John Barrowman seems to be hopeful that Chris Chibnall, Doctor Who‘s new showrunner, could be the man to help him bring back the show’s spinoff series Torchwood. He wants to set up a chat.

Long before he was Doctor Who boss, Chibnall was a writer and co-producer on Torchwood. He also contributed scripts for David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors in the main show. And now that he’s the man in charge of Who, Barrowman is keen to set a meeting.

Barrowman revealed this to the Radio Times in a new interview, saying:

“Without going into too much detail, I actually a while back contacted Chris. He was the Torchwood showrunner for a while. I was doing meetings with different production companies all around the US including the CW, and the one things out of everyone’s mouth was ‘How would we get a hold of Torchwood? To do it?’

“And I thought ‘That’s an interesting question,’ and a lot of people were asking that. ‘How can we get a hold of that brand to do it, to start making it again?’

“So I then started putting the feelers out and contacting people. And I actually wrote to Chris and I said to him, ‘Would he be interested in being a part of something like that? Or something like that, I can’t remember how the email went.’”

When this conversation was being had, Chibnall was still in the process of making his deal with the BBC to take over as Doctor Who showrunner. Here’s how Barrowman remembers his response to the Torchwood email:

“He e-mailed me back, and he said ‘As you probably know, I’m in the middle of something very big at the moment, and I can’t discuss anything else.’

“But he said ‘Let’s talk when things calm down a bit.’ And that was just at the beginning of his negotiations for Doctor Who.”

It sounds like Barrowman is still waiting for that talk to happen. To be fair, from Chibnall’s point of view, things may not have calmed down just yet. But Barrowman seems hopeful that Chibnall is the right guy to talk to:

“Who knows? If anyone can do it, it’s Chris. Chris is the one who can make the decision, because it’s always the decision of the showrunner of Doctor Who.

“I was told that that’s the person who can decide about bringing back Torchwood. Or Captain Jack to Doctor Who.”

It seems like Barrowman is the one pushing for conversations to happen, but all the decisions would need to be made by Chibnall and the BBC.

You can’t fault Barrowman’s commitment to the Torchwood brand, though. As well as trying to get talks started for a TV return, he also writes Torchwood novels and appears in Big Finish’s audio productions.

As we hear more about Barrowman’s bids to bring back Torchwood, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Radio Times