Random Musings on Torchwood

[book_junkie007]

Torchwood has been featured as iTunes' TV Show of the Week in honour of Gay Pride Month, so if you're in the States, you can download Everything Changes for free, if you haven't already. Basic premise of the show if you've never seen it before: it's a spinoff of Doctor Who where five bisexuals run around Cardiff catching (usually unfriendly) aliens, with Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who as their leader.

I was reading the first page of reviews for the first series for both the U.S. and Canadian iTunes, and I was sort of struck by the differences.



Some of the Canadian reviews were complaining about the fact that it was nothing like Doctor Who, and that they were disappointed by that. I wanted to smack them upside the head: yes, it's not like Doctor Who, but IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE. It's supposed to be the older, more adult spin-off. If you want something like Doctor Who, then frickin' watch Doctor Who. Torchwood isn't going to satisfy you if you have very specific expectations. You have to be able to watch Torchwood without reservations or judgement in order to fully appreciate it. The acting and writing was also some of the other complaints as to why people didn't like Torchwood. Personally, I don't know what a "good" or a "bad" actor is. If they can make me suspend my disbelief long enough to get into a story, that's good enough for me. A couple of reviews on the first page were genuinely praising Torchwood, but the Canadian reviews were nothing like the American ones, which leads me to...

The Americans are crazy positive about this show. There is not one negative review on the first page, when the reviews are sorted by most helpful. Every single one in some way praises how Torchwood pushes the boundaries of sci-fi, is more edgy than anything that is allowed to be made in the States, and how they're happy that bisexuals are portrayed in a positive way, and that they aren't flawless like the Doctor Who characters. They also love the writing and the acting.

I'm glad that Torchwood is getting so much positive attention in the States, and I hope that this helps to change the procedural/reality TV shows which are so prevalent here.



I can't seem to connect my thoughts tonight. The musings are rather scattered. Sorry about that.

Comments

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Well, we'll see...

We do like a lot of different things and Amazon proves this with their sales. Netflix proves this with their statistics.

Then, executives don't care anyway. Take Joss Whedon. His last two shows only lasted one or two seasons. His last film? 1 BILLION DOLLARS.

Tv people are stupid.

No, I didn't like Miracle Day that well.

[book-junkie007.livejournal.com]

I agree. I don't watch that much TV, but I don't like most of what's on American network television at the moment. I watch one show, Castle, and that's it. I haven't tried the cable channel shows cuz I can't be bothered to figure out which channel has which show in Canada.

I'm okay with Miracle Day, but that's because I watched series one, two, Children of the Earth, and the beginning of Miracle Day all in a row up to the finale ep, which I had to wait for. It was one of my British Twitter peeps watching it that got me interested in Torchwood and, by extension, Doctor Who because she was watching Torchwood: Miracle Day and encouraged me to watch it. The only ep I can watch over and over again of the series is Immortal Sins. Other than that I have to watch it in order.

I think what happened with Miracle Day was that they tried to make it too big, but then it flopped. There were too many story lines going on which didn't lead anywhere, and things were never fully explained. I also think the series was a bit too long. I think 7 or 8 eps would have worked well. They wouldn't have as much filler as I felt they had.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see...

In 2007, I couldn't wait for BBCA to start showing Torchwood. I loved Captain Jack in his DW episodes especially since the first two were written by Moffat, one of my favorite television writers. I loved Torchwood so much once it aired that I tracked down the episodes that hadn't been aired on BBCA yet on the internet and watched.

Yes, there was a lot of filler. There was a lot of politics and things that felt like preaching to the choir with me...I have journal entries for almost every episode. They seemed to forget that Jack's into anything not just men, there was a lot that I just didn't think made sense, they made Rex totally unlikable, they killed off Esther for no real reason, there was a lot of people acting like idiots and just...

ugh

Giant vagina in the Earth!

PS: The same idea of people not being able to die was addressed in Being Human in just an episode or two and much better done, I thought.

[book-junkie007.livejournal.com]

I think there was a lot of character assassination which occurred, and the American characters were poorly written. Granted, there wasn't a lot of time to develop them like the originals, but learning SOMETHING more about them would have been welcome.

There's a trope called the Idiot Ball, where the character carrying the Idiot Ball for the ep is NOT a good thing. It usually means there's decisions made by the characters which they normally wouldn't make, and other stupid things. I think every single character carried the Idiot Ball in every single ep.

Trying to remember which ep of Being Human addressed people not being able to die. Was that 3.03 with the zombie ep? And are we talking about the UK or US version? I adore the UK version, and tried watching the first couple eps of the US version. It...didn't work for me, to the point that I didn't watch it again.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

I know I shouldn't compare all scriptwriters to Joss but I do and I think Cabin in the Woods showed how much characterization you can do with so little time. Granted, one could argue that it fell under "telling" at times but this is preferable to what Miracle Day and Rusty did...

I still get upset over "Day One" in the first season because it's the second episode and they establish that gas masks are STANDARD ISSUE! Then, COE happened and they all became stupid...

Yes, I am talking about 3.03 and the party girl zombie.

I only tried the first couple of eps for the US one as well although I found out Jay Baruchel played a werewolf this season so I'm going to have to catch that one.

[jedi-harkness.livejournal.com]

It's the same old story; American audiences and critics love a show from overseas because it's edgier and is better-written and acted than most U.S. fare, and the American TV execs either don't give a whit, or produce an awful remake that they think caters to "American" tastes. As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I mostly agree with you on Miracle Day; RTD had an amazing idea, and they just couldn't quite pull it off. It either needed to be longer to explore all the subplots, or condensed into a week-long series. The beauty of CoE was that it was five episodes, which made the story tight and fast paced. I think MD would've benefited from being 7 episodes played over a week. Immortal Sins was my favorite episode of MD, mainly because it featured Jack and was more of a Torchwood story.

[book-junkie007.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

I adore eps where the distant past, recent past, and present are blended together into a story line, which is why I love Immortal Sins, Fragments from series two, and Out of Gas from Firefly.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

I think it helps if someone at least has seen the Jack episodes of
Doctor Who season one, so they have an idea of what Jack is all about, both in terms of back-story and omni-sexuality.

[book-junkie007.livejournal.com]

Maybe. I didn't see Doctor Who before I saw Torchwood, and I followed Torchwood just fine. But I do agree that it's better to have seen the Doctor Who eps with him in them, in order to better appreciate Jack on Torchwood. Also, I think the writers need to remember that Jack is omni-sexual. Too often they stick him with a man, which is nice, because, Yay, gays on television being portrayed in a positive, non-camp way! but they also need to remember that he's capable of having an emotional connection with women as well. He's not either/or, and I think sometimes people forget that.