John Barrowman spoke to ‘Doctor Who’ showrunner about ‘Torchwood’ return

Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall could still bring back Torchwood, according to one of its former stars John Barrowman.

The Doctor Who spin-off show ran between 2006 and 2011 for four seasons and starred Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, an immortal alien who works with a team of experts in Wales to protect the world from extra-terrestrial threats.

Now, in a recent interview with the Radio Times, Barrowman has revealed that he spoke directly to Chibnall about reviving the show.

“Without going into too much detail, I actually a while back contacted Chris,” Barrowman said.

“He was the Torchwood showrunner for a while. I was doing meetings with different production companies all around the US including the CW, and the one things out of everyone’s mouth was ‘How would we get a hold of Torchwood? To do it?”

“And I thought ‘That’s an interesting question,’ and a lot of people were asking that. ‘How can we get a hold of that brand to do it, to start making it again?” he added.

“So I then started putting the feelers out and contacting people. And I actually wrote to Chris and I said to him, ‘Would he be interested in being a part of something like that?’ Or something like that, I can’t remember how the email went.”

At the time, Chibnall had just taken over as showrunner of Doctor Who, but he still gave Barrowman some hope of Torchwood revival.

Barrowman continued: “He [Chibnall] e-mailed me back, and he said ‘As you probably know, I’m in the middle of something very big at the moment, and I can’t discuss anything else.’

“But he said ‘Let’s talk when things calm down a bit.’ And that was just at the beginning of his negotiations for Doctor Who.”

Barrowman is yet to get a firm answer from Chibnall on the future of Torchwood, but he’s hopeful that a revival could still happen, or at the very least, Captain Jack could be brought back to Doctor Who.

“If anyone can do it, it’s Chris,” he said. “Chris is the one who can make the decision, because it’s always the decision of the showrunner of Doctor Who.

“I was told that that’s the person who can decide about bringing back Torchwood. Or Captain Jack to Doctor Who.”

Barrowman also commented on Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who debut, revealing that there was one small thing that bothered him – the lack of a theme tune.

The episode was well-received from fans and critics, but was unfortunately missing the signature theme music.

‘”At the end of it I thought – where’s the theme music?!’

“And that bugged me! Because you know when there’s a new Doctor, there’s going to be a new theme, that’s gonna be updated and revamped.”

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