{alltv} 'Torchwood' star has fun with role

John Barrowman has a great way of summing up his job playing Captain Jack Harkness on Torchwood.

"Here's a little thing I said one day, this was in Wales, when I was asked, "What are you doing today?'" Barrowman recalled. "And I said, 'I'm going to drive down the beach in a Land Rover, shoot at a helicopter and save the day.'

"Then a couple of weeks later I got asked again, 'What are you doing today?' And I said, 'I'm going off to have sex with a 24-year-old.'

"What a brilliant job. I mean, that encapsulates it all."

At this point we asked Barrowman if Torchwood is hiring. His laughter probably means no.

Nonetheless, we can live vicariously through Captain Jack as Torchwood: Miracle Day makes its Canadian debut Saturday on Space.

This is the fourth "series" for Torchwood, which was created as a vehicle for Barrowman's time-travelling, immortal Captain Jack.

"When I started playing Jack, he came on the radar in Doctor Who, and he was a character people didn't like, to be honest with you," Barrowman said. "But then he redeemed himself and became the good guy, the helper, the team member. And people just took to him."

Torchwood always comes up with compelling premises and Miracle Day is no exception. Suddenly, all around the world, people stop dying.

Now, if this applied to all life forms, the world would be overrun with insects in 48 hours. Kind of like a weekend at a Canadian cottage.

In this case, only humans are affected and the media starts calling it "miracle day." But obviously simple math suggests it won't take long for the miracle to become a nightmare.

This lures members of the disbanded Torchwood -- a secret British government organization that was centred in Wales and dealt with otherworldly issues -- not only back into the fray, but across the pond to America.

Part of the charm of the first three series of Torchwood was the Welsh setting. So did Barrowman have any reservations about the change of venue?

"Every time we did a new series there was something different about it," Barrowman reasoned. "We started on a small digital channel. We moved to BBC 2. We moved to BBC 1. Now this year, it seemed the correct progression to move to an American network (the U.S. cable network Starz is a partner for Miracle Day).

"It makes us, to be blunt, bigger, bolder and better. The show still has the same Celtic heart we always had, with the Welsh roots. Everyone's worry was, 'Oh, is it going to be too American?' But I started asking, 'What does that mean?' When I read the scripts, they seem better."

Miracle Day also stars Eve Myles as Torchwood stalwart Gwen Cooper, as well as newcomers Mekhi Phifer, Alexa Havins and Bill Pullman.

There are interesting legal questions surrounding Pullman's character, a convicted murderer and pedophile named Oswald Danes whose execution gets foiled by the new laws of nature. Oswald's subsequent claim is that the state carried out its execution without a hitch, there were no malfunctions, and the fact he didn't die now means he should be released because his sentence technically was completed.

"When you look at sci-fi, it's always, 'Oh, the aliens are going to come and they're going to destroy us," Barrowman said. "What happens if it's the complete opposite? Everybody lives. Would that be bad? It proposes a whole new spectrum of questions.

"And what's happening in the show actually is kind of mimicking what's happening with our healthcare situation, with drugs, people living longer. It's really kind of creepy."

Creepy in an entertaining, intense, swashbuckling kind of way.

If only Torchwood were hiring.