Otherwise headed, This is The Brits Getting Their Own Back for All Those Diaries About Deadwood.
“Dr Who” is a BBC TV science fiction program aimed mostly at older children which has returned for a new series after a hiatus of many years. This time the series has abandoned its low budget special effects and gone very high tech with some amazing CGI scenes. “The Doctor” is (now) the last of the race of Time Lords who travels through time and space in his ship, the TARDIS (acronym for Time And Relative Dimension In Space) The new series is being executive produced and most of the episodes written by the writer of the orginial “Queer as Folks”
In this week’s episode 7 of a 13 week run they introduced a new character “Captain Jack”.
This is how the actor playing him describes the episode:
“The pair (Dr Who and his female companion ‘Rose’) land the TARDIS in 1941, after chasing a mysterious spaceship, and meet dashing American serviceman Captain Jack Harkness – but he isn’t quite what he seems.
“Jack is actually a Time Agent – part of a kind of space CIA – and he’s trying to find two years of his memory that have disappeared,”.
“He’s a rogue Time Agent and he knows he’s done something in his past and he’s not sure what it is or whether it is good or bad because his memory has been erased.
“But he’s also an intergalactic conman and he starts off by trying to con The Doctor and Rose. He tries to sell them something in order to get money because that’s what he does.
“He has conned a lot of people in the past. His method is to sell people things that are not what he says they are – and then once he has got the money he runs.”
The character is apparently staying for the rest of the series and John Barrowman, the actor playing Captain Jack, indicated in an interview that as well as flirting with Rose, Jack also “flirts with” the Doctor. Barrowman seems to have a natural ability to do this. When he was interviewed on the BBC morning news program, he put on his native Scottish accent and reduced the female co-presenter to giggling schoolgirl mode.
You should recognise John Barrowman as he has done a lot of TV in the USA where he moved at the age of 5. He was most recently seen on television as Peter Williams in the Aaron Spelling series TITANS for NBC, and he also guest starred in Aaron Spelling’s STOP AT NOTHING. He also starred in Darren Star’s CENTRAL PARK WEST for CBS, as well as the PBS all-star special, HEY MR PRODUCER. He will soon be seen on the big screen in the independent feature, MEGALODON. He has also just sung the lead in the “Springtime for Hitler” sequence in the new film of “The Producers” for Mel Brookes.
The charming of the BBC presenter proves his acting ability even more since he has a long term gay partner with who the Daily Mail claim he wants to adopt a baby.
Thank you so much for posting this! I loved that show for years, until it became impossible to find here…now you’ll have me searching for it again! Ah, a cheering post is lovely on a Monday morning!
As I understand it, pland for broadcasting the new series int the USA fell through when Warner took up an option but did not complete. It is shown in Canada. PBS’s contract to show the old versions were stopped by the BBC in order to promote the new version.
The BBC does a sort of “making of” parallel series on BBC3 (where they also repeat the episodes for people who missed them). These are the sort of programs you get as “extras” on DVDs. The programme is “Dr Who COnfidential” amd they can be viewed on line at the mini site if you have broadband. You can also see trailers for all the series so far if you download the skin for Realplayer.
Thanks! I see that BBC is looking at airing some of their shows on line too, a week after showing on television. I’m going to have to keep an eye on that-or, maybe beg my friend in Australia to help me out-I think she can get it there.
I must admit I am recording them to DVD for future re-viewing but unfortunately they are in PAL-50Hz /widescreen which is not playable on many US units designed for NTSC-60Hz. The official DVDs are in that format with the possible addition of a regional coding. I understand that some of the cheap DVD players sold in the USA are multiformat so the inards can be software altered for local markets while just changing the name badges for different countries.