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Riiiiight: My $.02 on the Torchwood in America thing
T3 link: lj user="neadods"> a href="http://neadods.livejournal.com/929522.html">is dubious about the Fox remake
So, the flist is buzzing about RTD and his creative team remaking Torchwood in the US under the aegis not of BBCA, but Fox. (I've already seen it dubbed "Foxwood.")
Let me rephrase this.
The guy who said he was moving on to fresh stories is instead continuing to recap an old project...
... in a completely different country than where the brand was successfully built up...
... a country in which this show only gets big numbers when compared only to the usual viewing numbers of a cable channel that doesn't appear in many markets...
... and he's doing this under the financial support not of that comparatively tiny cable company for which he got those ratings...
... he's doing it under the financial support of a company that got its financial ass handed to it the last time it tried to do an American reboot of the parent property.
And he is apparently going to continue to use the name of (and thus the concept of) a British group founded by a British Queen to forward British interests because of course America cares deeply about this sort of thing and doesn't have any baggage about the British Empire...
...and he's going to hang the show off of an actor that nobody outside of the fandom has heard of because he built his reputation in British theater and TV, not America.
When you look at it like that, it couldn't possibly be dubious news or (if real) remotely doomed to failure.
So, the flist is buzzing about RTD and his creative team remaking Torchwood in the US under the aegis not of BBCA, but Fox. (I've already seen it dubbed "Foxwood.")
Let me rephrase this.
The guy who said he was moving on to fresh stories is instead continuing to recap an old project...
... in a completely different country than where the brand was successfully built up...
... a country in which this show only gets big numbers when compared only to the usual viewing numbers of a cable channel that doesn't appear in many markets...
... and he's doing this under the financial support not of that comparatively tiny cable company for which he got those ratings...
... he's doing it under the financial support of a company that got its financial ass handed to it the last time it tried to do an American reboot of the parent property.
And he is apparently going to continue to use the name of (and thus the concept of) a British group founded by a British Queen to forward British interests because of course America cares deeply about this sort of thing and doesn't have any baggage about the British Empire...
...and he's going to hang the show off of an actor that nobody outside of the fandom has heard of because he built his reputation in British theater and TV, not America.
When you look at it like that, it couldn't possibly be dubious news or (if real) remotely doomed to failure.
no subject
Which only points out what I've been thinking all along - that this is much sound and fury signifying nothing. Torchwood S4 remains the vaporware it's been all along, despite the noise that it's coming back any minute now, bigger, stronger, faster.
How many good shows NEVER get past a pilot episode?
Quite a lot, and some don't even make it to the pilot episode.
In Torchwood's case, it's got a hugely uphill climb. Even if RTD wants to remake it entirely from scratch, he's going to have to differentiate it from all of the other supernatural/alien mystery shoot-em-ups with which our networks are littered. And he's going to have to do so without some of what he considers to be edgy plot points - murdering kids onscreen will NOT play in Peoria!
no subject
It's a soniced-up, televisual eyegasm - or so it hopes.
And he's going to have to do so without some of what he considers to be edgy plot points - murdering kids onscreen will NOT play in Peoria!
And undoubtedly kissing the bf won't play well either.
What no one has noticed is that this story broke on the Guardian Media page at the same time as another which reports A tiger aspect managing director leaving the UK/BBC for Warner Bros International. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/19/andrew-zein-leaving-tiger-aspect) Tiger Aspect (http://www.tigeraspect.co.uk/?page_id=6) being a company that - together with Kudos the Beeb commissions a great deal of high profile programming from.
I think the money is really really
tightnon-existant at the moment. At Brits think the US have money - a year ago maybe studios did. Now? I'm not so sure about that either.no subject
So no change there. :D
undoubtedly kissing the bf won't play well either.
I think that's going to depend on when/where it's aired. Some cable outpost may get away with it. Otherwise, yeah, it's going to be like homosexuality on Will and Grace - more innuendo and flirting than actual anything. And lines about poodles will be *right* out!
Tiger Aspect I don't know anything about, so I bow to your knowledge there.
Now? I'm not so sure about that either.
Hard to say. Some entertainment is doing well, as it did in the last great depression. But not all entertainment is doing well, and money *still* isn't flowing. I don't think that the execs anywhere are going to be willing to put a lot of $ into anything that they don't think will be a huge hit right out of the gate. They haven't got much left to gamble with.