Thinky Thoughts

[thornyrose42]

 So Torchwood and Torchwood reactions inspired more thoughts.

 

Torchwood Fandom has exploded. As far as I can tell for my little safe bomb proof corner over here the fandom seems to be split mainly between the people who were in it for Jack and Ianto, canonical gay, stopwatches and al,l and those who well, weren't. Actually it seems that the less emotionally invested in Torchwood and the fandom you were the more you enjoyed the series. I was lucky as I hadn't even watched most of the previous two seasons and had been living vicariously through people's reaction posts thus I was quite happy to watch five hours of gripping TV drama and not worry about the fact that this does seem to be Torchwood's swan-song.

 

I've seen some comments to the effect that they don't understand a) the character death and b) why RTD is basically killing of Torchwood just when it is doing so well and after only three seasons. I saw one comment that basically said that she would understand CoE being placed four seasons down the line but couldn't work out why RTD would use this story now.

 

Well for me a lot of this can be explained by the difference between American and British telly. 

 

Fawlty Towers, officially the best British TV program ever according to the British Film Institute who created a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programs in 2000, ran for a total of two seasons each containing six episodes. Fawlty Towers is often held up as the example which all other series should follow, it is cited when a series does pull to a close while still on top form and when the quality of a series begins to peter out critics start making snide remarks about how they should have "got out while the going was good". We also have a tendency to be snippy about long running American TV shows possibly due to jealousy :) the Radio Times’s reviews of season five of House have mentioned the words “tired formula” about ten times so far. Series as a whole just don't have as many episodes or last for as long in Britain as they do in America. (Even the American series that get canceled before their time often have more episodes than a successful British TV series.) This is obviously due to different levels of funding, management etc etc and it doesn't mean that we aren't disappointed when a favourite TV series stops (witness my mum upon hearing that both Robin Hood and Primeval had been canceled after their third seasons) but it does mean that we are a lot more used to it and perhaps more willing to accept it.

 

The same goes for character death. Our shows just have more of it. British actors have shorter contracts and the shows are written and shot in their entirety before the show airs. Thus you just don’t get the comfort of knowing that the only place a main character can die is in the finale and with a suitably dramatic death scene. Spooks is a prime and extreme example of this. The show has run for an unusually long time for a British production partly because the cast changes all the time. In fact there is only one original cast member left the rest having left or been killed in a variety of unpleasant ways. Although as astrogirl2  pointed out to me the American shows are getting more ruthless Lost and SCC being the obvious examples.

 

There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods of producing TV series (both being preferable to the reality TV that we get all too much of now) but they are ultimately different methods of production with a different set of values behind them. I guess that RTD and the Torchwood  gang would just prefer in ten years time to look back on five hours of quality television rather than five seasons of ok television.  

 

Comments

[thornyrose42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the rumour that I was upset about was that SJA would be finishing as well after a third season.

Cut Eastenders back? But the the country really would riot! :)

I read an interesting comment recently from a Janto fan that said that one of the reasons that she was so upset was that fandom as a whole had really created their own fandom!Ianto and she was in morning for that Ianto more than canon Ianto.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yeah, SJA is particularly expensive for a kids show. I think they made a huge mistake scheduling that as part of CITV. It should have been an early saturday evening show.

God, and wouldn't they just. I don't think anything has ever been allowed to mess with the holy Eastenders.

And that might explain it. It might also explain why so many smart people were able to understand the first 2 seasons of Torchwood, if they were more seeing the show they wanted to see and had created from what was there. Because really, I thought those first 2 seasons of Torchwood were awful.

[thornyrose42.livejournal.com]

Yeah the early Sat evening slot would have been good, maybe they wanted it to step away from Doctor Who a bit, God knows the BBC scheduling is a mystery to me.

I just didn't watch the first two seasons really, apart from the first couple and the ones with Martha. But isn't thtat often the case, the show is awful so fandom feels that it has free rein an quite frankly they couldn't make it much worse.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced SJAs viewing figures would have doubled if they'd shown it at the weekend. It was almost as if they were afraid of it being a big success.

Always thought it very amusing that SJA, the 'kids' spin-off, was always infinitely more mature than Torchwood.

And yeah, I always felt like I was watching a different show with Torchwood than the one the fans were watching. But then, I gave up on S1 half way through, watched the first couple of S2 and figured it hadn't improved any.

[softly-me.livejournal.com]

Speaking on behalf of the crazy TW fandom:

The RTD and his merry band of writers created fascinating characters and then gave them nothing interesting to do! Watching the episodes themselves became a means to an end. We needed to watch in order to see the characters but we were bored to tears over the plot.

And since the writers failed so very miserably where the first two seasons are concerned, it was our duty to take over for them.

Fandom!Ianto being a prime example. Carefully developed by such genius writers as sam_storyteller, they took all the canon characterizations of Ianto and gave him depth and humor and pain and all the things that make him beloved to me and so many others.

[thornyrose42.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Sam is a genius. Although I discovered him through his Sam Vimes stories and was then very disappointed to find that he didn't write them any more. :(

/And since the writers failed so very miserably where the first two seasons are concerned, it was our duty to take over for them./

Oh completely and I must say that from what I've seen you lot did a fantastic job. Fandom!Ianto and Jack were just superior to their on screen counter parts especially since they didn't have to worry about the acting skills, or lack there of of, JB and Whatshisface.

...

I'm going to get shot aren't I.

[softly-me.livejournal.com]

Your just digging the whole deeper and deeper =)

[thornyrose42.livejournal.com]

I must be in Australia by now.

:)