My $.02 on the Torchwood News

[neadods]

sjarl marker #2



To keep this from being entirely content free, and because everyone's posting their $.02 about Torchwood being picked up: (WARNING: I'm not squeeing)

Starz can afford it, at least. It shouldn't look or be cheap. And it sounds like John Barrowman and Eve Myles will get some free trips out of filming.

However, it's being run by the exact same team and RTD has already said that the first episode is "shocking and touching," for which I read "bloodsoaked and emotionally manipulative." As I still have not forgiven them for the end of COE, I intend to neither be shocked, touched, nor watching. Maybe if they get through without killing off 60% of the cast and torturing children to death onscreen, I'll catch up after.

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

an extra-governmental black-ops squad

Which I've always had a problem with right there. I've got plenty of negative opinions about government, but at least they've got some forms of oversight and democratic pushback. Somehow, I consider it so much more reassuring than a heavily-armed, drug-pushing squad that answers to no one, especially one under the command of a guy who blithely is unaware that his staff are 1) a date rapist, 2) a serial killer, 3) working alien terror technology in his own basement, 3) going to continue a history of betraying comrades in arms after simple emotional manipulation...

Gwen at least carried the vestiges of "hey, people have rights and using retcon like aspirin is bad."

[mtgat]

Gwen at least carried the vestiges of "hey, people have rights and using retcon like aspirin is bad."

Except of course when it's to her benefit. I can look at "Combat" and say, well, in the first season they were all assholes and idiots. By "Something Borrowed," she insists over all common sense and proper procedure on telling lies that she knows will have to be fixed, gets someone killed, and at the end is blithely okay with drugging all her friends and family. (Also, where this behavior would have earned any of the others serious professional and personal repercussions, she gets a honeymoon.) It would be a fascinating story to see someone who came into a morally ambiguous group and tried to change them, only to fall herself, and I think some of the writing staff were aiming for that. Unfortunately, RTD is too invested in the character to allow for admitting her faults, so while the canon showed us her screwups, they're not acknowledged as on-going problems. And now he says he wants to go back to more Gwen-focused stories.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Except of course when it's to her benefit.

Do not even start me on her "confession" to Rhys! But I really liked the one S2 episode where she was *a proper copper* and did her job even against Jack's disapproval. And TBH, I'm not entirely sure how else they could have played the wedding after all the guests saw the monsters.

It would be a fascinating story to see someone who came into a morally ambiguous group and tried to change them, only to fall herself

There are so many missed opportunities in the storyline setup. That one. And what I would have loved to have seen (and occasionally flirt with writing) where Suzie lasts most of the first season and you only find out in retrospect that she's been a serial killer all along.

But I've said for a while my main problem with RTD's storytelling is that he starts ramped up to 10, dials it up to 11, doesn't know where else to go, and starts repeating himself, only moreso.

[mtgat]

And TBH, I'm not entirely sure how else they could have played the wedding after all the guests saw the monsters.

Yeah, but the set-up was unnecessary. "Hi, you're infected with alien parasites, therefore you're under quarantine until we figure out what they are, if they're controlling you, and how to remove them. Have a pamphlet. The End." The guests wouldn't have seen the monsters in the first place had anyone involved shown half a brain. Their bad decisions led to the need for Retcon, and despite prior lip-service to the contrary, Gwen's good with that. Setting aside my dislike for plots that only work when people are idiots, it's bad characterization for her, because taken with her prior actions, it indicates she's okay with using Retcon to hide her own mistakes. That's amazing and daring character work when acknowledged by the text. It's problematic and creepy when the showrunner doesn't see those actions and motivations as morally ambiguous.

And what I would have loved to have seen (and occasionally flirt with writing) where Suzie lasts most of the first season and you only find out in retrospect that she's been a serial killer all along.

Have you read sam_storyteller's Season Zero? It's a meta-filled faux season set before "Everything Changes" and I think you'd like it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The guests wouldn't have seen the monsters in the first place had anyone involved shown half a brain

To be fair, 2/3 of the Torchwood plots would never happen if anyone involved had half a brain. "Let's try to shoot the shit out of the glass panel between us and a poisonous atmosphere! What could possibly go wrong?" "Let's keep a dinosaur in the basement; no one could possibly notice!"

It's problematic and creepy when the showrunner doesn't see those actions and motivations as morally ambiguous.

I could rant for hours about RTD and *that* subject; see the thread with violetisblue. I don't WANT to live in a world run the way he sees it; he thinks he's putting the elite on the lines for the masses, but he's mostly stripping autonomy away from those who need it to make extremly important informed decisions.

I haven't read Season Zero or tw_itallchanges, which looks to have been brilliantly done. Maybe I'll take a Torchwood by the fans for the fans day when the pantry is defeated - do you have a direct link to Season Zero?

[mtgat]

To be fair, 2/3 of the Torchwood plots would never happen if anyone involved had half a brain.

There is that.

http://community.livejournal.com/tw_season_zero/profile

He also did a re-envisioning of DW and TW as set in Chicago which was amazing.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've heard of the Chicago one; haven't tracked that from start to finish (yet) either.

Thanks for the link!

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

"Which I've always had a problem with right there. I've got plenty of negative opinions about government, but at least they've got some forms of oversight and democratic pushback."

Outside the government, beyond the police. So, Halliburton with aliens, I guess.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

or Blackwater. And yet, this is presented as a *good* thing.

I get that RTD has issues about the Gov't, and I know I have a different worldview living in DC. But seriously, is that a good idea to anybody? I remember being caught between shock and laughter when RTD was saying in interviews that it was bad UNIT had the Valient because "now they had lots of weaponry and lots of money." As opposed to what the British and American governments had before, I guess...

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

It's a dramatic formula that's popular with the public and sells well--24 had its eight or nine successful seasons, CoE got great ratings for a show on a "second-tier" cable network--and that's all that really matters in his business, and he's found a network that won't ask him to tone down Jack's whole omni-thing (according to that Variety interview), so, RTD's probably pretty happy with how it all worked out. It's apparently a ten-episode serial arc set up with a conscious end-point like CoE was, and will be written so new viewers don't have to know anything about prior seasons--so the people I've seen assuming there'll be "closure" on or reference back to this or that past plotline might be disappointed. It also sounds like the entire supporting cast is probably going to be American actors.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It's a dramatic formula that's popular with the public and sells well

So were gladiator battles, I'm just sayin'.

The rest of it is what would have to happen. The overlap between Starz and BBCA is doubtless miniscule; they'd have to start over to explain everything - an explanation that will doubtless retcon the Hub and Rift away (which I am a bit bitter about, as it was The Whole Point for two seasons). And considering where they are, of course they'd get American actors.

But considering what Torchwood was and what it's become (and certainly in view of where it started on Who) - why not just slap a new name on the damned thing and be done with it? When the Hub blew, we went from Torchwood to The Sequel.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

"So were gladiator battles, I'm just sayin'."

I'm just saying, he's in it to make money like everyone else and this potentially makes him money. It's certainly more profitable with the general U.S. public, this particular formula, than Doctor Who ever has been or looks to be despite any name recognition.

"The overlap between Starz and BBCA is doubtless miniscule; they'd have to start over to explain everything - an explanation that will doubtless retcon the Hub and Rift away (which I am a bit bitter about, as it was The Whole Point for two seasons)."

They've specifically said the show's going to be removed from its Cardiff location and set "all over the world" but "mostly in North America" (insert waspish comment about what many U.S. viewers think = "all over the world" here), so I can't imagine how they could possibly incorporate either Hub or Rift except as a throwaway expository reference. Maybe not even that, as it sounds like they can just as well do an alien-hunting show or whatever the new plotline will be without involving questions of time and thus the Rift in it at all--particularly since there's no hint there'll be any Whovian connection remaining at all.

"But considering what Torchwood was and what it's become (and certainly in view of where it started on Who) - why not just slap a new name on the damned thing and be done with it?"

Just plain old branding, I assume, so he can keep the people who started watching the old version as well as pick up the new.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying, he's in it to make money like everyone else and this potentially makes him money

If it takes off, it'll make a mint. And if they pitch it as gladiatorial games, well - I may be cheesed off, but I also know how well 300 and Spartacus did.

He's going to have to dump the entire Hub/Rift idea... or give the Hub wireless and open Rifts all over the world.

...huh. That might actually work, especially if they're going to suggest that they are traveling all over the US the world.

so he can keep the people who started watching the old version as well as pick up the new.

Hrm. As many people were pissed off by CoE as loved it, I think, not that I've done a scientific sampling.

[fyrdrakken]

So were gladiator battles, I'm just sayin'.

And as the little piece on the TW pickup I read pointed out, Starz is the network that just gave us Spartacus: Blood and Sand, proving that not only are they willing to take a chance on gladiators but they're willing to tolerate some real extremes on nudity, sex and violence.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

At least Jack won't suddenly turn into a prude!