Good news for BBC America fans
Posted by The Poet Omar on 26 May 2007 at 1:18 am | Tagged as: The Poet Omar's Page, Culture
Recently, BBC America has announced its plan to air the entire first season (first series to you Euro-types) of Torchwood during its summer restructuring. Despite a fair degree of success in attraction US viewership, the execs at BBCA felt that a radical restructuring of the network’s programming selections and scheduling would boost its moderate ratings to a level capable of competing with general interest US basic cable networks such as A&E, USA, TNT, etc. I’m highly excited about the decision to carry Torchwood, which our own Sci-Fi network seems to have steered clear of. Despite the fact that it is a spin-off series, Sci-Fi certainly didn’t show the same level of caution when purchasing the rights to, for example, Crusade or Angel. Anyway, I’m glad that Torchwood will be available to US audiences (although most likely in a censored format; Torchwood is very R rated for language, violence and some moderately graphic sex scenes [and male nudity]). I’ve already watched the entire first season in HD, uncensored, commercial-free format on various websites (Google it) and, although a bit disappointed by some of the more adolescent tendencies toward cheeseball lines and gratuitous violence in a few of the episodes, most were extremely well written with, “Captain Jack Harkness,” (episode 12) probably my favorite for character development and sheer emotional impact. BBC Three has already ordered a second season of 13 episodes to premiere sometime next year and I certainly look forward to that. If nothing else, the explanation behind Jack’s disappearance and return should be worth the wait, along with the resolution of his “condition.” As a side note, I confess that I’m hugely impressed by John Barrowman’s ability to pull-off the complex character that Jack Harkness is and by his acting ability in general. John was, oddly enough, originally slated for the role of Will Truman in Will & Grace but series’ producers eventually choose Eric McCormack because they felt that John was, “too straight.” This is quite ironic as John Barrowman is gay and Eric McCormack is straight. Eve Myles, whom various newspapers and magazines have named one of the sexiest women in Wales and “Bachelorette of the Year,” has also impressed as the gap-toothed, wide-eyed police constable who provides emotional grounding and a human element to the otherwordly Torchwood team.
In other news, the Sci-Fi channel has indicated that it will be airing season three of Torchwood’s parent show Doctor Who (currently running in the UK) in the late summer or fall of this year. By the little I’ve seen of it, David Tennant is even better this season than last and Freema Agyeman is a much better actress than Billie Piper who, admittedly, is the UK’s answer to Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson. So fire your Tivo’s up (those of you who have and are able to operate them), Torchwood hits this summer and Doctor Who in fall. Sci-fi geekdom heaven.
5 Responses to “Good news for BBC America fans”
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Pulled up some pics of Barrowood. Yowza. I’ll have to watch for that on DVD.
Barrowman, even. oi.
Lol! Yes, Barrowman is indeed a handsome chap.
Oh, DVD for Region 1 is due to hit in late 2007. Probably Amazon or B&N will stock it. I doubt Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. will. :(
Thanks, Omar. I’ll keep an eye out for it.