Yearly Archive: 2008

Torchwood producer Peter Bennett told Digital Spy about 2009’s Torchwood: Children of Earth.

"Basically from a concept, we wanted to go down the children dilemma route,” he said of the title. “Because this storyline is a subject that’s going to affect all the children of Earth, it was a natural title to come up with.”

As for the actual plot, Bennett explained, "It’s different to every other year. It’s not a story about spaceships, but it’s about a government that did a deal with aliens back in the ’60s, and they’re now dealing with the consequences of that deal when the sins of their past come back to haunt them."

The biggest change is that the third season is a mere five episodes, to be broadcast across consecutive days. "Having done 26 standalone stories, we kind of wanted to take this series to another level and by making it one story over five nights, we feel we’ve done that. It’s big, it’s epic, and it’s very different.

“Telling one story has also given us the opportunity to have one director across the whole series, Euros Lyn, who’s been incredible and taken the show to a new level."

The script was produced by James Moran, John Fay and Russell T Davies, which also deals with the team in the wake of losing two of their own at the end of season two. "We sort of bring in Gwen’s husband Rhys (Kai Owen),” the producer said. “He was always on the fringes anyway but he takes a much more active part in the storyline now. And we’ve got a new young lady who helps the team – I wouldn’t say she’s part of the team but she kind of helps them out. She’s played by a new actress called Cush Jumbo, who’s a very pretty young lady and who I’m sure is going to go on to bigger things.

“Also we’ve got new characters, people like Peter Capaldi, who’s fantastic as the government middle man caught up in the storm, Liz May Brice as a covert government agent and Paul Copely as a damaged man."

While air dates have not been announced, spring seems likely based on Bennett’s comments regarding the series’ current status.

"We’ve just started our second week of post editing and we’re in a position to have a look at our first episode. We’ve just shown our executive producers the first cut version of the first episode and this week we’re hoping to show them the first cut of the second episode. It’s a very very tough post schedule. We’ve only got one director, but we’ve got three cutting rooms running simultaneously and he’s literally running between all three. We have to deliver the whole thing, with all effects and music, by March. So to do five one-hours is a real tough schedule, particularly because we’ve got so much amazing material. I’d guess we’re two thirds of the way through and the last third is a struggle – but a nice struggle."