Seven Years of Torchwood?

Wednesday, 22 December 2010 - Reported by Marcus
TorchwoodJohn Barrowman has told The Scottish Sun that the BBC and the Starz Network are planning to make seven years of Torchwood.

Barrowman, who is currently appearing in Aladdin at Glasgow's Clyde Auditorium told the paper:
I have turned down a load of other shows to make Torchwood. We'll be filming it in LA as it's now a collaboration between the BBC and the Starz Network in America. They're planning to make it for the next seven years. So I'll be spending six months a year in Hollywood and six back in the UK.

Torchwood: The New World is currently in production for transmission in the summer of 2011.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood Magazine Issue 25

Tuesday, 21 December 2010 - Reported by Harry Ward
The latest and final issue of Torchwood Magazine has been released. The official Torchwood Magazine Facebook page posted earlier today: "The final issue of Torchwood Magazine is now on sale. Make sure you get your copy as this is going to be a collector's item!".

In the editorial notes of issue 24 the magazine posted:
"Finally, in less happy news, the next issue of Torchwood magazine will be the last for a while, Everything changes, and with the TV show on its way back as a BBC/Starz co-production, there's a whole new world of merchandising to be worked out, and plenty of new projects in the pipeline. Hopefully, by this time next year, interest in the series will be at an all-time high, and Torchwood magazine will rise again - whether with the same old team or in a whole new guise......"


Issue contents:
  • Interview: John Barrowman reveals his thoughts about being Captain Jack and returning in Torchwood: The New World.
  • We talk to Eve Myles about playing Torchwood's action mum, Gwen Cooper.
  • For our final issue, we take a look back at some of the most memorable things the stars said about Children of Earth.
  • Archivist Andrew Pixley charts the development and day-by-day production of the episode that saw Owen face up to life, death and Tintin.
  • In the last ever Beyond the Hub, Kate Lloyd takes a flying trip through the remaining worlds of weirdness we never quite got round to...
  • A brand new Toshiko Sato adventure by James Moran, with art by Adrian Salmon.
  • Owen Harper waves a ghostly tale in a new adventure by Trevor Baxendale, with art by Ben Willsher.
  • A time travel adventure in the midst of the Cardiff Blitz, by Gary Russell and John Ridgway.
  • Gwen is forced to go it alone in an epic adventure by Steve Tribe and James Goss, with art by Mike Dowling.
The first issue of the magazine was released on 24 January 2008 and was originally printed every four weeks until Issue 14 when they moved to being a bi-monthly production with a larger page count. [Wikipedia]


Some page samples for the issue can be viewed from the BBC's official Torchwood Facebook page




FILTER: - Torchwood - Magazines - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood Casting: Bill Pullman

Wednesday, 15 December 2010 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Hot on the heels of news about Mekhi Phifer being cast yesterday, today Deadline reports long-time Hollywood actor Bill Pullman will be joining the cast of Torchwood: The New World. He will be playing one of the lead roles in the series, that of the psychotic Oswald Jones.

Like Phifer, Pullman was born in New York (1953). Starting out in the theatre, he made the move to the big screen in the 1986 film Ruthless People (with Bette Midler and Danny De Vito); he quickly rose to lead role status the following year in the Mel Brooks sci-fi spoof Spaceballs, and he has since been involved in a number of successful films, including Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, and Casper. However, his sci-fi credentials are probably best represented in what is possibly his highest profile role, portraying President of the United States Thomas Whitmore in the Will Smith/Jeff Goldblum blockbuster, Independence Day.

On television, he is best known for playing Harvard scientist and astrophysicist Bill Massey in the supernatural thriller series Revelations.

OSWALD JONES
Oswald Jones is dangerously clever, a psychotic, convicted murderer and paedophile. He escapes his lifelong prison sentence on a technicality and quickly becomes a media sensation.

Genuinely repentant yet boiling with lust and rage, Oswald gets caught up in a terrifying worldwide crisis.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Mekhi Phifer joins Torchwood

Tuesday, 14 December 2010 - Reported by Marcus
TorchwoodDeadline is reporting that American actor Mekhi Phifer is to join the cast of Torchwood: The New World playing Rex Matheson, one of the three leads, alongside John Barrowman and Eve Myles.

Mekhi Phifer is best known for his role as Dr. Gregory Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama ER.

Born in New York, his acting career began when he was selected for the leading role in Spike Lee's Clockers a role for which he won critical acclaim for his performance as Strike, a young New Jersey drug dealer involved in a murder cover-up. He later appeared in the comedy spoof High School High, in the Columbia/Tristar thriller I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and in Soul Food. In 2002, Phifer starred as Future, opposite Eminem, in Curtis Hanson's film, 8 Mile. Phifer's other television credits include leading roles in MTV's film Carmen: A Hip Hopera and in A Lesson Before Dying a role which eearned him an NAACP Image Award Nomination. He was a regular on the Fox crime show Lie to Me.

REX MATHESON
He’s 28, the golden boy.

Has been, all his life. Harvard education, fast-tracker in the C.I.A., destined for success. Though he’s never taken it easy – Rex hustles, seduces and campaigns to get where he is today. He can talk his way into anything, then charm his way out, fast. He’s made a lot of enemies, but his friends and lovers would defend him to death. His choice of career is significant. Someone like Rex could make a fortune in Wall Street, or Hollywood. But choosing the C.I.A. says a lot about him: that for all his swagger, he does believe in justice. And will fight for it.

Slowly but surely, we see him make friends. He’s thrown together a bunch of people known as Torchwood, the only people who might have the answer to a global mystery. To Rex, at first, they’re a bunch of freaks. Welsh women and World War 2 Captains, what’s that about?! But as they race from one crisis to another, dodging assassins, blackmail, corruption and conspiracy, from Washington to Wales and the slums of Shanghai, Rex forges friendships in the heat of fire. He learns to trust his new colleagues. And they realize that this dangerous, dazzling, reckless man is the best friend they could ever have, in a world going to hell.
They frighten us, men like Rex. We wish we were him; we never will be.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood: Old Cast for New World

Friday, 10 December 2010 - Reported by Chuck Foster
TorchwoodA couple of cast members from the previous series of Torchwood have tweeted today on their involvement in the next series, The New World.

Confirmed last month, Kai Owen who plays Gwen's husband Rhys will be returning to the show; in a tweet this afternoon the actor reported:
In about one month from today I'm gonna be putting on my 'Rhys' costume once more!!
Meanwhile, actor and comedian Tom Price, who played Gwen's former colleague in the police Andy Davidson, has hinted that he too would be back in the next series; in response to Owen's comment:
@KaiKaiOwen I look forward to seeing that costume. Jeans and a t-shirt, yeah?
Sorting out a US visa. Now...why would I be doing that?
Doing a little bit of Torching Wood in America next year. Already trying out my Welsh/LA accent. It's SO hot, like.
You can follow both actors on Twitter from their respective accounts, @kaikaiowen and @pricetom; you can also receive updates from both Eve Myles (via her fan-feed @EveMylesFans) and John Barrowman (via his official site feed @Team_Barrowman).




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood: The New World - filming in America from January

Monday, 29 November 2010 - Reported by Chuck Foster
TorchwoodTorchwood: The New World is due to commence filming in the United States from the 11th January 2011.

The date was reported in an interview with Eve Myles (Gwen) in the Wales on Sunday. As well as the filming in America, the star will return to Wales for filming in Gower for a couple of weeks at the end of January.

Eve mentioned her plans for relocation to Los Angeles for the shoot, finding a place in Los Angeles for her, her partner, and daughter:
We are going to be living in the Hollywood Hills, literally underneath the Hollywood sign. It looks like something out of Austin Powers. It’s a step back in time to Hollywood in the 1960s. It’s really, really retro. It’s had one owner and it’s been kept exactly as it was. I’m much more of a traditional Laura Ashley girl but if we are going to be there for seven months, we have to go for old-fashioned Hollywood and enjoy the full experience!


You can follow the progress of the series from the official Twitter account, @TW_TheNewWorld.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood: Casting Update

Wednesday, 10 November 2010 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Showbiz site Deadline are reporting that the actress Arlene Tur has been cast as a surgeon named Vera Juarez in the new series of Torchwood, The New World. The actress is best known on screen for her role as Bebe Arcel in another series by the network Starz, Crash.

A number of names have been associated with the main roles of the series, including Enver Gjokaj (Victor/Anthony Ceccoli in Dollhouse) and Chad Michael Murray (Lucas Scott in One Tree Hill) for CIA Agent Rex Matheson, and Amber Stevens (Ashleigh Howard in Greek) as Watch Analyst Esther Katusi - however, apart from the established characters played by John Barrowman (Jack), Eve Myles (Gwen) and Kai Owen (Rhys), no other cast announcements have been made so far.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood: The New World

Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - Reported by Marcus
TorchwoodStarz have published more details of the upcoming Torchwood co-production with BBC Worldwide. The series is due for transmission in the summer of 2011.

SERIES SYNOPSIS
When C.I.A. agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy, he finds himself unearthing a threat which challenges the entire human race. The answers seem to lie within an old, secret British institute, known only as Torchwood. But Torchwood was destroyed, years ago, and the keys to the institute are held by its only two survivors - former Police Officer Gwen Cooper, who has long since disappeared along with her husband and child, and the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness, a man whose history seems to stretch back centuries.

With Rex under attack from all sides, in both the US and the UK, he soon discovers there are forces at work within every level of society, determined to stop Torchwood's return. As a chain of events across the world links together the most disparate and unlikely individuals - including a surgeon, a killer, senators and CEOs - a new Torchwood team takes shape. But this time, the threat is much closer to home, as they realize that their greatest enemy is mankind itself...
CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS (John Barrowman)
Jack looks like a hero. But he's so much more than that...

He's American, handsome, with a killer smile and a classic coat. But you don't expect heroes to be this much fun. He's witty, fast, subversive and there's a reason for that glint in his eye - he'll sleep with women, he'll sleep with men; if aliens invade, he'll sleep with them too. Got a problem with that? Tough! His dashing style hides a secret. There are mysteries about Jack - a man going under his name seems to have a history stretching back to World War 2, or even earlier, to the Nineteenth century, the Eighteenth...

Truth is, Jack Harkness is immortal. A fixed point in time and space. The only one of his kind. For thousands of years, he has never been able to die. When killed, he comes back to life - seconds later. Though his tragedy is, he feels every death. It hurts - and so does the passage of time. He can never love anyone for too long, because he will always lose them. As a result, he's lived many lives. He's been a conman, a thief, an adventurer - though more a rogue than a villain, because his perspective on human life makes him appreciate this world all the more.

Jack once ran the Torchwood Institute, a British organization dedicated to fighting the strange and bizarre. He was king of his own little world for a while, the happiest he'd ever been. But Torchwood fell. His friends were killed. The Institute closed down, and Jack disappeared, to start yet another of his many new lives. And yet... The only thing that could call Jack Harkness back is his unstated love for Gwen Cooper. And when a new, epic danger affects the whole planet, Jack finds himself back at the center of events, fighting not just for his own life, but for everyone on Earth. But this time, are the stakes too high?
GWEN COOPER (Eve Myles)
All Gwen wants is a quiet life. Honest.

She's Welsh, lives in seclusion, far away from the city, on a cliff top in the wilds of South Wales with her devoted husband, and baby Anwen - it's a rural idyll. And it's a lie. Gwen is in hiding, because she once lived the most extraordinary life. She was the heart and soul of an organization called Torchwood, a freelance band of fighters who fought the strange and unexplained. She was a defender of the human race.
But no more. Torchwood was destroyed. Her colleagues died, or fled. And Gwen hid herself away, for the rest of her life, to protect her loved ones. But knowing, just knowing, that one day trouble would come calling again.

She lives the ultimate double life: the funny, salty, earthy woman who loves home and family, combined with the tough, ruthless warrior, who loves the thrill of the fight. She's both selfish and selfless. And never doubt it - when Gwen's in a crisis, she is magnificent. Gun in both hands, baby strapped to her chest, she'll run and fight and never give up.

It's passion, in the end: Gwen's all about passion. She loves her man, she loves her child, she loves this mad old world, and maybe she loves Captain Jack Harkness just a little too much. But when the events of this story push Gwen to the limit, she'll need to call on resources she never knew she had, to take action and make the most terrible decisions, on behalf of all mankind.
REX MATHESON (Actor TBD)
He’s 28, the golden boy.

Has been, all his life. Harvard education, fast-tracker in the C.I.A., destined for success. Though he’s never taken it easy – Rex hustles, seduces and campaigns to get where he is today. He can talk his way into anything, then charm his way out, fast. He’s made a lot of enemies, but his friends and lovers would defend him to death. His choice of career is significant. Someone like Rex could make a fortune in Wall Street, or Hollywood. But choosing the C.I.A. says a lot about him: that for all his swagger, he does believe in justice. And will fight for it.

Slowly but surely, we see him make friends. He’s thrown together a bunch of people known as Torchwood, the only people who might have the answer to a global mystery. To Rex, at first, they’re a bunch of freaks. Welsh women and World War 2 Captains, what’s that about?! But as they race from one crisis to another, dodging assassins, blackmail, corruption and conspiracy, from Washington to Wales and the slums of Shanghai, Rex forges friendships in the heat of fire. He learns to trust his new colleagues. And they realize that this dangerous, dazzling, reckless man is the best friend they could ever have, in a world going to hell.
They frighten us, men like Rex. We wish we were him; we never will be.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Miracle Day (Series 4)

Torchwood: The New World

Saturday, 7 August 2010 - Reported by Josiah Rowe
TorchwoodNews sources at the Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour are reporting that the forthcoming fourth series of Torchwood will carry the title Torchwood: The New World. A post from The Hollywood Reporter gives details of the series' new characters and quotes from Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner:
The new story will follow a CIA agent (Rex) and analyst (Ester) who tackle an alien-related global issue. Torchwood, having been destroyed and disbanded, is "like a legend now ... it's like something that's ceased to exist and is now spoken of only in whispers." Soon, Rex and Ester are on the run and are seeking out the help of Captain Jack and Gwen.

"The two teams coming together is a big part of the story -- are they friends or enemies? There's a lot of sparks and excitement."

"We definitely have a really big story to tell," added executive producer Julie Gardner. "It's absolutely rebooted to welcome in a new audience." ....

The ten episodes will be very fast paced, telling a self-contained story with the miniseries "Children of Earth" being used as a template.

Being on Starz, the show could potentially take advantage of looser standards for nudity and violence.

"I've always had loose standards and practices," Davies said. "If the story demands intimacy or savagery, we will go there absolutely ... [but] there's nothing better than a great big global thriller that stops for a sex scene -- it's probably hard to make that happen in a thriller."
The report also contains images of teaser posters which were seen at TCA; the images appear to be previously existing photos of John Barrowman and Eve Myles, with the legend "Torchwood: The New World, Coming Summer 2011."

USA Today also has details on the series' tone, and more quotes from Davies:
The team has left Wales for America, as creator Russell T. Davies has left Britain for Los Angeles. The case will tie the two remaining Torchwood members (Jack and Eve Myles's Gwen) to the CIA, and will expand into a world-wide threat. And yet, says Davies, it "will be faithful" to the BBC original.

Davies says this story, which "had been ticking away in my mind for a long while," had not been planned as a Torchwood story at all. "And suddenly I thought, there's a popular show, there's a great story, let's put them together...It felt like it definitely could move forward and become new again."

Though it will be newer and bigger, the tone won't change, says Davies. Barrowman's Jack will still be TV's only bi-sexual hero, character will still be stressed, and humor will still play a large part in the show's make-up.

"I sit there in the editing room saying 'Don't cut that joke! Cut the plot, cut the murder, cut the story, but don't cut the joke.'...It will always be a cheeky show."




FILTER: - Torchwood - Russell T Davies - Miracle Day (Series 4) - Julie Gardner