Whoo-hoo! They're showing it in America! And they're trying to convince everyone that it actually is a big-budget, sci-fi action spectacular! Boy, will they be disappointed!!!
Plus, where the hell's Ianto? And why is Tosh so tiny? And why has Gwen got her mouth shut? SOMETHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY AWRY WITH THIS MARKETING CAMPAIGN!!!
Okay. So picking up on what I writed about in the last post - and if anyone out there actually bothered to read it this time around - that did pretty much sum up my feelings about Torchwood at the time. I have a weird relationship with Torchwood, and we’ll probably go into that in greater depth in later articles (when I'm not just taking the piss via the medium of random pictures) but for now I’ll mention again as I did in the sidebar that yes, I am still currently in the process of writing three Torchwood novels.
Yes. Three. You didn’t misread that and think the world had temporarily ended and everyone had gone completely insane (although it probably has done that within the realms of continuity - that happened in that Torchwood audio play about CERN and the Large Hardon Collider. Now that really did sound like an almighty disaster - but again, more on that story later).
Really I’m doing it as a creative exercise, and also because, having gone from a position of thinking the series was absolute ridiculous rubbish (with the trough of an episode, ‘Adam’ near the front of season two, where I just couldn’t stop laughing at John Barrowman’s panto acting - come on, I like the guy, but he must be the most melodramatic hammer in existence, carving his dramatic monologues out of a solid edifice of living cheddar - and something like that actually happened in the episode ‘Meat‘ if I recall correctly) to a place where I can actually see the potential of the show as a living breathing entity of sorts.
There’s a massive amount of potential in the setup and the basic premise of the series which the creators of the show seem to have thus far walked right past - and it is this which I’m trying to look at in the stuff I’m writing, pushing the architecture of the show into a more sophisticated and psychedelic fantasy epic kind-of place. It might also be pertinent to mention at this point that the Doctor will also be showing up at some point during proceedings, and that there will be at least one Fairly Big Thing from the annals of Doctor Who past showing up to play a major part.
That’s probably all by the by - the original idea for this blog was to chronicle my writing of these novels, but for the time being that’s on the backburner and we shall be focusing almost exclusively on televison reviews - again, mainly of Nu-series Doctor Who.
Actually, scratch that - I've contradicted myself already having discovered the wonders of screencaps (more cred to http://time-and-space.co.uk/) which allow a significant amount of leeway re serious and boring writing and plenty excuse for demented lateral thinking and abstract 'analysis.' The novels are still ongoing, so I might pop back to tell you all (yes, all of you, when you all show up) about them when they spurt kicking and screaming out into eventual daylight. As of now, avvin a larf must rate as being the primary concern.
WHO PLUS WHAT EQUALS LOTS
And, along with Torchwood, it won’t always be all about Doctor Who. In coming posts I’ll be swinging my huge analysis lens over the recent smash-hit US likes of Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Bionic Woman (okay, maybe not so much of that) and the recent spat-out-by-Who’s-success British TV offerings such as Merlin, Survivors, Primeval, Demons and Being Human.
The second big and at-least-fairly serious review will proably keep things in the Whoniverse by having a good old runaround with Sarah Jane and the Invasion Of The Bane. For the record, I still haven’t decided whether that’s a load of tosh (no, not that Tosh) or awe-inspiring genius television. We shall all find out later on.
There’s probably a chance of some printed word assessment also: several of the fairly recent Torchwood novels are still lying in a heap behind my vegetating form, so I shall be paying an at least reasonable amount of attention to them. We might also be having a reappraisal of some of the Virgin New Adventures and BBC Eighth Doctor novels also...
For those of us who really want to go back in time, the venerable lord-god-messiah Sir Russell Jesus Mohammed Gandhi T Davies’s earlier projects might also be in line for a pondering, probably starting way back in the day with the pre-Sarah Jane Adventures confection that was Dark Season. It’s better than all of Sylvester McCoy’s stories put together! Fact.
HATE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD
In case you’re getting the wrong impression here, I don’t hate Doctor Who. My basic ideas about what I’d like to see in the series as it stands today will become apparent as things go on (and believe me, they will go on, and on and on) although I might issue the disclaimer at this point that the overall tone of my criticism (yeah, let’s call it that) often veers into realms of the deliberately flippant and/or comedic. So please, if you want to leave comments by all means jump in, criticise my style and approach or offer helpful advice and pointers but if you’re one of those angry sorts who just wants to swear and insult me having missed the overall point of things, then I probably won’t dignify you with a response. Unless it's funny. There are enough idiots on the internet as it is. Me being one of them.
Despite all that, you all look like thoroughly decent people (at least from where I’m sitting) and are very welcome to join me on my little quest to go far into the furthest reaches of nowhere and anywhere and then not come back again.
So let’s begin. A start is as good as any. And this is one of them.
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