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neadodsBefore I start the main post, an utterly OT link: PoC might be interested in seeing one of the Golding spindles showcased by Lime & Violet. I have a Golding lucet and ballwinder; all his tools are works of art.
Now - there's a lot of discussion, particularly post-CoE (no spoilers in this post) of RTD playing blatant favorites among his characters, particularly for Gwen and Rose. (Rose always returning like the cat that came back, muscling in on both her successors, and Gwen, the untouchable POV character in Torchwood. No matter what else happens, Gwen stays around and stays more or less the same, because she's the one we're supposed to be using as our one and only gateway to the Torchwood world. Note that she is always said to be providing the team's "heart" and "conscience" - when it would be more useful and more flattering to point out that she's also providing the team's only grasp of investigation and police procedure beyond "Bugger off, Torchwood's here.")
There's a lot of evidence to support this point of view, especially in light of what RTD has been saying at SDCC post CoE. (One more acronym, and I might as well be writing something for work!) He may say that all characters are equal, but some are obviously more equal than others.
But at the same time, I have to give him credit, because no matter how he hints and implies, he has not come right out and said "This show is about character X and if you like character Y more, you're stupid and deluded."
And yes, that has happened. Ask a Highlander fan - or at least one who wasn't a fan of The Highlander himself.
(Ob disclaimer: I was not a Highlander fan. Most of what I'm about to relate comes from knowing Richie and Methos fans.)
The producer was very much into Duncan. Duncan was very much his Marty Stu. And if anyone liked the show and didn't like Duncan best of all - well, the producer himself would start the flamewar.
The thing is, you can't predict fannish reactions. We're going to like who we like, and if it's the elf in the background who has no lines and no action (Google "Figwit"), then that's who we're going to like. And in a series show, every single character is going to have their fans, whether they're "meant" to or not.
Which meant that Highlander Duncan had some pretty stiff competition from his own friends.
The first was Methos, the lazy, morally ambiguous but mostly good-ish Immortal. He was supposed to be a background exposition character, but from the moment he appeared, fans gravitated to him. In response to that popularity he was made a regular character instead of a recurring one - but in order to disgust the fandom into turning away from him and returning to the love of Duncan, the producer suddenly gave Methos a terrible dark background as an evil, asskicking villain.
The producer couldn't have made fans flock to Methos faster if he'd stripped Peter Wingfield naked and dipped him in chocolate. Arguably, by making someone smart and strong into a reformed bad boy, the producer pretty much HAD dipped him in chocolate. Or fannip. (Which is like catnip, only it's visual and works on people.)
Oops.
The other character who threatened Duncan's supremacy (for some reason, watcher Joe's fans didn't count) was sidekick Richie. Richie was getting a lot of attention.
But what makes the difference between RTD and the Highlander producer is how he handled this second threat to Duncan's supremacy. The producer not only wrote Richie out, he personally launched into the Richie fans when they talked to him at cons. He encouraged the Duncan fans to harass them off the assorted fan forums. He even let the tie-in authors blow off the Richie fans; one of them went on record saying it was "unimportant" that her book didn't even get Richie's physical description right.
I run 50% like and loathe on RTD; he successfully brought back Who and invented lots of fascinating characters - but overall I find his writing puts emotional manipulation over basic plot logic and his stories are as repetitive as a reused teabag. His con comments and interviews tend to be self-congratulative and shockingly dismissive of fandom, but he openly admits that that's the culture that he, his writers, and his current star came from.
But y'know what? He's never flat-out told a fan of Jack, Tosh, Owen, Ianto, Martha, Donna, Wilf, Jackie, or Mickey that they're wrong for liking those characters. And by blowing off all of Internet fandom en masse, he's not telling Group A that it's open season on Group B.
As smug as he can be - as often as he repeats things that I don't want to hear and don't entirely believe - there have been producers who are WAY nastier to the fans and take far more pleasure in bullying them into "rightful" thinking.
Now - there's a lot of discussion, particularly post-CoE (no spoilers in this post) of RTD playing blatant favorites among his characters, particularly for Gwen and Rose. (Rose always returning like the cat that came back, muscling in on both her successors, and Gwen, the untouchable POV character in Torchwood. No matter what else happens, Gwen stays around and stays more or less the same, because she's the one we're supposed to be using as our one and only gateway to the Torchwood world. Note that she is always said to be providing the team's "heart" and "conscience" - when it would be more useful and more flattering to point out that she's also providing the team's only grasp of investigation and police procedure beyond "Bugger off, Torchwood's here.")
There's a lot of evidence to support this point of view, especially in light of what RTD has been saying at SDCC post CoE. (One more acronym, and I might as well be writing something for work!) He may say that all characters are equal, but some are obviously more equal than others.
But at the same time, I have to give him credit, because no matter how he hints and implies, he has not come right out and said "This show is about character X and if you like character Y more, you're stupid and deluded."
And yes, that has happened. Ask a Highlander fan - or at least one who wasn't a fan of The Highlander himself.
(Ob disclaimer: I was not a Highlander fan. Most of what I'm about to relate comes from knowing Richie and Methos fans.)
The producer was very much into Duncan. Duncan was very much his Marty Stu. And if anyone liked the show and didn't like Duncan best of all - well, the producer himself would start the flamewar.
The thing is, you can't predict fannish reactions. We're going to like who we like, and if it's the elf in the background who has no lines and no action (Google "Figwit"), then that's who we're going to like. And in a series show, every single character is going to have their fans, whether they're "meant" to or not.
Which meant that Highlander Duncan had some pretty stiff competition from his own friends.
The first was Methos, the lazy, morally ambiguous but mostly good-ish Immortal. He was supposed to be a background exposition character, but from the moment he appeared, fans gravitated to him. In response to that popularity he was made a regular character instead of a recurring one - but in order to disgust the fandom into turning away from him and returning to the love of Duncan, the producer suddenly gave Methos a terrible dark background as an evil, asskicking villain.
The producer couldn't have made fans flock to Methos faster if he'd stripped Peter Wingfield naked and dipped him in chocolate. Arguably, by making someone smart and strong into a reformed bad boy, the producer pretty much HAD dipped him in chocolate. Or fannip. (Which is like catnip, only it's visual and works on people.)
Oops.
The other character who threatened Duncan's supremacy (for some reason, watcher Joe's fans didn't count) was sidekick Richie. Richie was getting a lot of attention.
But what makes the difference between RTD and the Highlander producer is how he handled this second threat to Duncan's supremacy. The producer not only wrote Richie out, he personally launched into the Richie fans when they talked to him at cons. He encouraged the Duncan fans to harass them off the assorted fan forums. He even let the tie-in authors blow off the Richie fans; one of them went on record saying it was "unimportant" that her book didn't even get Richie's physical description right.
I run 50% like and loathe on RTD; he successfully brought back Who and invented lots of fascinating characters - but overall I find his writing puts emotional manipulation over basic plot logic and his stories are as repetitive as a reused teabag. His con comments and interviews tend to be self-congratulative and shockingly dismissive of fandom, but he openly admits that that's the culture that he, his writers, and his current star came from.
But y'know what? He's never flat-out told a fan of Jack, Tosh, Owen, Ianto, Martha, Donna, Wilf, Jackie, or Mickey that they're wrong for liking those characters. And by blowing off all of Internet fandom en masse, he's not telling Group A that it's open season on Group B.
As smug as he can be - as often as he repeats things that I don't want to hear and don't entirely believe - there have been producers who are WAY nastier to the fans and take far more pleasure in bullying them into "rightful" thinking.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 01:38 am (UTC)If you're not a Panzer fan, why have you sought out this post to defend him? Why are you redirecting the discussion into profit and business when I'm discussing how producers treated fans, including Panzer's actions at conventions as reported to me by someone who attended those conventions? Why do you keep telling me Panzer was groundbreaking in how he treated the Internet fandom when all he did was repeat how pre-Internet showrunners had treated pre-Internet fandoms (and during the rise of the Internet behaved no differently than Bellisario, Roddenbery, Koslow, and George Lucas)?
Although, my main curiosity at this point is where this post has been linked. It has to have been somewhere, considering the number of people not on my flist and not on my friends-friends lists showing up.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 02:25 am (UTC)I'm not trying to defend Bill Panzer; I'm trying to point out his motives. I don't follow Torchwood so I don't have any idea why the show runner killed off certain characters. I do know why Richie was killed off. Money. That's straight from David Abramowitz at the Memphis PWFC convention.
I guess I'm not making myself clear or I didn't understand your point. I thought the question was: Why do producers do the things they do? You gave Richie as an example. Why was he killed off? They didn't kill him for shock value -- although it was shocking. They had to make a choice due to budget issues and Stan Kirsch wanted out. That was their motive. Simple enough from a business standpoint but very hard on the fans.
As for Bill Panzer's stance on fandom, the Internet was revolutionary to fan activities. The prevailing thought at that time was that, now that fandom was visible, something should be done about copyright infringement. The question had come up in pre-Internet days, yes, and most producers chose to ignore what we were doing. There was no profit for anyone in fandom before the Internet. That there could be profit from the Internet meant something had to be done. Panzer said no. So did other producers. Keep ignoring it and enjoy the free advertising. That attitude is why every fan writer puts a disclaimer on their stories, why every artist says, hey, no profit here. We don't want to get sued. They don't want to sue us. Lawsuits cost money. So, because Bill Panzer and other show runners decided to keep the pre-Internet status quo, we, as fans, can have our fun. That's all I'm saying. Panzer was a businessman and money was always his motive. He had a one-trick pony -- Highlander -- and he lived well from it. Why did Wright kill off Beckett and Weir on SGA? I don't know. But I do know why Richie was killed. Money. You asked; that's the answer. And, no, he didn't care if it upset the fans. He didn't care as long as it didn't cost him money. And in the end, it did cost him money but that's what you get for being a bottom-line businessman.