Torchwood: Miracle Day Takes Risks and Remembers its Roots

Miracle Day, the upcoming fourth season of smart Brit sci-fi series Torchwood, has not forgotten it national origins despite being transplanted to America, according to Russell T. Davies. The creator and executive producer of the Doctor Who spin-off told SFX Magazine that most of the ten episodes in the new season would feature some connection to Wales, where the show originated.

“Oh, it’s about 95% America… well, 90%,” Davies said. “We’ve got three weeks here and we’re shooting scenes from nine episodes – I think episode seven is the one that doesn’t have any Welsh material at all.”

Davies also insisted that he wouldn’t want to do the show without one foot in the land that produces delicious lamb, words with few vowels and great British telly programs (Torchwood, Doctor Who and Sherlock being three).

“Whether I do any more Torchwoods I don’t know, because I think I’ve saved the world often enough – I’ve done it enough now,” Davies added. “But it’s a BBC Wales production as well, it’s part of its DNA, so yes, I would think if there was a new series you’d start with something being dug up here, something mysterious… those are the building blocks, it would always work.”

Torchwood grew out of the great Doctor Who revival of 2005. One of the best episodes of that series, ‘The Empty Child,’ featured the first appearance of Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). He later became the leader of Torchwood‘s ensemble cast as the head of the eponymous Torchwood Institute. The Institute deals with alien threats that are generally more mature in nature than those featured in Doctor Who.

Torchwood has been a critical and popular hit, gaining attention not only for its technical merits but also because of the risks the writers have taken. The most obvious of these was the creation of Harkness as an openly bisexual character. Miracle Day doesn’t show any signs of being toned down to have broader appeal on the American market. Among the principle characters is a child killer, played by William Hurt. Davies, though, doesn’t think the presence of a pedophile poses a threat to young minds more used to the low-key horrors of Doctor Who.

“Well, of course you would never put a character like that in Doctor Who, but equally if there was a child watching… they understand different genres, they understand the watershed, they understand different types of drama brilliantly,” Davies said. “These are the people we feed a diet of cartoons. If you can understand a cartoon you can understand anything! The cartoon’s one of the most sophisticated forms of storytelling in existence, and its bread and butter to kids, it’s what we feed them straight away – it’s the weirdest thing! So they’re fine, there’s no problem about it.”

Torchwood: Miracle Day is a co-production of BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide and the Starz network. It is scheduled to premiere on Starz on July 8 and will be broadcast on SPACE in Canada.

You can read more of the SFX interview with Davies here.