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Torchwood: Dr Who Spin-Off With Captain Jack

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oll_lewis

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Doctor Who's Captain Jack is to get his own 13 part series called Torchwood.

Aparently it's all set in Cardiff, writain primerally by Russel and aimed at adults.
I would suspect, as it dosen't cross over with any Doctor Who storylines it's set before he met the doctor and Rose, while he still has his swish spacecraft/time machine jobbie.

Doctor Who spin-off made in Wales

A "sexy, funny" spin-off from the Doctor Who television series, is to be made by BBC Wales and set in Cardiff.
The 13-part sci-fi drama will be called Torchwood - an anagram of Doctor Who. Russell T Davies will also write and co-produce the "paranoid thriller".

Torchwood, which is aimed at adults, stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack - one of the main characters from the recent Doctor Who series.

The drama features investigators solving human and alien crime.

Mr Davies, from Swansea, said the series would be sexy, funny and very different to Doctor Who.

"Doctor Who has a completely different feel to this kind of thing. This is set in the same place every week. It's a different sort of fun to Doctor Who," he said.

"It's an urban series, very much set on earth. It's a Welsh series that I'm very, very proud of."


He said Cardiff would be used more often as a location than in Doctor Who, and that he hoped the series would provide work for Welsh actors and directors.

"With Doctor Who we often had to pretend that bits of Cardiff were London, or Utah, or the planet Zog," he said,

"Whereas this series is going to be 'honest-to-god Cardiff'. We will happily walk past the Millennium Centre and say "Look, there's the Millennium Centre".

"It's nice to be able to say this is the city, and this is how good it looks."

Mr Davies said the name Torchwood was used as a security measure during the production of Doctor Who to disguise preview tapes of the first episodes.

"When we were making the first Doctor Who series, television pirates were desperate to get their hands on a tape," he said.

"One of the people in the office had the idea of calling the tapes of episodes, as they went form Cardiff to London, Torchwood, instead of putting Doctor Who on it.

"I thought: 'That's clever!' I've had that taped away at the back of my head for a good six months, and now here it is as a show."

Although Doctor Who inspired Torchwood, no stories will cross over between the two series.

Actor John Barrowman said he was thrilled: "It's going to be a dark, wild and sexy roller-coaster ride...I can't wait to explore Captain Jack even more".

Filming is due to start early in 2006, with transmission for a post-watershed BBC Three audience in the autumn.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/wales/4349120.stm

Published: 2005/10/17 09:52:57 GMT

© BBC MMV
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Sounds good to me but then I'm an unredeamable Doctor Who fan boy. :goof:
 
Sounds good - although they could have put the money into bringing back Captain Zep and made me very happy ;)
 
Torchwood on BBC Three
Captain Jack gets his own show.

Torchwood will debut on BBC Three late next year. Created by Russell T Davies it stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack.

"Torchwood will be a dark, clever, wild, sexy, British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show with a sense of humour - the X Files meets This Life," says Russell T Davies.

"It's a renegade bunch of investigators charged by the British government to find alien technology that has fallen to Earth," BBC Three controller Stuart Murphy told The Independent.

The show will be set in Cardiff, and will be 13 45-minute episodes, transmitting between series of Doctor Who. Confirmed writers include Sapphire and Steel creator PJ Hammond.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cul ... 5634.shtml
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looking good, torchwood (well someone was probably going to say it, might as well be me)

theres yet more info in the press releace here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressr ... orch.shtml

including:
The renegades investigate human and alien crime, as well as alien technology that has fallen to Earth," says Murphy.



"Torchwood is sinister and psychological – Russell was really keen to play with your head – as well as being very British and modern and real.



"But at the centre of the drama are warm, human relationships and the overcoming of adversity."



"I'm absolutely thrilled about Torchwood," says John Barrowman. "It's going to be a dark, wild and sexy roller-coaster ride.
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So much for my theory that Jack Harkness was really The Master (think about it: he's a time traveller, an American (as was The Master in his last incarnation - re: Dr Who TV film, which I believe the producers of the current series consider as canonical), and he seemed very familiar with the Tardis. Curse me for not paying attention to the final episode, when he was blasted with a Dalek X-Ray: I should've checked to see if he had two hearts!) Unless, of course, there's one smacker of a twist at the end of this new series...
 
It would be a bloody good cover for the Master, wouldnt it?

And it `is` the sort of thing he would get up to...
 
A freind pointed out that Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who
 
LINK
Torchwood Ignites In May

Russell T. Davies, writer-producer of the current Doctor Who revival airing on SCI FI Channel, told SCI FI Wire that the much-anticipated spinoff entitled Torchwood will begin production soon. "We start filming in May, and we should be on in this country [England] in October," Davies said in an interview. "So we'll have two shows running simultaneously, which will be fun."

Davies, who will oversee Torchwood while maintaining his Doctor Who responsibilities during the filming of that show's second season, described Torchwood as a 13-part science fiction series for adults. (Torchwood is an anagram for Doctor Who.) "Doctor Who airs in this country at 7 o'clock at night, so it gets the whole family watching," Davies said. "Torchwood is Earth-based. It takes one of the actors who was very popular from the first [season] of Doctor Who, who is called Captain Jack Harkness [John Barrowman]. He was in five episodes and was hugely successful as a companion to the Doctor [Christopher Eccleston]."

Davies added: "He's a bisexual con man. Hooray! We need more bisexual con men on our television screens, I think, don't you think? Bisexual con men from the 53rd century, what could be better? He was so enormously successful that we've created a spinoff for him."
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It's set to premiere October 22nd, 2006 on BBC Three with a repeat showing on BBC 2 on Wednesday nights. The show is a co-production with Canada who have secured North American broadcast, but I can't find details on that as yet.
 
Three Torchwood books coming in January.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_nr...wood&rh=i:aps,k:Torchwood,i:stripbooks&page=1

I've enjoyed quite a lot of Doctor Who BBC books efforts. Certainly nice to see Andrew Lane writing, and Dan Abnett (not read anything by Anghelides). Apparently these are very much going to be continuing the 'adult' theme of the show (not that we've seen what that is yet, but already I'm thinking Graham Joyce's "Tooth Fairy" would suit that mould... who knows).
 
Kondoru said:
It would be a bloody good cover for the Master, wouldnt it?

And it `is` the sort of thing he would get up to...
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I have to agree and this is included in the Wiki link Emp was kind enough to post for us.

In a lengthy interview with online magazine AfterElton.com, John Barrowman fleshes out the link between the two series:
A lot of the things that have happened with Doctor Who [in the second series], the Torchwood team have been responsible for fixing or annihilating after the Doctor does his bit. And the Doctor is saying, at the moment, like “Who the hell are these Torchwood people?” because our paths haven't crossed again, and I am frantically trying to find him. I'm trying to find the Doctor. Because there is something that the viewing public won't know yet, there's something about Jack that nobody knows. And he needs the Doctor.
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If he is the master (or perhaps is posessed by the master's etherial snake thingy from the film) that would be an interesting storyline
 
Just watched the first two episodes.

Wasn't overwhelmed, but wasn't underwhelmed either... okay, maybe a couple of times. It was littered with Whovian references but that simply wasn't enough for me. It had quite a few class lines, but again, that wasn't enough for me (especially not when you got lines like "we have to put ourselves in the mind of the killer"... er... these guys get special clearance?)

Hopefully it picks up a bit and starts to shine a little as the series progresses. Ultraviolet it ain't.
 
I didn't think it was too bad, but the first episode was the better so far, the second was a bit too straightforward. Promising I'd call it. But is Captain Jack really Captain Scarlet? Being indestructable and all.
 
Incidentally, that hand in the jar... that wouldn't belong to someone we know, would it? That's right, Luke Skywalker!
 
gncxx said:
... But is Captain Jack really Captain Scarlet? Being indestructable and all.
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Do continue to get the impression we're reliving schoolboy, Russell T. Davis' rather 'ahem...' overheated TV fanboy imaginings.
 
gncxx said:
Incidentally, that hand in the jar... that wouldn't belong to someone we know, would it? That's right, Luke Skywalker!
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The good Doctor lost his hand ;)

I quite liked the first two episodes, despite my partner pointing out the various parts of Cardiff where it was filmed and the references to other films and books and (Men in Black, Douglas Adams, etc).

The one thing that irked me slightly was that it was so obviously adult-orientated - now, I'm not for a moment suggesting that youngsters (to use an old fogey expression) don't know what sex is, but I'd hate to be sitting with smirking 11-year-olds watching that.

Grumpy old Jane.
 
That'd be the Doctor hand before it became a "Fightin' hand" then? Nice. Maybe they plan to grow a Doctor from it....but accidently grow a Master.

That'd be nice.
 
I liked it, despite the fact that episode one followed the plotline of Men in Black to a tee, and the second one just seemed rude for its own sake. But it was stylishly done, the performances were good, and I did like the Who references - mostly because they weren't knowing winks or throwaway remarks, but were genuinely essential to the storyline (Jack's disappearance during WW2, for instance, the hand in the jar, the perception disruptor field thingy left by the Tardis - and doubtless his indestructibility has something to do with Rose's resurrection of him). Will continue to watch avidly, methinks.
 
I liked it, but I think with the popularity of Dr Who amongst the very young, more flagging of just how adult it was going to be could have been done, especially as it started in a school holiday week. I knew my 8 year old would be watching it and my 5 year old wanted to so I rang up for a chat when the woman blew her head off and my ex turned the tv off when the bathroom shagging scene got going. No harm done, I think adult sci-fi has a big future and wish it well but just tell the story and forget the left liberal messages throughout the program, I get the message women are strong and resourceful, men cook and serve food and you don't need to be skinny to be sexy, oh and Hetro sex in bogs can lead to death.
 
crunchy5 said:
I think adult sci-fi has a big future and wish it well but just tell the story and forget the left liberal messages throughout the program
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Couldn't agree more - those parts of it were laboured and totally redundant, they really compromised the whole feel of the first episodes.
It may improve if they can distract RTD for awhile.
 
I also noticed a "drug/date/rape" theme running through the two episodes of making non consenting partners consent, by manipulating the impulses and inhibitions of the 'target/victim'. episode 1: a Torchwood employee doesn't strike lucky with a lady who isn't interested in him, so he applies a drug/chemical/aftershave and suddenly the victim is helpless to resist. confronted by the boyfriend who again has no intentions and bingo, the same. Episode 2: the alien's pheromones make the prey helpless.
 
Caught this by suprise (the trailers looked awful), and was suprised to find that I really liked it. I've never really followed Dr. Who.
 
Was that the Pipettes playing over the pub brawl? What's wrong with "I Predict a Riot"? Oh well, that's sci-fi...
 
I completely forgot to set the video last night. Now I've got to remember BBC2 Wednesday. Otherwise, there'll be trouble.

How did people see two episodes? Did they run two together? Or are some of us privy to secret information??? :shock:
 
I thought it was okay rather than great. Kind of like the X-Files, only set in Wales, and with added sluttage (well, they do have Captain Jack in charge...)

I think the series could grow into something good, but the characters need more time and episodes to develop a bit more fully. Let's see how Captain Slutty McSlutSlut and his team of Slutty Agents get on. ;)
 
Ravenstone said:
I completely forgot to set the video last night. Now I've got to remember BBC2 Wednesday. Otherwise, there'll be trouble.

How did people see two episodes? Did they run two together? Or are some of us privy to secret information??? :shock:
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They ran the first two together on BBC3 - I never saw it - willl probably check it out on BBC2 repeat.


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Ahhhh. Thanks. Wonder why they did that? I mean, it's quite usual to get a 'feature length episode', but doing them back to back seems a bit odd.

Ah well. I just have to remember Wednesday night!
 
I liked it too. It almost makes Cardiff look exciting. Almost.

The master has to be involved in all this somehow. Perhaps linked to Capt Jack's regenerative ability.

Dr Who with Sex, Violence, Naughty Language, Welsh Accents and No Doctor. Good so far but I have a feeling it will not last more than a series or two.

Can I request that they put Charlotte Church in the same cell as the weevel.
 
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