neadods: (tbabyJack)
[personal profile] neadods
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.

Date: 2010-01-20 01:21 am (UTC)
evil_plotbunny: A bunny goes where a bunny must (team)
From: [personal profile] evil_plotbunny
Oh, there might be a small fraction of people who've heard of the actor because he's the guy Neil Patrick Harris fought in the #biggay battle just last week. ;)

But you forgot the part where he's doing it with a channel that has a history of scheduling quirky shows badly, airing them out of order and canceling them just as they're starting to find an audience.

Sigh.

Date: 2010-01-20 01:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com
he's doing it with a channel that has a history of scheduling quirky shows badly, airing them out of order and canceling them just as they're starting to find an audience.

That too, *especially* with SF. But I'd really think after the ass-whipping they got over Doctor Who, the Movie, all their financial people would start twitching at the very idea of going near the Whoniverse again.

Date: 2010-01-20 01:32 am (UTC)
evil_plotbunny: A bunny goes where a bunny must (Default)
From: [personal profile] evil_plotbunny
On the other hand, if they make nice, there might be a DVD of the movie in the US's future....

Date: 2010-01-20 01:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tiggerallyn.livejournal.com
Vivendi Universal (which has the DVD rights) has no interest.

I was hopeful, around the time they started showing Eccleston's season on the Sci-Fi Channel. But they don't see the value. Doctor Who isn't their property. Yes, they're leaving money on the table, but realistically it's such a piddling amount it doesn't even register. *shrug*

Date: 2010-01-20 01:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tiggerallyn.livejournal.com
You forget Hollywood's capacity for self-delusion. And also Hollywood's capacity to ignore the mistakes of one's predecessors. The people in charge at FOX in 1994 and 1995, when the negotiations were ongoing, weren't there in 1996 when the film was broadcast. It wasn't the financials that doomed Doctor Who (no matter what Philip Segal says), it was the fact that it was an orphaned project and no one at FOX had any vested interest in doing anything more with it than a single one-off movie (again, no matter what Philip Segal says).

Torchwood would be an easier sell to an American network, because it's something familiar. (Hell, I'd ramp up the procedural aspects for an American network — pitch it as NCIS with aliens.) Doctor Who's format is, frankly, a little out there for an American mass audience. (Which is where I think Segal went wrong, by the way; maybe I've mentioned in the past how Segal should have pitched Doctor Who to FOX. The format's freedom is also its Achilles Heel.)

Honestly, I'm indifferent to the BBC's motives here. If they want to try and sell FOX on an American Torchwood series, more power to them. If it goes to series, I'll watch it until FOX pulls the plug. (Summer Glau for the Gwen-type character, maybe?)

But what will really entertain me is what I've been seeing online today — the rampant fear about how (and if!) this will fit into the Doctor Who universe. Really, that's the last thing that anyone should care about at the moment. If it fits, it fits. (And I've seen some reasonable speculation that when Barrowman's talked about the fourth season, that when RTD says he knows where and how the fourth season begins, this is what he's talking about.) If it doesn't fit, so what? It doesn't fit. It's a variation on a theme. It's not that Doctor Who plays fast and loose with its continuity, though it does. It's that Doctor Who absolutely revels in being as wide-open as it is. The seventh Doctor can become a god and die in The Infinity Doctors. There can be three different Doctors that follow McGann. The Infinity Doctors can be absolutely, literally true, even though it fits absolutely nowhere. The Doctor can be half-human and be completely Time Lord. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Sorry. Soapbox.

Suffice it to say, I think the development of this series is going to be fascinating, if only to see fandom have a meltdown. :)

Date: 2010-01-20 02:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com
Torchwood would be an easier sell to an American network, because it's something familiar.

*Too* familiar, considering the number of alien/supernatural shoot-em-ups we've got going on right now. Let's see... in addition to reruns of Buffy, Angel, and X-Files, there's Fringe, Supernatural, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary (or has that been canceled?), True Blood...

I'm thinking that we've hit max saturation on the whole genre.

If it goes to series, I'll watch it until FOX pulls the plug.

I don't know, personally. On one hand, I'm totally over RTD's throw-it-at-the-screen form of storytelling. On the other, our censors won't let him snuff little kids on screen. (And on the third hand - we are talking aliens here - I'm hearing rumors that it may be set in DC. The idea of an anti-Government nut with no grasp of the American mindset setting his show in our capitol is so damned funny that I may watch for the point-and-laugh value.)

the rampant fear about how (and if!) this will fit into the Doctor Who universe

I'm not even going to think about that until (if) they film. Because so far, there is still no proof of an actual deal here.

Date: 2010-01-20 02:43 am (UTC)
ext_5608: (Default)
From: [identity profile] wiliqueen.livejournal.com
Sanctuary is about as secure as anything ever is on SyFy, and just had an apocalyptically cliffhangery season finale. And it is already the North American TW in a lot of ways -- steampunky trappings, shadowy organization with multiple locations, immortal leader, and all. (Bit less collateral damage, but sometimes only a bit.)

Even discounting SPN and TB as straight-up urban fantasy with no SF overtones, you've got that, W13, and Fringe to contend with.

Date: 2010-01-20 02:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com
Considering RTD's announcement that people should watch Supernatural and his (over)use of demons and prophecies, I wouldn't be surprised that *if* there is a pitch and *if* it is successful - I'm still highly dubious on both points - it will be as an urban fantasy.

Date: 2010-01-20 05:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stoplookingup.livejournal.com
On the other, our censors won't let him snuff little kids on screen

They won't? Since when? What they won't let him do is show people screwing in a bathroom a la Day One.

But I don't think what they will or won't show on American TV is a major problem. The problems are that, on American TV, nothing about Torchwood is original, it gets no boost as a spin-off, and the premise is weak. Other than that, it's a shoo-in.

Date: 2010-01-20 10:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com
They won't? Since when?

Onscreen? I'm trying to think of a show where a child was slowly killed in front of an American audience. Not threatened, not found after death, not rescued from certain death, actually killed in front of the audience's eyes, and in a manner that took more than a nanosecond's shooting. (Or, in the case of a recent remake of Turn of the Screw, a highly-suggestive *crack* noise.)

The problems are that, on American TV, nothing about Torchwood is original, it gets no boost as a spin-off, and the premise is weak.

Yeah, there are those little drawbacks...

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