Torchwood, the much more adult spinoff of Doctor Who, returns next week with its third season. This time, however, things are a bit different – instead of the usual 13 self-contained episodes that the science fiction series has done for the past two seasons, Torchwood will tell a single terrifying story over five consecutive nights.
In Torchwood: Children of Earth (airing July 20 to 24 on Space), the human race is thrown into chaos when every child in the world begins chanting in unison, announcing the imminent arrival of a mysterious alien race known only as the 456. As usual, the Torchwood crew of Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) and Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) are the only ones who can stop the 456, but there's a bit of a wrinkle: the British government wants Torchwood eliminated.
The change of format may seem a bit jarring at first to North American viewers who are used to a 22- or 13-week season, but Myles insists that the five-part Children of Earth miniseries raises the stakes and makes this Torchwood story more epic than anything they've done before.
"You get to a third series on something and the audience knows what to expect," she says. "They're expecting 13 individual stories with Jack, Gwen and Ianto. They're expecting what they had in the last two series; that it won't change in the third."
By choosing a different way of telling a story, Myles goes on, Torchwood lets the audience know that anything can happen and no one is safe.
"Over the first two series, the stories that would last over two episodes were my favourite episodes because they were just stronger, so to have five hours to tell one story, my God, it's massive," explains the 31-year-old Welsh actress. "[Executive producers] Russell Davies and Julie Gardner – complete legends. Completely turned Torchwood on its head, revamped it, relaunched it, changed the concept and it's a completely different series. It's brand new. It's bigger than the 26 episodes that you've seen in Series 1 and 2. These five hours are massive. It was exhausting!"
The fact that every child in the world is in danger certainly amps up the tension and the creepiness factor, especially when every one of them stops what they're doing and begins chanting message from their alien controllers. There's something about using children for this purpose that is far scarier than if the victims were adults.
"It's because they tell the truth and they don't care about how they sound and what backlash it's going to have. I think anything that involves children is very creepy and there's a certain element of surrealism in there," Myles posits. "Because the children are the threat in this series, all the children in the world, it heightens the drama and it heightens the danger. Yeah, those kids are very creepy."
So how does Myles feel about that aspect of the story, given that she herself is five months pregnant?
She giggles nervously. "Yep, terrified!"
Of course, Children of Earth was filmed before Myles was in her current condition, which allowed her to perform most of her own stunts, something she relishes in her job.
"I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I kind of love doing it. I've got fantastic stunt doubles; they're amazing. But if I can do it, I will do it, and in this series, I do all my own stunts. There are explosions and I'm jumping on vehicles, out of vehicles, all the fight sequences – I got to do them myself. But oh, my God, it hurt," she remembers, laughing. "I was in agony, but it's part of the job of being Gwen Cooper because you can tell when it's not the actor doing stunts."
Besides, the physical pain wasn't really an issue for Myles, who just couldn't wait kick some evil alien butt again.
"Getting back to playing Gwen Cooper – as soon as the boots and that leather jacket are on, I'm looking for my guns and I'm ready," she says. "It was brilliant to get back."
Torchwood: Children of Earth airs July 20 to July 24 at 10 p.m. ET on Space.
Read more with Eve Myles on TV Casualty
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