After the raging success of Torchwood: Children Of Earth - a major critical and commercial success for the BBC earlier this year - we sat and awaited the official confirmation that Torchwood would return for a fourth season. And while it's been pretty much accepted that it would be, any kind of confirmation has not been forthcoming. Recently, Russell T Davies revealed that they'd be starting work on the new series in January, but it wasn't clear whether it would retain the five episode format, or be back for 13 episodes.

Well, thanks to our chums at Blogtor Who to alerting us to an interview that Captain Jack Harkness himself, John Barrowman, gave on BBC Radio yesterday. In it, he confirmed that not only is Torchwood returning to our screens, but it has, indeed, got a 13 episode order.

He did hint that timings hadn't yet been sorted, and given that a 13-episode season is likely to take eight or nine months to film, there's clearly a lot of work yet to go. But this is great news, particularly if the show picks up on the themes and aftermath of Children Of Earth well. There's little reason why it shouldn't.

In the same interview, incidentally, Barrowman also revealed that he hadn't been asked to appear in the new series of Doctor Who, and that he wasn't necessarily expecting to be brought back either.

Blogtor Who has the audio interview here.