cancelled. The only reason to watch this is the gratuitous sex scenes, which are horribly fake but a little better than skinemax.