Moderator: NecronLord
Did it spoil it all for you, or was it still entertaining in spite of the resolution? Let's have a full synopsis, you big tease.Stark wrote:Dahak wrote:Though I would have liked a ending much more in which Captain Jack not killing his grandson. It just felt rather pointless at the end; just to show that Jack Really Makes Hard Decisions (TM)...
I thought it was poor drama. Frobisher was 'sold' very well; the stupid LOL WE CAN WIN IN TWO SECONDS thing was not sold well and was anticlimactic.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Stepping Back
Before I start, this post - and every post on here, and anything I say on Twitter, or anywhere else - is entirely MY opinion. Nothing to do with the people I've worked with, or the BBC, or anyone else. I don't speak for any other writers, I *only* speak for myself, and I will not pass on any messages to anyone.
Here's my position: I'm not going get into any more discussions or debates about what happened in Torchwood this week (being vague, in case people come across this and haven't seen it). Not now, not in the future.
Why? I started trying to discuss it, but swiftly realised that it was pointless. It simply turns into "No it isn't" / "Yes it is", and there's no way I can win the argument, because in certain people's opinion, I am wrong, and that's the end of it. And it's all just opinion anyway. It would also feel like I was trying to justify the show, and I'm not doing that. I have absolutely no need to. The show is the show. Whether you like it or dislike it, that's up to you.
I helped plot the whole storyline, and I stand by every single decision. Yes, including *that* one - I had my hand on the death lever along with everyone else, and was fully involved. I think it's a fantastic, brave, challenging drama, and contains some of the best moments on TV all year.
I've received over a thousand messages from viewers talking about the show. The vast majority have been extremely positive. Even though many of them are upset, angry and shocked, they have managed to express that without making it personal. So to you, I'm extremely grateful. I'm glad you liked the show, and love that it made you respond so strongly. I can't reply to everyone, it'd take weeks, so please accept my thanks.
But the rest of the messages? Unacceptable. Some have been spewing insults and passive aggressive nonsense. Accusing me of deliberately trying to mislead, lie, and hurt people. Telling me I hate the fans, that I'm laughing at them, that I used them, that I'm slapping people in the face, that I've "killed" the show, that I'm a homophobe, that I want to turn the fanbase away and court new, "cooler" viewers, even that I'm hurting depressed people with dark storylines. Asking me to pass on vitriolic, hateful messages to people I love and respect.
Not cool.
These are all things that nobody would dare to say to me in person. But on the internet, it's easy for them to fire off these things. Forgetting that at the other end is me, a real person, someone who has been nothing but open and friendly. But I've been a bit too open, a bit too nice, a bit too willing to explain the thought process behind story decisions. And some people are taking advantage of that, or misinterpreting what it means.
So here's the deal: I'm a professional writer. That's my job. I write what I write, for whatever the project might be. I have the utmost respect for you, and honestly want you to like my work, but I can't let that affect my story decisions. Everybody wants different things from a story, but this is not a democracy, you do not get to vote. You are free to say what you think of my work, even if you hate it, I honestly don't mind. But the ONLY person I need to please is myself, and the ONLY thing I need to serve is the story. Not you. I will do my work to the very best of my ability, in an attempt to give you the best show, the best movie, the best story, the best entertainment I possibly can. Even if that means that sometimes, I'll do things you won't like. I won't debate it. Either you go along with it, or you don't. None of it is done to hurt you, or to force some agenda down your throat, or anything else. It's all in service of the story.
When I started this blog, I wanted to give some insight into the writing process. I've done that. I've answered all the questions, written about the process, done several huge posts trying to pass on what I've learned. The posts are all still there, and will remain there. I've had great fun with it, and given as much as I can, but it's never going to be enough. For a while now, I've let things get too cosy here, indulged myself too much, and if I let it carry on, it will affect my work. The last few days have just confirmed that for me. So I'm going to step back and take an extended break from it. Things are very busy for the next month or two, and I won't have the time anyway. I'm extremely grateful to everyone who has commented on here, and if the blog continues at a later date, it will be limited to anything that isn't about the work - announcements, TV/movie recommendations, etc. I have to concentrate on my writing.
And I will not put up with any more abusive messages, or threats, or accusations, or attempted guilt trips. So while I completely understand your pain at some of the events in the series, that does not give you the right to insult me. Talk about the *work*, all you want. But lay off the person behind the work. Because I'm simply trying to tell you good stories. In the end, that is all I can do.
James Moran
Writer
Please feel free to pass this on, I encourage you to do so, to make my position clear to everyone - but you must include the link to the full post here: http://jamesmoran.blogspot.com/2009/07/ ... -back.html
Contradictory. Of course, entertainment has no intrinsic value. It is good if it succeeds in pleasing the audience, bad if it fails. It's an arty conceit to think that any form of art is inherently superior to any other. Quality is the judgement of the audience.Big Orange wrote:But the ONLY person I need to please is myself, and the ONLY thing I need to serve is the story. Not you. I will do my work to the very best of my ability, in an attempt to give you the best show, the best movie, the best story, the best entertainment I possibly can.
SFX.co.ukFriday July 24, 2009
TV REVIEW: Torchwood: Children Of Earth
Director: Euros Lyn
Cast: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen, Peter Capaldi, Paul Copley
Rating: ***** (out of five)
My, how Russell T Davies’s baby has grown. Widely slated in its first year, its latest growth spurt sees it mature into ratings-smash event television. How the hell did that happen?
Partly by leaving home territory behind. Torchwood’s aggressive Welshness was, sadly, always going to be a bar to acceptance in some quarters (that may explain why it’s been better received in America). That credibility gap is effortlessly vaulted by relocating most of the action to London, bringing the Hub trio into opposition with the ruthless professionalism of government – the sort of people who, when they hatch a plan, come up with something a little more thought-through than “Tell the aliens to piss off”... That and turning the darkness dial up to 11, chillingly illustrating how inhumanly clinical we can become when pushed into a corner.
It makes you chuckle to recall that season two had edited pre-watershed repeats. Imagine doing that with Children Of Earth - it’d be a succession of blipverts. Jack’s controversial final decision is the big talking point, but it’s not entirely out of character - he made an equally cold choice in season one’s “Small Worlds”, and here he has a much better justification. Still, it’s hard to square the ruthless Jack of Children Of Earth with the loveable Jack of Doctor Who, hard to slot these two universes together. Best not to think about it.
It’s not perfect. Most of the killer twists are guessable (after all, why give Jack a family if you’re not going to shatter it?). After five episodes of build-up, the solution is a little pat. And the final instalment is slightly tinged with disappointment: promised the sight of civilisation going to hell in a handcart, what we actually get are a few blokes on a council estate lobbing rocks.
No matter. By any sane criteria, Children Of Earth is a triumph - and not despite the fact that it’s Torchwood, but because it’s Torchwood. The series’ essential nuttiness remains intact, smuggled onto BBC One like a bomb in the belly, and it’s the lunatic moments we treasure the most. In what other show could the lead character be encased in concrete, rescued by bulldozer, dropped off a cliff, and walk away from the rubble in need of little more than a shampoo and blow dry? We can only assume that Jack’s miraculous self-healing powers extend as far as extruding slivers of concrete from his urethra...
Ian Berriman
Mountain's scrapbook blogWednesday, 15 July 2009
Torchwood review
best:- "It's a school kid that's stayed up past its bed time." I agree, all the rudeness and silliness comes off like a bunch of children, choking on cigarettes behind the bike shed while flicking through their older brothers' dirty magazines.
It's obsession with being "adult" is, ironically, childish. When it does touch adult issues it's handled with comedic effect and then forgotten about a couple of episodes later. Unless it's part of the arc plot, in which case you'll never hear the end of it. Take season 2, the main arcs were "Owen's dead" and "Jack's brother is back" and we never heard the end of it. Owen whining that he was dead became more annoying than the critical character development it started off as.
This brings us to Torchwood's second problem. In the first season you really wanted Owen, Ianto and Tosh to be written out. Maybe not drastically killed but, like Martha Jones, put out to pasture. You could call on them later, but they were far too two dimensional to care about or like. I even joked about hitting them with an ice cream truck (it would have been funny... at least funnier than the "jokes" from the first year). I wasn't the only one, a lot of people called out for better characters. So what did they do in the writers office? Listen to us of course, they developed Owen, Tosh and Ianto into people practically over night. Ianto became a wise cracking assistant who was confused about his sexuality. Owen, after having his heart broken, gave up chasing every woman he came across and became a sensitive and caring man who you actually liked. Tosh, while still chasing Owen, became more rounded. More than just "scanner girl" she became mistress of computers(!), hacking her way though government secrets with skill and when that failed cooking up plans that were almost frighteningly simple in their brutality. Oh and then they killed the lot off as well. When you kill a character, especially one you've spent so much effort in making us like, you want some sort of emotional impact. That's why you do it one at a time, give us chance to adjust to the new dynamic before butchering the next one. More importantly have a reason, not just angst for the main characters. A heroic sacrifice saving thousands. The death of a character is the end of a story and the start of the next one, not a obstacle to be overcome.
So we know the two biggest problems with Torchwood. Let's take a look at it's latest offering Children of Earth. The five hour long mini-series in place of the third year. In effect it was a five hour episode, a reminder of the 60's Doctor Who adventures that would go on for hours. Unfortunately those shows were better. An independent script editor could have cast a glance over Children of Earth and cut it down to three episodes, with work you might even get it down to two (at the end of a season, after dropping hints as part of an arc). That works out at about three hours worth of padding out of five in total. Painful to sit though and pumping the extremely basic story out to the EPIC length you'd expect a better one to be. Sort of like novel-cuisine, there is so little development you think every last piece is an act of genius, wanting more because what you had was so small (sort of like the second series of Heroes, but I digress). Eventually after three days we learn what is happening. Great in film time where days can pass in minutes not in "real time". Waiting three hours for some sort of logical story is not thrilling or dramatically interesting. It's boring. Keeping your leads in the dark is a good way to keep things dramatically interesting. Keeping you in the dark builds tension. Both, at the same time? You end up shouting at the screen for something, anything. The smallest morsel of plot. Development, something other than the government acting like collective arseholes. So in the last hour or so we get it. One massive roller-coaster of plot twists, life changing decisions and break neck turns. Lets look at them:-
Killing Ianto. After the most useless character (introduced as some sort of unrealised homosexual foil for Jack's libido) became one of the best and most well liked they kill him in this. I know the writer was probably aiming for a Doyle (from Angel) like sacrifice but it felt more like Tara from Buffy. I can't think of a single Buffy fan that didn't like the stuttering, shy, lesbian witch. She was brilliant and the actress pulled it off brilliantly. The same can be said for Ianto, after the first season. Everyone thought it was a bad idea to kill off Tara, despite the massive bucket load of character development you got out of it. Ianto's death did nothing, nothing that couldn't be achieved elsewhere. Slap bang at the end of episode 4 he dies from a virus. Showing us what would happen if they don't give in to the alien demands. Yes it illustrates a point, but the same could be done with the death of everyone in the building but Ianto and Jack. Jack's later angst could have been achieved with continuing development of everyone involved. Ianto's death was pointless and should never have happened. Simple as that. Steven, Jack's grandson, again dying. In the constrains of the plot it made sense. It's a wonderfully dramatic moment and it should have been interesting. Instead it fell short on two points. The first was we've only just met this kid and there's been so little about him we don't know or care. He's been a background character all five hours and when he was on screen he was a millstone around Jack's neck. Next when you sacrifice one person for thousands, mathematically it works. This is true, however morally it is wrong. To correct this problem would have taken all of one scene. It would have been an emotional kick in the teeth and need some good acting. In summery Steven knows what is happening and what is being asked of him. With tears in his eyes he agrees to die. A willing sacrifice. All the moral problems are solved and it would resonate through out the whole dam show. Finally Jack Harkness. This man has lived for how long now? I'm only 23 but I know that running away from your problems never solve them. Just leaves them to fester. Deal with an "issue" as soon as they come up and you can move on. Otherwise you're stuck in a never ending cycle. Or to put it simply:- 'You can't run away from your problems.' So what does Jack try and do? Run away from his problems. What a idiot.
Torchwood, like every product of a hackneyed writer in the history of speculative fiction, pulls out the death card whenever any sort of development is needed. Life is far more than that, go out live something... anything! I don't really care as long as the Grim Reaper can have a holiday. So what did I learn from Torchwood Children of Earth. Quite a bit actually. From a writers stand point I learnt what not to do and how not to do it. From a moral standpoint I learnt all the wrong lessons and finally I learnt that if you're a government official you are selfish, egotistical and only out for your own back, but I knew all that already. If I had to give it a score it would have to be 2 out of 5. The acting was good, the effects top notch and as always some character development. Just the over all plot and it's titanic holes that you fall through. Early on I would defend Russell T. Davis because the characters were good, they sucked you in and suspension of disbelief was easy. Unfortunately that isn't the case anymore and I'm glad he's left Dr Who. Roll on next year and it's fresh outlook.
Big Hollywood‘Torchwood’: Pro-American TV — From the BBC
by Leigh Scott
I think I’ve found the most pro-American show on television. True to form, its not produced in Hollywood.
Growing up, I was obsessed with “Dr. Who.” In the seventh grade I wore a Tom Baker style scarf to school every day (Baker and Davidson are my favorite “Doctors,” if you understand what that means, feel free to have it at in the comments). I thoroughly enjoy the “reboot” that currently airs on the SyFy channel and recently stumbled across its spin-off “Torchwood.”
“Torchwood” is an odd blend of “CSI,” “The X-Files,” and “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” It follows the adventures of Torchwood, an above-top-secret agency that monitors alien activity on earth. Their headquarters in Cardiff is above a “rift,” a sort of rip in time and space that lets creatures from other planets and dimensions, as well as other time periods, in and out of our world.
On the surface, the show is very British. The slang, inside jokes, and references are undoubtedly more entertaining to the BBC audience than to the U.S. Syfy Channel audience. There are even references to Welsh characters dreading crossing over into England. That’s how inside it is. Clearly, its not made for us.
The show has numerous interracial, homosexual, and intergalactic romantic relationships (yes, people having sex with E.T.s). The world of “Torchwood” is incredibly diverse, but the series never calls attention to this fact. There are no episodes where the Asian character laments how people don’t understand her culture, or where black characters complain about discrimination and band together to outsmart “The Man.” Race and gender are portrayed in a clearly neutral fashion, true to the American “melting pot” concept and not the divisive “multiculturalism” that sits like a cancer on our society. Everyone is human (unless it’s an alien) and everyone is very, very British.
Everyone is British, save one. The enigmatic Captain Jack Harkness, an extra-terrestrial time traveler with an American accent. He’s the leader of the Torchwood team, and episode after episode he makes the tough decisions, does the ruthless things, and acts in the greater good for the other characters and mankind as a whole. He does all this despite the hemming and hawing coupled with emotional weakness of his European cohorts. Episode after episode the other characters scream and cry and allow their human frailty to jeopardize the planet. Episode after episode Jack Harkness does the dirty work, exposing his wisdom and strength to his associates who ultimately accept and thank him for his decisions. Jack does gain some insight and knowledge from his co-workers’ empathy, but it only serves to make him stronger, never detracting from the mission at hand.
It can’t be a mistake that Harkness is an American, he is the only person on the show who is. In a not so subtle way the shows creators are admitting what a lot of us already suspect; that despite their complaints, objections, and dislike for America and its policies, Europe ultimately needs us. Furthermore, Europe needs the “cowboy” American, and not some mirror image of itself.
John Barrowman plays the omnisexual Harkness with a boyish glee. He displays a love and aptitude for violence. He shoots first and asks questions later. He knows that terrorists, even alien ones, should never be negotiated with or trusted. At times, his brash refusal to display empathy or appease hostile forces leads to personal catastrophes and losses, but at the end of the day, he is right. Evil is defeated.
The show also features one of the strongest, best female characters I have ever seen. Eve Myles plays Gwen Cooper, a former police officer turned Torchwood operative who deftly manages to balance her personal life and relationship while saving the world. She is tough, sensitive, smart, and witty. Despite being the newest addition to the team, she naturally slides into a leadership position when Harkness is out of the picture. Oh, and in season three, she’s an action hero who happens to be pregnant. Sarah Palin would be proud.
The show’s creator Russell T. Davies (the man who is also behind the new “Dr. Who”) may be, along with Joss Whedon, my personal favorite show runners working in the industry today. Both of them chose writers who portray the world not as it always is, but in a romantic way, the way it should be. Their subtle and not so subtle Libertarian political view points are a breath of fresh air when compared to the liberal schlock that dominates most of our industry, especially in hour-long dramas.
“Torchwood” season one and two are available on DVD. Season three’s mini-series “Children of Earth” airs on BBC America starting July 20th.
WalesOnline (interesting video of interview with John Barrowman).Fans react with threats to Ianto’s death in Torchwood
Aug 2 2009 by James McCarthy, Wales On Sunday
SICKENING death threats have been made against Torchwood writers for killing off the character of Ianto Jones.
Ianto died in the arms of lover Captain Jack Harkness – played by John Barrowman – during the BBC Wales-produced Children of the Earth mini-series.
But crazed fans of the Cardiff-set sci-fi hit were so furious they have made threats against the show’s writers.
One, blogging on the Deviant Art website, was furious after watching episode four of the five-part series – in which Ianto died.
She ranted that she was going to track down the writer who axed Ianto and, “murder them in a horrific way. In an incredible horrific and painful way. They will never be able to walk again or move any part of their body. They will be a vegetable.”
Misspelling the character’s name, she said: “They cannot get rid of Janto and expect us to be OK with it.”
The disgusting post continued: “The writers can go die in a hole in a pile of s*** in a black hole.
“I can’t believe they did this.”
Referring to Ianto’s smart dress and coffee making another fan, named Kabuwonky, wrote: “Gunna kill them painfully! With ties and coffee machines!!
Meanwhile, one Facebook user wrote: “I kill you, if you no bring him back!”
Ianto actor Gareth David-Lloyd was appalled by the online threats.
He said he was disappointed at some of the comments made online and warned fans not to “get abusive towards the team”.
“There have been one or two that have been saying some unpleasant things about the storyline,” he said: “People leaving unpleasant messages on the message boards. I don’t support that at all.
“As an actor I trust the writers and producers and was lucky to be in the show for as long as I was.”
But when we told him about the comments, the 28-year-old was shocked. “That is ridiculous. It’s a TV show at the end of the day,” he said.
“It’s a TV drama we’re very proud of and we’re happy that people feel strongly about it, but that is completely unacceptable. I would hope the writers would be able to ignore comments like that.”
A source close to the show said: “It looks like it is some sort of obsessed fan. I know people have felt strongly about it but that’s pretty extreme.”
Author Bob Fischer, who wrote Wiffle Lever To Full! about his experiences at sci-fi conventions, said: “Fans will always attach themselves to shows and become very emotionally involved with them, that’s perfectly understandable.
“But you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If they are serious comments that is beyond the pale.”
A spokesman for the BBC said the strong feelings expressed showed fans’ love of the Ianto character.
“It’s fantastic to see that Torchwood has obviously touched the emotions of so many people, who recognise, as we do, what a wonderful contribution Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones made to the series,” he said.
“The storyline did highlight the fragility of the Torchwood team and Ianto sacrificed his personal safety for the welfare of the human race.”
