Riiiiight: My $.02 on the Torchwood in America thing

[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.

Comments

[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.

[boji.livejournal.com]

Read the small print in the HR article - currently Fox may comission a pilot based on RTD's script which may, if commissioned as a pilot star JB (and Eve Myles) or may not.

All this says to me right now is that RTD and friends followed the money (moving to the US) because the BBC has none left in the kitty, and that they have a good publicist/journalist friends to place stories in the trades right before they go to a Fox pitch meeting.

How many good shows NEVER get past a pilot episode?

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

(Snerk!) Well, when you put it *THAT* way... BWAHAHAHAHAAAA!

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

...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.

American theatre too. Not that being a successful American musical theater actor gains much more traction.

/takes off Barrowmanian hat

[fyrdrakken]

:Sigh: You know, if it could just be like the American TW script that sam_storyteller came up with, I'd be thrilled.

As it is, it'll mostly be an exercise in schadenfreude, waiting for RTD to find out that in LA he isn't the television god he thinks he is.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Think Rusty may have found out the grass in LA isn't as green as he thought & regrets hopping off a relative gravy train?

re: Riiiiight: My $.02 on the Torchwood in America thing

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent summary of all the issues. I've seen this post linked to, as well.