The Broadcast Interview RUSSELL T DAVIES AND JULIE GARDNER


tanism among its fans and spin-off Torchwood is not much different. So taking it to the US and introducing both CIA agents and a fi lm-star cast might be considered a major risk. Is creator and showrunner Russell T Davies nervous? Not a bit of it. “I never worry about preserving


Torchwood’s Miracle makers Y


A love of high-concept blockbusters unites the Doctor Who spin-off ’s creator and executive producer. They tell Chris Curtis how a tie-up with Starz has taken the show to the next level


ou mess with sci-fi franchises at your peril. Doctor Who inspires a kind of feverish puri-


with Gwen Cooper, “the eyes and ears of the audience, their touchstone”, whose fi sh-out-of-water moments in Miracle Day, when she is transported to the US, mirror those of CIA agent Rex Matherson when he fi nds himself in Wales. These kind of differences bring


the tone of the show, because I’m running it. You might call Torchwood very Welsh, or very sci-fi ; I’d call it very me. I could move it to the moon and I’d be comfortable.” It’s just as well, given Torchwood’s


nomadic history. It debuted on BBC3 and moved to BBC2 for its second run, with storylines focusing on a time rift in Cardiff that led to an unusually high concentration of aliens stalking the Welsh capital. But Torchwood really found its feet


with series three, the fi ve-part Children Of Earth, which was stripped across a week on BBC1. And it now has a new home, as an international co-pro with Spartacus cable network Starz.


Fear of change The deal has catapulted the show into the US and provided a million-pound- plus budget per episode to ramp up its scale and ambition. But while Davies was grateful for the extra cash, he was not overwhelmed: “I was excited by the challenge. There was twice as much money, but everything costs twice as much.” Executive producer Julie Gardner,


meanwhile, seems almost keen to play down the explosions and helicopter chases. “A thriller across 10 episodes necessitates on-the-run, 24-style story telling and production, but that’s only one part of the show,” she says. “We want to entertain and thrill, but also look at big issues about the rules that govern how we live changing – for society, for governments, for health services, for pensions [see box].” She admits there is a tendency for


fans to “live in fear of change”, but is keen to stress that the show has not


24 | Broadcast | 1 July 2011


been reformatted. “It’s not like the BBC sold Torchwood in to the US and walked away. If it had, it could have become all kinds of things. But Russell is the creator of Miracle Day, and Torchwood runs through his DNA.” That the show became a co-pro was


down to several factors: funding from the BBC was getting tighter; the scope of Davies’ ambition to realise a genu- inely global storyline was promising to be expensive; and Davies decided to try his hand in LA, where Gardner had moved to work for Jane Tranter’s BBC Worldwide Productions. For both, the move has been a bit of a culture shock. Gardner identifi es


‘I’m too Welsh and old to arrive in LA and try to be more American than the


Americans’ Julie Gardner


humour to the show, and are embraced by Gardner in real life, too. “I’m too Welsh and old to arrive in LA and try to be more American than the Americans. That’s not what the [BBC Worldwide Productions] experi- ment should be. When Ang Lee made Sense And Sensibility, his experiences and cultural background brought a great perspective to a classically English piece. There’s something very interesting about being a for- eigner in another culture, looking at the TV landscape and using your experience to make shows.” Davies too is enthused with LA,


without quite seeming to buy into its glamour. His attitude to the city is similar to a lot of things we discuss: an odd mixture of unbridled effer- vescence (a bacon sandwich and cup of coffee send him into raptures) and downbeat pragmatism. “People see me and tell me I’m not very tanned, and I say: ‘Well, I’m not a


TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW


The fourth run of Torchwood is a co-pro with Spartacus cable network Starz and will air on BBC1 on 14 July, six days after its 8 July TX in the US. The 10-part serial is based on a sim-


ple premise: one day, people across the world stop dying. They keep ageing, and get sick, but they never die. The result is an overnight population boom, and Miracle Day investigates both the mys- tery behind the miracle and its conse- quences for society. John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Kai


Owen reprise their roles as Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Rhys Wil- liams respectively. They are joined by ER star Mekhi Phifer as CIA agent Rex


Matheson, who investigates the phenomenon and is led to Torchwood, which has been dormant since the downbeat end of Children Of Earth (series three). The other main new character is


Bill Pullman’s Oswald Danes – a con- demned child killer who survives his execution thanks to the miracle and achieves a kind of celebrity. Creator Russell T Davies wrote the


fi rst and last episodes and storylined the series, liaising with a team of other writ- ers that included Buffy’s Jane Espenson. Julie Gardner, Davies’ long-term collab-


orator on the likes of Doctor Who and Casanova, again executive produces.


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