What could have been...
Aug. 9th, 2009 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird_lj(I realise I keep going on about this, but it’s bugging me…)
I’ve decided that one of the main problems with Torchwood is that it’s trying to be Angel, when it should be trying to be Going Postal.
In an episode of Doctor Who called The Empty Child, Steven Moffat created this wonderful new character. He was a con-man, who used to work for the Time Agency, until he woke up one morning and found that they’d stolen two years of his memory.
…that’s a pretty decent starting point for a character, really.
You’ve got a fun angle, with someone who’s basically out for himself, an intriguing history, and the possibility that he might become a hero.
And then Russell T Davis decided he wanted to make a spin-off show.
In fact, he basically wanted to make his very own version of Angel.
And instead of using this ready-made character he had (con-man, time agent, memory stolen), he wanted a different backstory. A more angsty and heroic backstory.
So he took Jack Harkness and gave him another century worth of story (can’t die, stuck on the planet, lost his brother).
And then he put Jack in the middle of Torchwood, and let him be heroic and angsty.
The problem is, it doesn’t really work.
On Angel, we had a character we’d known for three years, whose backstory we’d known for three years, starting a detective agency (and not being all that good at it, to start with), with a crew who initially didn’t trust him, and tended to argue when he made bad decisions.
On Torchwood, we had a character we’d known for five episodes, whose backstory had completely changed, already having run his own Cardiff-based branch of Torchwood for several years, with a crew who knew nothing about him, and yet still (for some reason) went along with every decision he made, even when he gave them no explanation whatsoever. And the few times they tried going against him, they were consistently proven to be wrong (because Jack is always right).
Angel was dark and brooding because he’d spent 150 years horribly slaughtering people.
Jack was dark and angsty because he… couldn’t die. And that was upsetting.
Angel’s crew were great at their job because they never gave up, and they kept fighting even when everyone around them (the police, ordinary people, evil lawyers, ex-girlfriends) was against them.
Jack’s crew were great at their job because they had super-cool gadgets, and if anyone tried to go up against them, they’d flash their TORCHWOOD badges at the police, and wipe the memories of the rest.
Plus, we didn’t get to see Jack change, from con-man to hero. We were just told that he had. And were supposed to take the show’s word for it that he had, and was now clearly heroic and wise.
It didn’t really work all that well.
Which is a pity, really, because the show had so much potential.
What it should have done, instead of trying to be Angel, was try to be Going Postal.
Going Postal is a Discworld novel.
It stars a rather charming con-man (sound familiar?) who is put in charge of the postal service, and told (on pain of lots of pain and then possibly death) to get it running again.
It’s rather fun.
And it occurred to me today that, really, they had the potential to create this brilliant show.
A show that people wouldn’t roll their eyes at and say, “Well, that’s just Torchwood. At least it’s kind of fun, right?”
At the end of Doctor Who season 1, Jack is altered so that he can’t die, and left in space, several millennia away from the present day. (He then jumps to present-day Earth – landing 100 years before he planned to – in the hopes of finding the Doctor again.)
At the end of Doctor Who season 2, the Torchwood Institute almost accidentally ends the world – and then is destroyed.
Five episodes into season 1, there’s a doctor (Dr Sato) who examines the “alien” the government finds, and then discusses it with the Doctor.
Suppose…
What if, instead of jumping to the 1800s, Jack jumped to the late 20th century? Just a couple of years off?
What if Torchwood found him? And “kept” him, much like they planned to “keep” the Doctor around?
What if, after it was destroyed, the British Government got this guy who knew so much about aliens (and about the Doctor), and put him in charge of getting the Torchwood Institute up and running again?
What if (instead of taking the actress and creating a whole new character with the same name) Dr Sato, who had only recently started learning about aliens, was on his new team?
What if we got to see Jack start to realise that he couldn’t die?
What if we got to find out about those two missing years in his memory?
What if we got to watch him – initially self-serving and only running Torchwood because he has to – gradually become a hero?
…just a thought.
I’ve decided that one of the main problems with Torchwood is that it’s trying to be Angel, when it should be trying to be Going Postal.
In an episode of Doctor Who called The Empty Child, Steven Moffat created this wonderful new character. He was a con-man, who used to work for the Time Agency, until he woke up one morning and found that they’d stolen two years of his memory.
…that’s a pretty decent starting point for a character, really.
You’ve got a fun angle, with someone who’s basically out for himself, an intriguing history, and the possibility that he might become a hero.
And then Russell T Davis decided he wanted to make a spin-off show.
In fact, he basically wanted to make his very own version of Angel.
And instead of using this ready-made character he had (con-man, time agent, memory stolen), he wanted a different backstory. A more angsty and heroic backstory.
So he took Jack Harkness and gave him another century worth of story (can’t die, stuck on the planet, lost his brother).
And then he put Jack in the middle of Torchwood, and let him be heroic and angsty.
The problem is, it doesn’t really work.
On Angel, we had a character we’d known for three years, whose backstory we’d known for three years, starting a detective agency (and not being all that good at it, to start with), with a crew who initially didn’t trust him, and tended to argue when he made bad decisions.
On Torchwood, we had a character we’d known for five episodes, whose backstory had completely changed, already having run his own Cardiff-based branch of Torchwood for several years, with a crew who knew nothing about him, and yet still (for some reason) went along with every decision he made, even when he gave them no explanation whatsoever. And the few times they tried going against him, they were consistently proven to be wrong (because Jack is always right).
Angel was dark and brooding because he’d spent 150 years horribly slaughtering people.
Jack was dark and angsty because he… couldn’t die. And that was upsetting.
Angel’s crew were great at their job because they never gave up, and they kept fighting even when everyone around them (the police, ordinary people, evil lawyers, ex-girlfriends) was against them.
Jack’s crew were great at their job because they had super-cool gadgets, and if anyone tried to go up against them, they’d flash their TORCHWOOD badges at the police, and wipe the memories of the rest.
Plus, we didn’t get to see Jack change, from con-man to hero. We were just told that he had. And were supposed to take the show’s word for it that he had, and was now clearly heroic and wise.
It didn’t really work all that well.
Which is a pity, really, because the show had so much potential.
What it should have done, instead of trying to be Angel, was try to be Going Postal.
Going Postal is a Discworld novel.
It stars a rather charming con-man (sound familiar?) who is put in charge of the postal service, and told (on pain of lots of pain and then possibly death) to get it running again.
It’s rather fun.
And it occurred to me today that, really, they had the potential to create this brilliant show.
A show that people wouldn’t roll their eyes at and say, “Well, that’s just Torchwood. At least it’s kind of fun, right?”
At the end of Doctor Who season 1, Jack is altered so that he can’t die, and left in space, several millennia away from the present day. (He then jumps to present-day Earth – landing 100 years before he planned to – in the hopes of finding the Doctor again.)
At the end of Doctor Who season 2, the Torchwood Institute almost accidentally ends the world – and then is destroyed.
Five episodes into season 1, there’s a doctor (Dr Sato) who examines the “alien” the government finds, and then discusses it with the Doctor.
Suppose…
What if, instead of jumping to the 1800s, Jack jumped to the late 20th century? Just a couple of years off?
What if Torchwood found him? And “kept” him, much like they planned to “keep” the Doctor around?
What if, after it was destroyed, the British Government got this guy who knew so much about aliens (and about the Doctor), and put him in charge of getting the Torchwood Institute up and running again?
What if (instead of taking the actress and creating a whole new character with the same name) Dr Sato, who had only recently started learning about aliens, was on his new team?
What if we got to see Jack start to realise that he couldn’t die?
What if we got to find out about those two missing years in his memory?
What if we got to watch him – initially self-serving and only running Torchwood because he has to – gradually become a hero?
…just a thought.
