Friday, January 22, 2010

LMAO!!

AS WITH BUFFY AND XANDER, RTD AND TORCHWOOD...

In what can surely be the last ever needed evidence that RTD is as enamoured by Torchwood as experimental keyhole surgery being carried out on his lower intestine while he's trying to climb some stairs, it has been revealed that...

hahahahah...

Seriously, not making this up.

TORCHWOOD AMERICA!

Yes, FOX is going to remake Torchwood for American audiences.

Because even the Yanks have a quality threshold.

Now, there are very, very few shows in the entire history of mankind that have ever been improved by Americanization. The Office of course has become incredibly successful when it started making its own plots instead of relying on the English Cringe Humor, and Kath and Kim was - in my view - vastly superior to the original product as it forced a bucketload of karma and contempt into a series that portrayed suburban Australians as a race of selfish, barely-functioning retards with the moral absolutes of an annoyed stingray.

But can anyone living or dead say that an episode of Torchwood's first series could be remade by America and possibly turn out worse than it already was? I think coming out equally shithouse would be an achievement in itself. We're talking about the show that dubbed its OWN debut year non-canonical! A show that bigged up three episodes of its second year because of a CAMEO of Martha Jones rather than a main character getting murdered and turned into a zombie! A show whose main writer was so bored he actually crossed over with Buffy the Vampire Slayer because he found Spike more interesting than the main cast! TWICE?!

This is a show, ladies and gents, whose creator - when given a whole series to work with - completely destroys the utter format and writes out the entire cast, and then undermines even this by having Captain Jack (a man who has murdered his grandson, been abandoned by his daughter, lost his lover and betrayed his friends) instantly cured of any and all depression by being given Alonzo Frame to bonk.

Frankly, an American version of Torchwood will be interesting as there is a chance it will be written by people who DON'T actually hate the entire show. I mean, look at the crew of Bowie Base One and then the Torchwood Hub. Given roughly 1/33rd of the screen time and characterization, the Martian colonists nevertheless come across as far more likeable, sympathetic and watchable than when the same writer perpetrated Something Borrowed, aren't they? They even got new writers who boggled outright at the unprofessional idiocy on display. Joseph Lidster brought in Lucie Miller to emphasize what an asshole Owen was... AFTER Owen had died and achieved enlightenment! PJ Hammond, seemingly off his face while having Davros dress as a Ringmaster and cop off with a mermaid, still insisted on the gang's general inefficiency causing huge civilian casualties. The one character with some kind of moral baseline (that's Tosh) was redefined as a total bitch over three episodes and then shot dead once she was likeable - her last words explaining one of the many MANY continuity gaps between this and the parent series.

Now, I assume RTD gave the go ahead for this (he is, after all, its creator) when he roundly condemned Young Doctor Who On Gallifrey, Rose Tyler: Earth Defense and Malcolm & Magumbo Go Large! shows his deep desire to protect the brand of Doctor Who doesn't cover Torchwood. Or, at least, he's stopped caring now Moffat's taken over and is spiking the high octane nightmare fuel with even MORE nightmare fuel. He's writing the pilot script, meaning there's a Rose redux for 2010 and good thing too I was starting to miss them. I wonder if American TW will feature Cybermen and a recast Martha Jones?

What is there left to say?

Apart from uncontrollable giggling?

Not a lot.

BTW, SMH's The Guide blurs the line by saying that Torchwood America is actually just the fourth season of Torchwood. That happens to be set in America. And it will be ENTIRELY supervised by RTD. Out of those three statements, I don't know which is more doubtful.

8 comments:

Matthew Blanchette said...

Well, if nothing else, I've heard that John Barrowman might make an appearance...

Youth of Australia said...

What? As playing the 'real' Captain Jack in 1944?

Matthew Blanchette said...

No; it might be a continuation of the British version... which would be as weird as Ricky Gervais showing up on the American version of The Office.

Youth of Australia said...

Why would a now-defunct anglocentric xenotech operation have a main branch in the USA? Alien invasions hardly ever happen in America. And THEN they're Daleks...

Matthew Blanchette said...

Beats me; straightforward plotting has never been a FOX executive's first priority.

Youth of Australia said...

My, my, and I thought I was cynical...

Matthew Blanchette said...

You're not the only one, trust me... ;-)

Jared "No Nickname" Hansen said...

I was quite excited watching the latest ep of Fringe when Walter started singing over and over "Hard artichokes rarely keep Norwegian elephants Singapore sleep" - because it is clearly a mnemonic of the initials HARKNESS! I thought there was some mind-blowing cross-over shaping up...

Then it was revealed in episode as Harvard having a Harkness Law Library.

I do have to say an American Torchwood seems like an odd decision, given that it's a brand of sci-fi that originated in the US in the first place and, if we're brutally honest, have probably done better. There isn't anything wildly inventive about the concept of the show - in fact, it uses Captain Jack's enigmatic nature as a bit of a crutch, and the audience won't be interested in him unless they know him from the parent series.

It's a complete head-scratcher, for me.