fajrdrako | Doctor Who, Captain Jack, and Jamie Bamber..

I was just reading the cover article of the August 2006 issue of Out magazine, which has Jamie Bamber on the cover. As far as Battlestar Galactica goes, the article by Matthew Green is mostly without substance - it says that both Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber are gorgeous (true), and that the show ought to have some gay characters, which is also true, and that in future they might have some, but they haven't yet. Right. Insubstantial news, vague quotes, pretty pictures. It does say that the upcoming show Heroes will have gay characters, which is probably good news, and another reason to watch it.

I was interested in a few paragraphs towards the end of the article, as it starts to discuss SF television in more general terms:

The queerest rebellion in sci-fi TV is undoubtedly the latest incarnation of the British classic Doctor Who, which recently aired its first season on the Sci Fi Channel, starring Christopher Eccleston and written by Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davies. The third season of the series is now in production in Wales.

"There's very classically and traditionally a strong gay fan base for Doctor Who," Davies told the New York Times recently. In the first season of the new Who, the Doctor and his assistant, Rose (played by Billie Piper), join forces with Captain Jack Harkness, a 51st century bisexual time traveler played by out actor John Barrowman. Handsome and debonair, and as comfortable with his clothes off as with them on, Jack is at ease seducing both male and female characters.

As a sort of omnisexual James Bond of the future, Captain Jack is getting his own spin-off series created by Davies. Called Torchwood (an anagram of "Doctor Who"), the show is billed as sci-fi for adults, and it promises not to shy away from the sex as Jack and company explore alien phenomena in modern-day Britain.