Barrowman Asked To Be Killed Off In Desperate Housewives

…so that he could appear in Torchwood series four (or is that season four now it’s gone all American on us?)

John Barrowman has told the website Filmshaft that he implored the creators of Desperate Housewives to kill off his villainous character, Patrick Logan, after a five-episode guest stint so that he could appear in Torchwood series four.

“Negotiations have been underway for some time,” Barrowman confides to the site. “I was in discussions with the creator of Desperate Housewives , one of the top three television series in the whole world, and he invited me to play Patrick. It was such a good role playing the baddie and I really wanted to do it. But I also didn’t want to spoil the Torchwood deal, so I told him that if I played Patrick he’d have to find a way to kill me off and he went along with that. Desperate Housewives is so huge that it actually helped to seal the Torchwood deal, so everyone is happy.”

That last comment is interesting. As Russell T Davies has always stressed he wouldn’t do Torchwood without Barrowman, does that mean there was a chance we wouldn’t have got the American-backed fourth series if the networks hadn’t thought that Barrowman was a big enough name? Or were they pushing for a Barrowman-less Torchwood ? Either way, it’s a moot point now, and it’s all thanks to Wisteria Lane and a bomb. Hurrah!