"Torchwood: Miracle Day" revealed

Saturday, 8 January 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

The BBC have released details on the new series of Torchwood - which has now been renamed from The New World to Miracle Day.

The release introduces the plot of the new story, plus cast and character details.

The principal guest stars which have been mentioned in the news over the last couple of months are now formally confirmed, with a couple of character name changes. As reported last month, the principle role of CIA operative Rex Matheson will be played by Mekhi Phifer (most recently seen as FBI agent Ben Reynolds in Lie to Me), whilst protagonist Oswald Danes will be played by Bill Pullman (Independence Day). Alexa Havins (One Life to Live) will play field agent Esther Drummond, whilst Arlene Tur (Crash) plays Doctor Vera Jaurez.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

REX MATHESON (Mekhi Phifer)

He’s the golden boy. The embodiment of the American dream and has been all his life. Harvard education, Rex is destined for success and could make a fortune in Wall Street or Hollywood, but he chose the C.I.A. because he believes in justice and will fight for it. He can talk his way into anything, then charm his way out, fast. This may be just what he needs as he joins forces with Jack and Gwen to fight a global mystery behind “Miracle Day” that has them racing from one crisis to another, dodging assassins, blackmail, corruption and conspiracy, from Washington to Wales and the slums of Shanghai.


CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS (John Barrowman)

Jack looks like a hero. He's handsome, witty and subversive with a killer smile. But there's a reason for that glint in his eye. His dashing style hides a secret. Truth is Jack Harkness is immortal, the only one of his kind. He once ran the Torchwood Institute, a British organization dedicated to fighting the strange and bizarre. But Torchwood closed down, and Jack disappeared, to start yet another of his many new lives. 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.


GWEN COOPER (Eve Myles)

Gwen once lived 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 was the heart and soul of an organization called Torchwood. She was a defender of the human race. But now she lives in seclusion, with her devoted husband Rhys and baby Anwen, knowing that one day trouble would come calling again. When events surrounding “Miracle Day” push Gwen to the limit, she'll need to call on resources she never knew she had and make the most terrible decisions, on behalf of all mankind.


ESTHER DRUMMOND (Alexa Havins)

Esther is an innocent, in a world of assassins, liars and zealots. She got where she is with the C.I.A through diligence and application. Hard work keeps Esther focused but she still dreams of active duty as a field agent serving her country. The dream is going to happen faster than she thinks and in no time at all, Esther finds herself running alongside Jack, Gwen and Rex, living off the grid, gun in hand, fighting a global conspiracy against enemies ranging from big business to the state. It’s a tough, brutal, hard lifestyle where survival is hard won and life-changing choices have to be made.


OSWALD DANES (Bill Pullman)

Well-educated and a former school teacher, Oswald’s a convicted child killer, both guilty and unrepentant. But when Oswald survives his own execution, he’s given a whole new life. The most infamous man in the world, he becomes the most provocative figure in modern media. He’s a flare, reviled yet mesmerizing, whose very existence embodies how the world changed on “Miracle Day”.


DR. VERA JUAREZ (Arlene Tur)

An attending surgeon in Washington D.C., she’s smart, fast talking and hard working, Vera is on the frontline of medical care on “Miracle Day”. As the world crisis grows, Vera's surgical and ER experience sees her recruited to advise on government think-tanks until she has to make a moral choice of enormous consequence. Sexy, confident and passionate, Vera's life is soon inextricably tangled up with Rex's.


The plot of Torchwood: Miracle Day takes place over the course of the ten episodes of the series:

One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep aging -- they get hurt and sick -- but they never die. The result: a population boom, overnight. With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four months’ time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it. It’s a race against time as C.I.A. agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy. The answers lie within an old, secret British institute. As Rex keeps asking “What is Torchwood?", he’s drawn into a world of adventure, and a threat to change what it means to be human, forever.

Though launching in the United Kingdom (BBC1) and the United States (Starz), BBC Worldwide plan to distribute the new series around the world. Torchwood has previously been seen in countries like Korea, Japan, Italy, Spain, Israel, Russia and across Latin America.

Torchwood: Miracle Day will premiere in July.





FILTER: - Torchwood - Production - Press - Miracle Day (Series 4)

A Christmas Carol: UK press reaction

Sunday, 26 December 2010 - Reported by Chuck Foster
UK press coverage in the aftermath of A Christmas Carol have been muted so far, with only a few of the broadsheets reviewing the episode; of those, both Dan Martin from the Guardian and Phil Hogan from the Observer were positive on what they saw:

Dan Martin: Moffat scripts are always ingenious, but A Christmas Carol is a remarkably small-scale caper. There's no malevolent alien invasion force – just Michael Gambon perfectly cast as a lonely old man with a grudge against the world in general and Christmas in particular. Because we need a behind-the-sofa sequence there's the flying shark, but "Clive" (as she was dubbed by the production team to ward off spoilers) turns out not to be a baddie after all. And while we don't want to belittle the lives of 4004 people, the stakes are remarkably low – no threat of enslavement of a population, no nuclear Armageddon circling the Earth, no madmen flirting with the end of reality. Which feels right – because Christmas isn't really about those things. It's about the kind of warm and shameless sentimentality in which this episode deals, a time where it always snows and love always saves the day.

A Christmas Carol riffs magnificently and faithfully on the beauty and simplicity of its source material. At Christmas people always talk about the Greatest Story Ever Told in other terms, but this is a sumptuous triumph from start to finish.

Read the full review here.
Phil Hogan: It was a pity that Sardick's journey to niceness via fear and self-loathing had to bring so abrupt an end to his excellent scathing wit, but I suppose you don't want an audience grinning too much through the heart-thawing and ground-out repentance. Things worked out in the end, though not without some syrupy longueurs as the now twentysomething Sardick fell in love with the fragrant Katherine (playing the fragrant Abigail) only to find – after umpteen slightly uneventful secret outings from her cold prison – that she only had one day left to live. I'm sorry to say that in my mind's eye I could only see hordes of philistines wandering off to the kitchen for a mini pork pie during her big aria, but what's the point of hiring a world-class Welsh mezzo-soprano if you're not going to give the girl a bit of quality emoting time?

Read the full review here.

However, not everybody was happy with the Christmas serving of Doctor Who, with Chris Harvey of the Telegraph being quite negative about it:

Phew, that was a bit rich, wasn’t it? I think I’ve eaten too much. I’m not sure if it was that festive sleigh-ride across the rooftops in a carriage pulled by a giant fog-breathing shark that had been tamed by the sweet song of a cryogenically frozen maiden that did it, but I actually feel rather queasy.

Of course, Matt Smith’s first Christmas Special as the Doctor had been written with the word “Christmassy” in mind, it’s not really for old curmudgeons like me, who got more of a kick out of Michael Gambon’s miserly Kazran Sardick when he was sneering and snarling at the beginning of the episode than when he had been thoroughly heartwarmed by the end.
But there was just something so overblown about the whole thing, it reminded me of the worst excesses of the Russell T Davies era, when everything just kept getting bigger, louder, more operatic… feebler.

Read the full review here.

In other places, the Metro concentrated on how Katherine Jenkins was being received by people on social communication tool Twitter, quoting several fans for and against the singer's first acting role.

Further reviews may be found from Seenit, Den of Geek and On The Box; further links will be added via Doctor Who in the Media over the forthcoming days.




FILTER: - Specials - Press

Happy Birthday, Doctor Who

Tuesday, 23 November 2010 - Reported by Dean Braithwaite

Doctor Who is 47 today!

The first-ever episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child, was broadcast on this date in 1963.

The official Doctor Who site has a small feature to celebrate the show's 47th anniversary, including a clip featuring the original TARDIS crew of William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell and Jacqueline Hill.

BBC Archive has a feature on The Creators of Doctor Who.

AOL Television has put up an ultimate guide slide-show so "you can reminisce about all those wonderful Doctor Who filled times and characters".

Digital Journal has a piece, "Happy 908th Birthday, Doctor Who", about the confusion surrounding the Doctor's actual age.







FILTER: - William Hartnell - Classic Series - Press - BBC

Death of the Doctor prompts speculation

Wednesday, 13 October 2010 - Reported by Marcus
Sarah Jane: Death of the Doctor
Do not click on the following links, if you want to avoid spoilers for the upcoming series of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

According to slightly inaccurate stories in today's Guardian, Digital Journal and elsewhere, a bit of Doctor Who history is about to be rewritten.

The cause of all the speculation is a throwaway line in Episode Six of the current series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. The episodes were screened at a special preview held at the BFI on London's South Bank Tuesday evening. After the screening Elisabeth Sladen and Katy Manning were part of a panel talking about the series.
Press Release
Matt Smith, Laila Rouass and Katy Manning guest star in Death Of The Doctor, written by Russell T Davies.

Part One
When The Doctor is declared dead, old companions Sarah Jane and Jo Grant meet for the very first time and join forces to discover the truth. As an interstellar conspiracy gathers around Unit HQ, Clyde finds that he holds the fate of the Time Lord in his hand – quite literally!

Old friends fight together to make one last stand against the sinister Shansheeth. But with Clyde and Rani trapped and in terrible danger, Sarah Jane and Jo Grant realise their worst fears – their friendship with the Doctor might be the very thing that dooms them.





FILTER: - Doctor Who - Sarah Jane - Press

New Christmas Clips

Wednesday, 29 September 2010 - Reported by Marcus
The BBC has released a Drama Showreel showcasing the new drama output coming up on the BBC over the next six months, featuring clips from the 2010 Christmas Special of Doctor Who.



The showreel was previewed at an event marking two years in post for BBC Controller of Drama, Ben Stephenson.

Other dramas featured include performances from the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors:

  • Christopher Eccleston stars in an episode of Accused, a new drama series from Jimmy McGovern for BBC One.
  • David Tennant plays Dave in Single Father coming to BBC One on Sunday 10 October.
  • Matt Smith plays Christopher Isherwood in Christopher and his Kind coming to BBC Two next month.







  • FILTER: - Specials - Matt Smith - David Tennant - Christopher Eccleston - Press

    Martin Shaw on Doctor Who, Collinson on Coronation Street, Moffat on 2011

    Wednesday, 22 September 2010 - Reported by Dean Braithwaite
    A number of news outlets have picked up from the Radio Times that the British actor Martin Shaw (The Professionals, Inspector George Gently) turned down the chance to play James Bond in the late 1970s. Digital Journal, however, leads on the fact that Shaw would consider playing the Doctor, albeit if the commitment was a lot less than is currently expected of Doctor Who's leading actor!


    Elsewhere in Radio Times, Phil Collinson is interviewed about his plans for Coronation Street as it approaches its 50th anniversary and beyond, which has been reported here. RT attributes Collinson's savviness on Who under Russell T Davies as being part of the reason ITV Studios have entrusted him with Corrie's birthday celebrations, which Digital Journal has picked up on, too.

    Steven Moffat, meanwhile, has been talking in Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book and Doctor Who Magazine about the 2010 Christmas special and the cliffhanger between the two 2011 series (Easter and autumn) of  Doctor Who. His comments have already been picked up by a number of outlets, including Den of Geek, Digital Journal and Digital Spy.





    FILTER: - Steven Moffat - People - Doctor Who - Specials - Series 6/32 - Production - DWM - Press

    Monsters Continue Tour

    Wednesday, 8 September 2010 - Reported by Marcus
    Doctor Who: CybermenDoctor Who monsters have continued their invasion of key UK cities arriving in Belfast on Tuesday to promote the upcoming Doctor Who Live tour. The visit, which saw Cybermen, Scarecrows and Silurian Warriors outside Belfast City Hall, was reported by BBC News and the Belfast Telegraph.

    Last week the monsters visited the famous Cavern Club in Matthew Street in Liverpool as reported by the Liverpool Echo.

    The Doctor Who Live Tour kicks off at Wembley Arena on 8th October and tours across the UK until November 7th.




    FILTER: - Special Events - Press

    Festival Video - Doctor Who Masterclass Now online

    Tuesday, 31 August 2010 - Reported by Marcus
    The official site of the Edinburgh International Television Festival has now uploaded several of the sessions from the 2010 festival.

    The link to the full sessions includes the Question Time with Steven Moffat in which he talks of the BBC licence fee in relation to Doctor Who.

    There is also a link on the same page to the full Doctor Who Masterclass with Steven Moffat and Karen Gillan talking about their work on the series. In the video Moffat talks about the way he runs the show, his relationship to other writers including former show runner Russell T Davies, and his general love for the show. Gillan talks about the way she was cast and the approach she takes to playing Amy Pond.

    Moffat confirms that in 2011 he will definitely reveal the identity of River Song.




    FILTER: - Production - Press

    International iPlayer on the way

    Saturday, 28 August 2010 - Reported by Marcus
    Mark ThompsonBBC Director General Mark Thompson has told the Edinburgh International Television Festival the corporation is aiming to launch an international commercial version of the BBC iPlayer within a year.

    The plans, which are subject to approval by the BBC Trust, will hopefully allow viewers around the world to watch BBC programmes, including Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, soon after their UK transmission. There are also plans to develop a way for UK licence fee payers and British servicemen and women around the world to gain access to a version of the UK public service iPlayer.

    The BBC Chief used the MacTaggart Lecture to defend the BBC following criticism from many of its competitors, such as James Murdoch who gave last year's key note speech to the festival. The speech has already been attacked by The Telegraph who singled out the free downloads of Doctor Who computer games, such as yesterday's release of The Doctor Who Adventures, as something the BBC has no business doing.




    FILTER: - Press

    TARDIS seen at MIT

    Friday, 27 August 2010 - Reported by Marcus
    TARDISThe TARDIS has materialised on top of Little Dome at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    The appearance of the Time machine on the roof of the University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts is a "hack" or a practical joke. The University has a long history of "hacks" including placing a Dark Mark over the Student Center to celebrate the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and placing a Fire Department truck on the roof of the Great Dome.




    FILTER: - Press