neadods: (tbabyJack)
neadods ([personal profile] neadods) wrote2010-01-19 08:15 pm
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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.

[identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com 2010-01-21 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
Hmmm.... nobody who's actually worked with the man has breathed a word short of "he's a brilliant god" that I've heard, but some of his interviews have had a certain... resentment against anyone who *doesn't* call him a brilliant god.

I wonder if he became too expensive. Who under him was so laden with CGI and special effects it has to have been a huge line item in the BBC budget.

[identity profile] bloodredroses1.livejournal.com 2010-01-21 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes oh yes on the SFX expense thing. That's one of the things I was thinking of under the umbrella of "difficult to work with". By that I mean he'll have a vision that he's very set on getting on-screen & the fact that it just might be a wee bit expensive to do isn't the at the forefront of his mind, only getting his vision out.

I know he knows how to cut corners & back off of things sometimes because of his various commentary tracks on the DW & TW DVDs But he's also been giving the impression that he getting more intractable the more successful he's become.

Then again this could very easily be nothing more than my bitterness at what he did to turn TW from a funny, quirky little show into Series 3's ball of gloom, doom & misery.

And yeah he's kinda been giving off the attitude of 'Recognize my greatness OR ELSE!!!' for awhile now. He just makes me want to scream "GOOD IDEAS, NO FOLLOW THROUGH!" at him until one of our heads explode.

Morgan

[identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com 2010-01-22 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
By that I mean he'll have a vision that he's very set on getting on-screen & the fact that it just might be a wee bit expensive to do isn't the at the forefront of his mind, only getting his vision out.

*thinks of Moffat saying he kicked and screamed for the very elaborate and expensive shot of the Doctor jumping a horse through a mirror* They may not be saving any money there.

this could very easily be nothing more than my bitterness at what he did to turn TW from a funny, quirky little show into Series 3's ball of gloom, doom & misery.

Right with ya there. And it started out so promisingly...