When Jane Espenson was first approached about joining the writing staff of Torchwood, the veteran television writer whose credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the rebooted Battlestar Galactica had just one thought: "It's going to be hard to get stakes higher than aliens wanting to gobble up the children of Earth."
Fortunately for fans waiting to see how immortal alien hunter Captain Jack Harkness would return after suffering the devastating losses he did in 2009's Torchwood: Children of Earth, series creator Russell T. Davies had just the ante-upping answer. For the U.K. hit's fourth season, (premiering Friday at 10/9c on Starz), he'd move the action from Cardiff, Wales across the pond (and into the bigger-budget land of pay cable), transform actor Bill Pullman into a worldly "monster," and hit Jack with a head-spinning reality in which everyone is cursed with living forever — except, suddenly, him.
Watch the trailer for Torchwood: Miracle Day
"Immortality sounds fantastic for about a second," says John Barrowman, who has played the unsinkable Jack since the sci-fi show's 2006 launch on BBC Three...
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