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BBC Announces Adult Doctor Who Spin-Off
Dogtanian writes "The BBC has just announced a new 'Doctor Who' spin-off called 'Torchwood'. It is intended to be more adult in tone, and will follow a team investigating alien activities in modern-day Britain. Described as a cross between 'The X-Files' and 'This Life', it will feature Captain Jack, the bisexual time-travelling conman who featured in a number of recent Who episodes. The BBC are likely hoping that this spin-off will be more successful than 'K9 and Company'. The title is an anagram of a popular British sci-fi series, by the way."
Hopefully, they'll be able to offload all the homo-erotic crap that RTD has been trying to "insert" into DrWho of late. The captain (the main character of Torchwood) was an openly bisexual character introduced last season, so Torchwood might be a more appropriate forum for RTD's political agenda, freeing up DrWho to get back to basics without all the uncomfortable sexual baggage
You're not the only one. The series does need a scientific consultant (or, at least, Secretary of State for Consistency).
British TV will deal with subjects that American TV cannot touch
- Will & Grace
- Queer Eye
- Queer As Folk
- Ellen
- Pretty much all of Bravo
I think American TV has pretty much smashed the closet door wide open...
Actually, my point has nothing to do with religion, Christianity, morality, or anything of the sort. It has to do with the fact that the premise is retarded. Simple as that. I'd say the same thing if he were a "womanizing, time traveling con man" or "bubblegum loving, time traveling conman".
Okay, it's been about twenty years since I've seen any Doctor Who, so I can't comment specifically on this character, but...
How does having a bisexual character constitute an "agenda" or "uncomfortable sexual baggage"? Isn't that just sort of a fairly realistic inclusion of the fact that actual people are sometimes gay or bisexual? In much the same way that people are sometimes female, or tall, or left-handed, and thus characters in stories sometimes also have these traits?
Were you made similarly uncomfortable by Tom Baker's curly-haired-people agenda and baggage?
Actually, I rather enjoy the writing. As you said, the interpersonal elements are very well done. As far as any perceived problem with "some kind of big beam from the sky hitting the Tardis as a way of resolving the plot" you need to realize that that particular part isn't as important.
Take what is quite possibly the world's greatest plot device - the Sonic Screwdriver (tm). There are many things that get in the Doctor's way. People, Daleks, the gap of the emotional understanding and motivations of the human species. Those are interesting challenges and make for good television. Opening a locked door isn't as interesting.
The Bad Wolf plot was not a let down for me. Remember the episode where Rose saved her father and caused a temporal paradox (sorry if there is a better term, years of Star Trek have embedded that one in me.)? It showed that normally there is a limit that you can mess around with the timeline at. Again, it wouldn't be much of a show if you could just go back in time and accidently land the TARDIS on top of the creator of your greatest enemy before he creates them. What the Bad Wolf episode also showed is that those paradoxes can be resolved. What can be more dramatic than Rose desperately trying to get the TARDIS flying on what she knows may be a one-way trip to her death for the slight chance that she can do something to save "her Doctor."
Again, simple matters of how to open a door don't make for good drama. Telling a crazed, alien-nanite infused, scared, lethal, 6-year old to go to his room in a convincing manner... Sacrificing yourself to time-eating demons to defend your (relatively) innocent companion... Flying the TARDIS into a Dalek ambush to turn certain death into a fighting chance for life... brilliant!
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"How does having a bisexual character constitute an "agenda" or "uncomfortable sexual baggage"?"
The same way a light hearted kiss is considered 'homo erotic'.
"Derp de derp."
Speaking as someone who's seen the series, new and old... we don't even need to bring homosexuality or bisexuality or whatever into this...
Tom Baker's characterization didn't totally revolve around the curly hair. Captain Jack, on the other hand, had very, very few scenes that weren't heavily sexualized.
You could forget, sometimes, that Tom Baker had curly hair. By contrast, the way Captain Jack was written, it was pretty hard to forget, even for a moment, that he was continuously randy for anything vaguely warm and moving.
It's even more glaring given that Doctor Who has historically been a show so foreign to sex that fandom has long speculated that the main character's species reproduces asexually.
Now, that was a writing problem too, but I would have preferred something in the middle rather than having a main character almost totally dominated by his sexuality at the expense of other aspects of his development.
DNA just wants to be free...
What's more, being a Brit, I have to pay for it by law :-(
Only if you watch TV. I gave up on that drivel ages ago.
Ah. So it must have gotten into the Dalek mothership through a window or something, yes? Maybe the side door? And that blinking light before they opened the door, that was just it turning un-invisible or something?
Slipped into another dimension (the 'D' in tardis)... that's how it goes through things normally - It doesn't *have* to travel in time to do this.
Also, I'd be surprised if the daleks didn't have dimensional/time shifting missiles by this stage, since they've managed to defeat the time lords (by a mechanism as yet unexplained... I'd expect a time travelling species to be pretty much indestructible under normal circumstances).
Yes, I went 6 years without a TV set. The bastards constantly hounded me for a license.
I had to get a TV eventually because I wanted broadband internet, and in my area you could only get it through NTL cable, and needed a TeeVee ...
It's been all downhill since then.
Bunch of arse.
Stick Men
I predict that this spin-off wouldn't do well here in the U.S.
:)
I've said this before but... Doctor Who will *never* do well with mainstream US audiences. Period.
They tried it in 1996 with the Fox/BBC co-production, made a number of compromises for the American market, and it still didn't do very well.
Put simply, if it were possible to make something called "Doctor Who" that did well in America, it wouldn't be Doctor Who. The BBC seemed to realise this with the new series, and didn't try to repeat their 1996 mistake (which isn't to say it was flawless, but not for that reason).
Doctor Who will never be more than cult in the US, and it's unlikely that Torchwood would be either, with or without openly bi and/or gay characters.
Personally, I'm not convinced about Torchwood; I felt the Captain Jack character was symptomatic of the (intentional) cheesiness running through the new series, but I'm not a rabid Who fan, so if it's crap I'll just not bother watching it. If it's good, then... great
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Whether it is the new Who or the new spin-off, I would argue that if it can't manage either the tension of The Zero Imperative, the surrealness of Summoned By Shadows or the darkness of The Terror Game, then the BBC has no business producing it. For chrissakes, those were FAN FLICKS! The special effects rarely went much beyond cutting up cornflake packets. But it seems to me that they packed a hell of a lot more punch than the BBC is willing to put into their sci-fi.
Sci-fi isn't about skin - though some might have trouble believing it. It gets its power from the Universe it is set in, and if the Universe isn't worth a damn, then neither is the show. (At least as sci-fi. It might make it as a soap opera, or a comedy.)
The BBC is capable of producing science fiction that would have even the tired and jaded audiences of today shivering in terror behind the sofa. If they chose. They're more than capable of producing a drama of sufficient power and depth that the fans are cheering on the hero(s) every step of the way. If they chose.
The same is true of any other TV station. So why do none of them choose? Why is nausiating dross the ONLY diet on television these days?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You could forget, sometimes, that Tom Baker had curly hair.
Yeah, because there are so many curly-hair-ophobes. (rolls eyes)
Could you forget that Tuvok was black? If yes, then you have no problem. If no, then the problem is with you, not Tuvok.
I haven't seen the show, but...
Describe Dan Fielding from Night Court.
Or Sam Malone from Cheers.
Or that guy with the number from Lexx.
Or the Fonz (or Ralph and what's-his-name for that matter).
Now, that was a writing problem too, but I would have preferred something in the middle rather than having a main character almost totally dominated by his sexuality at the expense of other aspects of his development.
Having not seen the show, I can't comment on whether the character works or not, but that's not the issue, the issue is about a political agenda just because a character is gay (not gay, bi-sexual).
Oh noes! Teh gays are out to get us all!
Whatever. I've seen Will and Grace. I've laughed. I wasn't gay before seeing the show, and I'm still not. I've seen "Top Gun" and I don't want to become a fighter pilot, I've seen Star Trek: Voyager, and I don't want to become a woman.
If your psyche is so fragile that a gay (or bi-sexual) character makes you uncomfortable, that's your problem. Maybe you should look into fixing that, hmm? (And if you, MenTaLGuy, don't really have a problem with it, then this isn't directed at you personally).
And you have no idea how much that cracks me up. But PLEASE mod it down.
:)
I should have my browser taken away if I've had less than 2 hours of sleep in the last 36.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Superior being? Try desperate, lonely refugee.
For eight lifetimes, the Doctor was the superior being. Sure, he slummed it in the rickety old TARDIS, and occasionally picked up human companions whose sole purpose was to provide someone to whom the Doctor could demonstrate his superior knowledge, experience and general leetness, and occasionally to get captured by monsters and need to be rescued. However, he never had to do that. Though he loved playing the rogue Time Lord, he could always go home, face whatever music there might be, and rejoin his own people on Gallifrey. He never needed those companions and always, as you say, played the Superior Being.
However, at some point in the recent past (at least, in the recent past from the Doctor's perspective) there was a Time War. You might have heard of it. In that Time War, Gallifrey was destroyed and the Time Lords were exterminated. The Doctor now has nowhere to go. There's no homeworld. He has no people of his own, he has no roots and no background. Suddenly he's lost. He and the TARDIS are all that's left of the most powerful civilisation that ever was. Not so superior now, are we, Doctor? Not surprising, then, that he's suddenly more personally interested in his human companions. Even a Time Lord needs somebody.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.