And there’s American TV companies hat have been treating the UK viewing population like dirt for years too- such as Earth Final Conflict, which was not released on DVD for this region nor in PAL except for season 1. Especially when a UK company is part involved in making it they could treat us a bit more fairly and Torchwood was orginally a British program and yet we will have to wait possibly for ages after its come out in America to see it- they haven’t even come up with a date for us. Also if not enough people watch something it gets dropped- if it is watched in the US but not much in the UK, even if lots did watch the US version online, are the BBC really going to stay part of it and will UK TV companies really be willing to show future series here in the UK?

So really, Torchwood being co-produced by an American company is nothing new.

Personally, I’m probably not going to bother with either. Torchwood ought to have finished with Children of Earth in my opinion. Especially as it had to be picked up by an American company to be given the green light again? We do TV differently than the US, and shows that might be very popular there might not be so popular here (ie House M.D, Ghost Whisperer, etc which aren’t run on many channels..) Torchwood Miracle Day may be a trainwreck in British standards, compared to original series 1 and 2…

As far as there being less violence and perhaps nudity on the UK edit, I’m just going by what’s been reported during interviews with RTD and the production team.

AshtonRoad — who says Americans get bored of stuff quickly? Yeah, it’s hard to compete with nearly 50 years of Doctor Who, but Star Trek has had a keen following since 1967, Star Wars since 1977, X-Files ran for nine years (which is pretty good when you can’t realistically change your lead actors), MST3K ran for eleven years despite very austere production values…. And y’know, we’ve been fans of Doctor Who over here for decades, despite having far more obstacles to our fandom than you guys in Britain have. We’d have every excuse to have gotten bored with Doctor Who, when our local PBS station stops running it and for fifteen years all we can do is buy the VHS tapes as the BBC gradually releases them, and rewatch our homemade broadcast recordings until they wear out. But we didn’t.

It’s true that hundreds of shows have bit the dust in the US. Lots of shows have bit the dust in Britain too. It’s the nature of television; not everything sticks. Not everything is a Doctor Who or a Sesame Street, something people grow up with and then share with their own children. Most things are flash-in-the-pan. Red Dwarf squeaked out eight short seasons, though the last one was pretty clearly evidence they were done. The Prisoner ran for 17 superb episodes (more than Patrick McGoohan wanted, actually). Space: 1999 lasted three years. Blake’s 7 pulled off four seasons — which, I should point out, is what this will be for Torchwood, so if Torchwood ends after this season, it will be ending in good company for its length. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” was two seasons on radio, one on television. And in this context, it would be difficult not to mention the ill-fated “K-9 and Company” which lasted for but a single episode. (Thankfully, “Sarah Jane Adventures” did much better, though its end in the middle of Season Five is hardly anybody’s fault.) Doctor Who is very much a peculiarity for lasting so long; few dramas last more than four seasons.