Veteran actor Bill Pullman will be a series regular in the fourth season of Torchwood, Michael Ausiello reports, joining returning stars John Barrowman and Eva Myles and the just-cast Mekhi Phifer.

Pullman, best known for movies like Independence Day, Lost Highway and Lake Placid, will play Oswald Jones, a "dangerously clever" convicted murderer who is released from prison on a technicality and becomes a media sensation: "Genuinely repentant yet boiling with lust and rage, Oswald gets caught up in a terrifying worldwide crisis." Phifer (Lie to Me, ER), meanwhile, is Rex Matheson, a CIA golden boy on the agency's fast track.

Announced in June, the 10-episode fourth season -- it's titled Torchwood: The New World -- is co-produced by Starz and BBC Worldwide, and will air on both networks this summer. Torchwood creator Russell T. Davies returns as showrunner for the new season, which is described as having an “international scope.” "It's very much the next step," Davies said back in June. It's not a new version, it's not a reboot. We're simply moving countries."

A spin-off of Doctor Who, Torchwood — an anagram of “Doctor Who” — debuted in 2006 on BBC Three. It focuses on the Cardiff, Wales, branch of the Torchwood Institute, an organization established by Queen Victoria to defend the Earth against extraterrestrial threats.