Will there be a Torchwood Series 5?
At present there has been no official word from either the BBC or Starz on the future of the series. There has been some talk however.
Back in June, Russell T Davies revealed that: “I’ve got one more story that I can tell – just one more that has Gwen right at the centre of it – that would be fantastic.”
Adding: “The very interesting thing will be, what if [Miracle Day] does well on Starz but doesn’t do well on BBC1? Or if the BBC1 money is tight and they have to take money away – does it become entirely a Starz production, which means they have to own the rights? Would the BBC do that? Would they actually give away rights to an existing property?”
In July, Starz CEO Chris Albrecht indicated that more Torchwood was dependent on Russell T Davies: “Torchwood is not one of the shows we went into thinking about a yearly return. It’s about Russell T Davies – he has a lot of things on his plate. If Torchwood is not at the top of his list, that will affect the future of Torchwood.”
In August, Starz Entertainment and BBC Worldwide announced a multi-year partnership to develop, produce, and distribute more than 100 hours of new drama. Torchwood was not specifically named, but would almost certainly fall under this category.
Following the BBC Australia broadcast of the finale last week, a teaser saying “Jack will be back – January 2012” was shown. However, this was later confirmed to be just an advert for a repeat run. There was no way a full series could air as early as January 2012 in any case. If a fifth series followed the same pattern as Miracle Day, filming would begin in January for a Summer 2012 broadcast.
Earlier this week John Barrowman said: “I hope they come back with a new series, but I have to wait. I haven’t heard anything yet. I don’t know when we will hear. I’ve been given a date but that date isn’t upon us yet. So once I know I still won’t be able to tell you but it means I then can plan out the rest of my year accordingly.”
