The BBC has announced a new series called "Torchwood", which is to be broadcast on BBC Three next year. "Torchwood" is an anagram of "Doctor Who", and will star John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness. This character made several memorable appearances in the BBC's new series of Doctor Who in 2005. Captain Jack is Doctor Who's first openly gay/bisexual companion. Torchwood will screen between series of Doctor Who. Captain Jack will be part of a team looking at alien activity on modern day Earth in the series. According to Russell T. Davies, "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". Like Doctor Who, it will be broadcast in 13 45 minute episodes. The preceding series of Doctor Who will subtly plug Torchwood. Having said that, the Doctor Who homepage on the BBC is also plugging the show in quite an irritating way (without the links to the usual Doctor Who content). There are no plans to have cross over episodes between the 2 series as yet. It looks like it will be the most successful spin-off show that Doctor Who has ever generated (well, it's got to be better than K9 and Company).
However, I have my reservations. Just how is Russell T. Davies going to maintain quality by being so highly involved in both series? It often happens in the States that when you're a successful writer/producer who has a big hit with a cult TV show, the production company immediately commissions them to produce a spin-off show. Since the writer then becomes stretched between both shows, they get overwhelmed, and have to delegate, and both shows suffer from a lack of attention to detail. I'm thinking mainly of Joss Whedon here, and I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that Buffy went rapidly downhill after the commissioning of the distinctly iffy Angel. Prior to that, Chris Carter worked on both The X Files and the distinctly iffy Millennium, and both shows suffered from his divided attention. The producers of Star Trek in the 90s were never that successful at generating concurrent Star Trek series, with the result that they wrecked the franchise by producing too many episodes of diminishing quality.
Admittedly, Russell T. Davies has slightly less of a burden than either Carter or Whedon here, as the combined 26 episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood will equate to about 1 series of an equivalent US show. Hopefully there will be more opportunities for other writers who have been successful in writing other Doctor Who stories in book or audio CD format (although the BBC Doctor Who novels are now restricted to a handful of trusted writers). Yet Russell T. Davis has written weakly before under far less pressure: is anyone really that fond of the second series of Queer as Folk? There is a real danger that the Doctor Who franchise will be weakened if there is no room for innovation. I'm not saying there should be a free-for-all - far from it, as if you produce too much Doctor Who, there is also the risk that each episode becomes less of an 'event'. However, the Doctor's future should not be restricted to just the same handful of writers, as good ideas may be limited and staleness may result. Let's touch wood that both the new series of Doctor Who and Torchwood will work.
Kevin Patrick Mahoney
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