It's a pile of Whoniverse news in one place.  First, the official website for new series The Sarah Jane Adventures has gone live.  The series follows the Doctor's former Companion as she investigates strange phenomena with the help of three teenagers.  The show premieres later this year on CBBC.

John Barrowman recently gave an interiew with IGN about his role on Torchwood, which has recently begun playing on BBC America.  Barrowman said, "We're our own entity, the only thing that relates Doctor Who to Torchwood is Captain Jack. Because he's the character who goes between the two. Torchwood is his own while with The Doctor he's a companion. So I would say it's more an adult drama than it is an adult version. If adult means it has sex and swearing and violence, than yes, that's what it is. The thing that Russell doesn't like calling it is a spin-off."

He continued, "If you go back to even before Doctor Who when Julie Gardner and Russell Davies began to discuss it, Russell actually had the idea that he wanted to do a TV show about a group of five people that were based in the UK to fight alien technology and they were a sexy crime fighting organization. That was going to be called Excalibur. And then they said 'Well, let's talk about Doctor Who.' So Doctor Who happened and Jack was written into Doctor Who at about episode nine, for five episodes. And the public, I don't know why, took to him and loved him. He's become iconic. The Doctor and Jack are now the two iconic science fiction figures in the UK. And that's when they said look, let's have Jack head Torchwood, this Excalibur organization. We'll call it Torchwood, which is an anagram of 'Doctor Who,' which keeps it all in the family. And Jack will go off and do Torchwood and his story will start there, but he'll be linked to Doctor Who and we can bring him back in. And it's worked out to be the most - excuse me - f***ing brilliant job I've ever done in my life."

James Marsters, who is turning in at least one performance on Torchwood this season, is giving a concert in Cardiff, Wales on November 17th to celebrate the release of "Celtic Blues."  Torchwood castmate Gareth David Lloyd and his Blues Band will back him up.  Tickets are on sale now.

Marsters caught up with Entertainment Weekly last week, reminiscing about his days on Buffy.  "Joss came to me as Angel was coming down and asked me if I would be interested in that, and I said, 'Heck yeah, I'd love to work with you anytime, call me — I'll come across the Earth for you.' But to do Spike, let's do him [before] seven years [go by], because otherwise, I'm going to get too old and vampires don't age. Frankly, I think I'm looking a little better than I thought I would, and with a decent screen test we could find out if it was still possible. It has to be believable. [But] I don't think the character of Spike really sparked Joss' imagination. I think that he was designed to be a throwaway character that got popular with the fans. Personally, he never really got into him. Every character on the show was a version of Joss, but Joss didn't see Spike that way. Spike was the other guy. He was the guy who might mess up the show, actually, because vampires are supposed to be ugly and hated."

Finally, in news from Doctor Who itself, the 2008 tie-in novels have been announced, and Martha Jones is still being listed as the major Companion, to the point of having her name in the title of one ("Martha in the Mirror").  This isn't solid proof but is pretty decent evidence that the BBC and co. intend to keep Freema Agyeman on the cast past the end of next season, when prior rumors had claimed she was on her way out the door after a brief return.  Good news for Martha fans!

(Sources: IGN, Entertainment Weekly)