Captain Jack to play it straight in US?

Former Doctor Who showrunner and Torchwood creator Russel T. Davies has been tapped by US producers to adapt his original series, Torchwood, to a US audience. While that’s the good news, the cautionary note is that US producers are asking Davies, who is gay, to transform Torchwood’s male lead character, Captain Jack Harkness, from an “omnisexual” character to one who is straight.

While Davies is allegedly willing to consider such a change for US audiences, the actor who originated the role on the BBC version, John Barrowman, isn’t excited by the prospect, regardless of whether he’s tapped to reprise the role, play it out via security cameras, or not involved at all0.

Barrowman has said, “The last thing I would want would be for Jack to become this heterosexual, straight hero. He’s an omnisexual guy. He likes men, women, aliens, whatever. I think we should continue going down that route.”

Fox is currently the US network showing the most interest in a US adaptation of Torchwood. Whether Captain Jack remains gay/omni/metro or not, however, the biggest challenge to adapting the show to US audiences is redefining the series concept; on BBC, the show was a direct spin-off of Doctor Who, and Torchwood is actually an anagram of the words Doctor Who; without a US version of Doctor Who to help explain the origin and purpose of Torchwood, the show could come off as a cheap imitator of Fringe or X-Files.