She’s Rather Better When She’s Not Bionic: DOCTOR WHO Special “Planet of the Dead” on BBC America Tonight

On the one hand, if you were with us in enjoying “The Next Doctor” but kind of wishing that the countdown to the Tenth Doctor’s demise was exhibiting a bit more…gravitas, buckle in for more of the same. Special #2, “Planet of the Dead,” belies its name a bit, being relatively light, fluffy, and chipper. On the other hand, if you need a Russell T Davies palate cleanser after an extremely dark week of Torchwood (who would have thunk it? All Torchwood needed to be good was consequences), “Planet of the Dead” might lighten your spirits.

“Planet of the Dead” finds the Doctor with a double-decker’s worth of passengers on a sandy, dangerous planet after the anomaly he’s tracking turns out to be a wormhole to another world. Way to leave the TARDIS behind, supergenius. It’s gaffes like that that serve to remind us that the Doctor works better with a companion by his side, and “POTD”‘s is a fun one: aristocratic cat thief Lady Christina de Souza. Having suffered through the Bionic Woman reboot, we were a little concerned to see Michelle Ryan cast in this key role, but she’s a delight here, prickly and smooth all at once. The landscapes, shot on location in Dubai, are glorious, and if the story is slight, well, it’s also fun. Davies promises that this is the last trifle on the menu, so enjoy it before the heavy entree arrives. Premiering (a word David Tennant apparently finds hilarious) tonight on BBC America at 8pm Eastern.

What’s The Matter With Kids Today?: New TORCHWOOD Aims To Find Out

Torchwood is…trouble. As we’ve said before, it can’t seem to decide if it wants to be camp or not, and it certainly has never been able to decide whether it wants to make any sense.

Still, this Doctor Who spin-off for alleged grown-ups (the definition of which in Torchwood-land appears to be “people who like to rub their genitals together regardless of whether that’s a good idea under present circumstances”) can be fun when it puts its mind to it, and the big reset button they hit at the end of last season raises the hope that the show can raise its game. Will the absence of Owen (THANK YOU!) and Tosh help the show reign in some of its more ridiculous tendencies, or will this move just leave more space for Gwen to annoy? (For all the cosmic mysteries the Torchwood crew takes on, the question of how the adorable Eve Myles can be so much fun in fare such as Who and Merlin and such a downer on Torchwood is the one puzzle they may never solve.) 

In additon, this “season” of Torchwood is actually a five-part miniseries (Torchwood: Children of Earth). While star John Barrowman has supposedly complained about this, the new structure might allow the show to focus in on better storytelling. The ad campaign has been nicely spooky, with Children of the Corn-esque kids chanting and staring and being generally creepy, which seems promising. If this show can really only handle telling one story at a time, why not let them dig into that full-bore? So if new-school Torchwood can make us hide our eyes instead of rolling them, we’ll be in favor of all of the changes. Part One premieres tonight on BBC America at 9pm Eastern/8pm Central.

TORCHWOOD Resumes Production for Series 3

Filming for the third season of Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood has begun in Cardiff, Wales, according to BBC Worldwide. The series, created by Russell T. Davies, is scheduled to return in 2009, with a shortened, five-episode series titled Torchwood: Children of Earth, and will air on BBC America shortly after debuting in the U.K.

“We’ve decided to do a five-part mini-series, one big story that will run during one week,” Torchwood executive producer Julie Gardner told TV Guide. “I wanted to make a really big noise about the show.” The new season sees the Torchwood team embarking on a single action-packed adventure as they battle for the future of the human race against “the fiercest force they have yet encountered.”

The returning cast includes John Barrowman as Capt. Jack Harkness, Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones. Also reprising their recurring roles are Kai Owen as Gwen’s husband, Rhys, and Tom Price as PC Andy. Special guests in the five-part series include Peter Capaldi, who plays the role of Mr. Frobisher, a civil servant who is hiding a terrible secret; Paul Copely as Clem, a survivor still haunted by his past; and Liz May Brice as Johnson, a cynical covert government agent determined to expose Torchwood.

The ending of the Doctor Who season finale “Journey’s End,” which saw Captain Jack walking off with Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), seemed to suggest that both those characters might be crossing over for Torchwood‘s third season. But the subsequent casting of Agyeman in ITV’s upcoming Law & Order: London has cast some doubt on Martha’s return to the Torchwood Hub, and the BBC has been mum about Clarke so far.

Torchwood‘s third season will have a new producer, Peter Bennett, (who’s previously worked on both Torchwood and Doctor Who, as well as films The Mummy, A View to a Kill, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) since previous showrunner Chris Chibnall has exited to helm L&O: London.

The second season of Torchwood will be released on DVD in the U.S. on Sept. 16.

DOCTOR WHO Leads Hugo Noms

The nominations for the 2007 Hugo Awards–given annually by members of the World Science Fiction Convention for the best science fiction or fantasy works–have been announced, and the Doctor Who/Torchwood franchise is leading the short form dramatic presentation category with three nominations.

Worldcon members recognized the Doctor Who episodes “Blink” and “Human Nature” and the Torchwood episode “Captain Jack Harkness,” as well as the Battlestar Galactica TV movie “Razor” and the fan-created Star Trek New Voyages episode “World Enough and Time.”

And in an unusual move this year, the entire first season of Heroes has been nominated in the long form dramatic presentation category, which is usually reserved for feature-length films. Heroes is up against a slate of fantasy films, including Enchanted, The Golden Compass, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Stardust.

The TORCHWOOD Crew: Apparently Huffing Glue Since 1879

Sigh. A Kif Kroker-sized sigh. After a promising start to the season, the Torchwood crew is back to their old, pretty stupid ways. It’s not just the cruelty of giving me my fondest Torchwood dream and then snatching it away with a second, convenient Resurrection Glove. It’s not just the mind-numbing boredom of bringing the awesome Martha Jones onto the show only to tie her up and torture her every episode. No, the real backbreaker is the colossal stupidity it requires to set up a bunch of syringes with which to accomplish a hard thing and then putting said convenient and evil Resurrection Glove on top of the syringes on a sterile tray so it can thwart their ambitions. Really?

Seriously, when I think of Captain Jack musing that during his time away he had a lot of opportunity to think about his “little team,” I’m forced to wonder if his next sentence was meant to be, “…and how many different ways they can destroy the planet with their incompetence if I’m not there to ride herd on them.” The show makes a lot more sense when viewed through that lens.

TORCHWOOD: Have You Met Miss Jones?

While BBC America’s Torchwood has improved this season, I hope we’re not setting ourselves up for disappointment with high expectations for this weekend’s episode, “Reset”. You see, Martha Jones, the most recent traveling companion on Doctor Who, will be showing up for a visit, and she is sixteen kinds of fabulous. In fact, I wonder if she’ll solve the mystery in the first 15 minutes and spend the rest of the episode swapping Doctor stories with Captain Jack, because she is exactly that much more together than the Torchwood crew. In fairness, she’s gotten the chance to be that much more together than everyone on the planet. And apparently, the Doctor has paid off one of the 8 billion favors he owes her by getting her a great job that brings her in contact with Torchwood. Where I expect her to wipe the floor with all of our bumbling alien hunters and build a new Hub before the first commercial break.

Of course, if the Torchwoodians get their incompetence all over her, all bets are off and I start spraying the whole kit and caboodle with pterodactyl-attracting barbecue sauce.

LOST Leads Saturn Noms

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films has announced the nominations for the 34th annual Saturn Awards, with ABC’s Lost garnering seven nods in the television categories. Showtime’s Dexter scored five noms and NBC’s Heroes received four.

The Academy, founded in 1972 by film historian Donald A. Reed, is a nonprofit organization devoted to honoring, recognizing and promoting genre entertainment. The Saturn Awards will be handed out on June 24 in Universal City, Calif. A full list of nominees can be found behind the cut…

TORCHWOOD: They Went to Murder Rehab!

Those of us who were frustrated by the first season of Torchwood have been wrestling with why: is it because one of the characters proves himself a rapist in the first episode and is never given more than a slap on the wrist for it (using chemicals–even alien ones–to get otherwise unwilling partners to have sex with you=rape, Owen)? Is it because the characters prove over and over again that they don’t have even the most basic investigative or anti-terrorism skills needed to combat alien threats?

Actually, it turns out the biggest problem was a simple one: no matter how dark or “adult” your setting is, if your star is John Barrowman and you’re not having a ton o’ cheery, cheeky fun, you’re doing it wrong.

And–a miracle! The first minute of Torchwood Season 2 was more fun than the entire first season put together. There was a blowfish driving a sports car, for Pete’s sake–that’s almost fun by definition. While the subsequent three minutes showed that, in spite of a lot of bustling around, the Torchwood team is no more competent than they were in Season 1 (try checking the blowfish’s pockets, geniuses), it’s hard to care so much about that when James Marsters is smooching John Barrowman and then using Captain Jack’s face for bar clean-up–all to the tune of Blur’s ubiquitous “Song 2″. Woohoo, indeed!

While not every episode can feature Marsters’ Captain John Hart (why not? Why not?!?), the cheeky tone and the promise of an overarching, emotional mystery suggest that the Torchwood folk went to murder rehab over the hiatus–and I couldn’t be more excited to hear it. Woohoo! I think they’re feeling heavy metal!

Diary of a Completist

Wandering through the living room and observing me grumbling at the TiVo while making sure a Season Pass was set for tomorrow’s season premiere of Torchwood (“Grumblegrumble why doesn’t someone just stab Owen in the face grumblegrumble if you’re such a super sekrit organization, why do you race around in a giant flashing SUV with your name stamped into the hood grumblegrumble”), my brother brought the entire proceedings to a halt with a single insightful moment: “If the show drives you that crazy, why are you watching it?”

Fair question.

Maybe I’m girding my loins to watch Torchwood (with that crew, you kind of need to go into things with your loins protected) because events in its parent show persuade me the main character will be fun again. Maybe its because writer (and recently named Law and Order: Piccadilly Circus showrunner) Chris Chibnall admitted that they miscalibrated how much they let the characters’ mistakes pile up, suggesting they won’t make the same miscalculation twice. Maybe it’s because James Marsters of Angel and Buffy fame is not only showing up to kiss Captain Jack–he’s showing up after having raided Adam Ant’s wardrobe. That is admittedly pretty persuasive.

The most accurate reason, however, is probably that I’m a completist. Once I’ve been sucked–suckered?–into a TV world, I have to know everything about it. I’ll read comic books or tie-in novels. I’ll scour the Interwebs for anything and everything written about that show, regardless of whether it’s a serious academic treatise on Buffy Summers as transgressive feminist icon or Melllvar’s fan-written screenplay. I’ll badger Netflix for DVDs of deservedly obscure entries in the writers’ or actors’ filmographies.

And thus: Torchwood. Forty-some-odd years of Doctor Who paraphenalia to sort through apparently isn’t enough–now I have to add Torchwood goings-on to the list, just in case they reference Doctor Who in some fashion. And sure enough–there’s a hand in a jar. More importantly, there’s Martha! They’ve marbled in just enough Whonalia to make me worry I’ll miss something important about the show I love if I skip the show I…tolerate. It works. And it’s unlikely to stop–it’s why I’m trying to get around work firewalls to check out Joss Whedon’s Sugar Shock. It’s why I had to persevere in listening to The Wire‘s Michael K. Williams on NPR, even though it took almost four hours thanks to thoughtless people who kept interrupting me and asking me to do, you know, work at work. It’s why I merrily hummed my way through old LPs (vinyl, people!) of Gilbert and Sullivan for a week after the West Wing gang welcomed Ainsley to the fold.

It’s an illness, but I suspect I’m not the only one suffering from it. So we need to form a support group, hope Torchwood really is better this season, or squat on facestabbersagainstowen.com. Votes?

Guide to Upcoming Season Premieres

You’d pretty much have to be living under a rock (or, you know, be my dad) not to know that the new season of Lost is starting on January 31. But what about all the other shows that are due to return this winter/spring? It’s a lot to keep track of, we know, so to help you out, here’s a list of some upcoming season premiere dates to guide you through the upcoming months.

RENO 911 (Comedy Central)
Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 10:30 PM

WILDFIRE (ABC Family)
Monday, Jan. 21, at 9:00 PM

TORCHWOOD (BBC America)
Saturday, Jan. 26, at 9:00 PM

LOST (ABC)
Thursday, Jan. 31, at 8:00 PM

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (CBS)
Monday, Feb. 4, at 9:30 PM

JERICHO (CBS)
Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 10:00 PM

MEN IN TREES (ABC)
Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 10:00 PM

DIRT (FX)
Sunday, March 2, at 10:00PM

THE TUDORS (Showtime)
Sunday, March 30, at 10:00PM

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (Sci Fi)
Friday, April 4, at 10:00 PM