Fire Walk With Me: "Torchwood" Renewed For Season Three But Only as Mini-Series

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

The good news is that BBC import Torchwood WILL be back for a third season of Rift-related mayhem and saving the world next season though we'll have to wait until at least next spring in order to catch Season Three. (BBC America hasn't yet announced that it has acquired the third season or scheduled an airdate yet.)

And John Barrowman's dashing ex-time agent Captain Jack Harkness will be back as well, leading the Torchwood team (whoever they might be, though I am keeping my fingers crossed that Eve Myles will return) into the fray once more.

And now for the not-so-good news: Torchwood's third season will be a greatly compacted one. Rather than the thirteen episodes Torchwood aired in its first two outings, Season Three will be comprised of one five one-hour installments.

While this had been the rumor about the series' return, TV Guide has now confirmed this as fact: Season Three's five episode arc will comprise a mini-series with a single storyline running through the episodes rather than procedural-based plots.

"We've decided to do a five-part mini-series, one big story that will run during one week," said Torchwood executive producer Julie Gardner. "I wanted to make a really big noise about the show."

TV Guide goes on to hint that while the initial order at the Beeb is for the five hours only, it is possible that they could order further episodes down the line.

Personally, I was hoping for an eleventh hour reversal of the five-episode order for Torchwood as I would love to see another full season of this gripping sci-fi drama that's a darker counterpoint to its sister series Doctor Who. While I am happy that it's coming back at all, I wonder when US audiences will get to see it and feel that there's no way in hell that BBC America will strip the series across five nights in one week. Which could mean that the Torchwood mini gets drawn out over five weeks' time instead.

In the meantime, truncated seasons seem to be all the rage: Doctor Who next season will transform from a weekly episodic series to a collection of four feature-length specials for Season Five.

Production on Season Three of Torchwood begins in August for a planned Spring 2009 transmission on BBC1.

Stay tuned.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Price is Right Million Dollar Spectacular (CBS); Most Outrageous Moments/Most Outrageous Moments (NBC); America's Next Top Model (CW); Wife Swap (ABC); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Farmer Wants a Wife (CW); Supernanny (ABC)

10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); Men in Trees (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

9 pm: MI-5 on BBC America.

If you missed MI-5 (aka Spooks) when it aired on A&E a few years back, you can catch it tonight on BBC America. On tonight's installment ("Divided They Fall"), MI-5 attempts to infiltrate a radical political party whose candidate (guest star Rupert Graves) is causing riots and animosity against asylum seekers.

10 pm: Top Chef on Bravo.

On tonight's episode ("Puerto Rico"), the final four chefs travel to Puerto Rico to compete for the last three spots in the competition, Lisa shows off her new hairstyle, Richard gets saw-happy, and one of these chefs will have to pack their knives and fly home.

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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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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Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

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