BBC America Acquires Season Five of "Doctor Who," Touts "Torchwood" Ratings

BBC America has today announced that it has committed to airing the upcoming fifth season of Doctor Who, starring Matt Smith as the Doctor.

Season Five of Doctor Who, which has Smith assuming the mantle of the time-traveling Doctor from outbound series star David Tennant, is set to air in the second quarter of 2010 and BBC America has said that the US broadcast will be "following soon after its UK premiere."

No clarification yet as to how close the window will be between the US and UK transmissions of Doctor Who's fifth season, which sees Jekyll's Steven Moffat take over as head writer/executive producer.

The news was announced in a press release this morning announcing the ratings success of five-episode Torchwood: Children of Earth, which lured a cumulative audience of 3.3 million viewers, propelling the digital cabler to its best week ever.

The full press release from BBC America, announcing the Torchwood ratings and the digital cabler's acquisition of Season Five of Doctor Who, can be found below.

BBC AMERICA's Best Week Ever - 3.3 Million Tune in to Torchwood

BBC AMERICA also announces the U.S. premiere of the new Doctor Who series starring Matt Smith

NEW YORK, Aug. 10 -- BBC AMERICA's recent week of sci-fi gave the channel its best week ever. The week of July 20 saw the U.S. premiere of three key sci-fi titles - the five night miniseries Torchwood: Children of Earth, the first of four Doctor Who specials starring David Tennant, Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead and the latest buzz show from the UK Being Human.

Torchwood: Children of Earth is BBC AMERICA's most successful series ever, reaching 3.3m in Live+SD across the week. It delivered an average audience of 705,000 viewers per episode, with Friday's finale attracting 847,000, the largest average audience in the channel's history. Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead also performed strongly with 657,000 viewers in Live+SD.

In the Monday-Friday, 9-10P hour among A25-54, BBC AMERICA ranked #13 in coverage rating (.51) and #22 in delivery (380k) among the 75 Nielsen-rated ad supported cable networks. For the week, July 20, in the 9-10P hour, the channel - available in 64 million homes - outperformed, in Live+SD A25-54 delivery several nets with significantly higher distribution, such as MSNBC, Animal Planet, Bravo, BET, Travel, Oxygen, Hallmark, TV Land, Soap, MTV, E!, WE, and Headline News.

Following on the strong ratings, critical acclaim and rapturous reception at San Diego's Comic-Con for all three sci-fi titles - including a standing ovation for Doctor Who's David Tennant - BBC AMERICA has announced the acquisition of the new season of Doctor Who starring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. Shot in HD, the U.S. premiere season of 13 episodes, will air Q2, 2010 following soon after its UK premiere.

The lead writer is Steven Moffat (Jekyll, Coupling) with Executive Producers Piers Wenger (Ballet Shoes), Beth Willis (Ashes to Ashes) and Steven Moffat. It is a BBC Wales production for BBC ONE and distributed by BBC Worldwide.

BBC AMERICA brings audiences a new generation of award-winning television featuring news with a uniquely global perspective, provocative dramas, razor-sharp comedies and life-changing makeovers. BBC AMERICA pushes the boundaries to deliver high quality, highly addictive and eminently watchable programming to viewers who demand more. It is available on digital cable and satellite TV in more than 64 million homes.

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season ...

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In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj...

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