Cult News Wrap: Doctor Who, Torchwood and Primeval
We round-up some of the smaller Cult and Sci-Fi stories of the week featuring Doctor Who, Torchwood, Primeval and The Hobbit.
Final ratings for The Doctor’s Wife
Final ratings for The Doctor’s Wife reveal 8 million viewers watched the fourth episode in the new series of Doctor Who. The episode was penned by Neil Gaiman and guest-starred Suranne Jones as Idris. The final figure is a significant rise on the 5.9 million viewers given by overnight figures and do not include figures for downloads via the BBC iPlayer. Once again, as we have often said, the huge audience time-shift audience for Doctor Who proves the series is just as popular as ever. Though, as we’ve also said before, maybe more people would watch it “live” if it was on a little later!
Doctor Who to clash with Britain’s Got Talent
Staying with Doctor Who and it seems as though the mid-season finale A Good Man Goes To War could clash with the finale of Britain’s Got Talent. Doctor Who on the Saturday 4th June is scheduled to start at 6.40pm with Britain’s Got Talent starting at 7pm. This means the latter half of A Good Man Goes To War will clash with the ratings titan which could spell overnight ratings trouble for Doctor Who but this will be made up by time-shift audience. Following the episode Doctor Who will go on a break until the Autumn when the rest of season six will resume.
Torchwood: Miracle Day not a reboot says Russell T. Davies
In an interview with SFX Torchwood producer (and indeed creator) Russell T. Davies has said the fourth series is not a reboot of the Doctor Who spin-off. The fourth season, titled Torchwood: Miracle Day, is a co-production between the BBC and Starz and is partially set in America. However, in the interview with SFX Russell T. Davies stressed its essentially the same show as before. “People are wondering, ‘Is it a reboot or a relaunch? No: it’s literally the same show, but transplants itself to America. It’s absolutely based on the story, so we haven’t had to relaunch it, to say ‘Who is Gwen?’, and we haven’t had to say ‘How does Rex fit into this?’ because he’s a CIA agent – they only operate abroad.” You can read the full interview with Russell T. Davies in the new issue of SFX which is out next week!
Primeval Ratings
The fifth season of Primeval premiered this week on digital channel Watch. The fifth season kicked off on Tuesday evening with Ben Miller, Andrew Lee Potts and Hannah Spearritt returning once more to fight dinosaurs and other nasties. The fourth season aired on ITV1, to somewhat disappointing ratings it has to be said, earlier this year but under the deal that saved Primeval from cancellation Watch has first rights to show the fifth season with ITV likely to show it later this year or early next year.
So how did well did Primeval do on Watch? Well according to early ratings it had over 300,000 viewers. The key test will be if the figures hold steady or ebb away. Primeval continues Tuesday at 8pm on WATCH.
Orlando Bloom confirmed for The Hobbit
There really will be a reunion in Middle Earth as another Lord of the Rings cast member is confirmed for The Hobbit. Orlando Bloom will reprise his role of Elf Legolas for the prequel movie and joins the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood and Christopher Lee who are all returning to reprise their respective roles.
Also confirmed for roles in The Hobbit are Stephen Fry and Benedict Cumberbatch whose role in the film was revealed by Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman who plays Bilbo Baggins in the film.
ATV Today recommends….
Caprica, the second half of the Battlestar Galactica prequel is finally airing on Sky One. The under-rated series chronicles the rise of the Cylons 50 years or so before the events of Battlestar Galactica and is well worth a watch even if you are not familiar with the parent series. The series stars Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcolmson, Alessandra Torresani, Magda Aponowicz, Sasha Roiz and Polly Walker.
Caprica returned to Sky One two weeks ago with little publicity so if you were awaiting its returning and missed it you aren’t the only ones but don’t let that stop you enjoy the remaining episodes of the series.
Caprica, Monday at 11.15pm on Sky One.
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