tencrush | Some Torchwood things...

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Some Torchwood things...

Okay, so my rewrite saddened you, that's fine. I went with what I went with in order to show that even given the brief, which let's just assume was:
1)Ditch the gay relationship
2)Get rid of Ianto
3)Emotionally break Jack
4)Set up the Gwen show
an ending still could have been plotted that was more respectful towards the character of Ianto Jones and the Jack/Ianto relationship, while still permanently getting rid of him and not just using him as a lame plot device. I've always advocated retcon, because I really feel that the notion of Torchwood Kills People has been adequately explored with Suzie, Owen and Tosh, while the notion that Torchwood Breaks People In Various Other Interesting Ways has not, and Ianto would have been perfect fodder for that lesson, given his devotion to the organisation. So them's my reasonings behind that, I stand by it as being a better ending. Plus: Wandering Cock.

Poke your friends, we only need three more members to get ninja_teaboy up to 300. For some reason I am desperate for this to happen. Also, it's where most of the funtimes are at at the moment, and will probably, after CoE finishes airing in the States, become an official CANONDENIALIST community, where Ianto is totally not dead. At all.

I said I wanted to do an I-AM-KATEORMAN style info-gathering project about what we, as core Torchwood fans, i.e. people who already watched Torchwood and were eagerly anticipating its return, were promised in interviews, or were (mis?)led to believe might happen in Series 3, just to see if there was actual real misinformation going on, and if we truly were led to believe we were getting something other than what we got. Fortunately, kelticbanshee got in there before me. Here is the post where she is asking for your contributions in the way of links to interviews and pre-CoE press, so have a look at what's already there and add in what you feel may be appropriate THEY-LIED-TO-US-style links. I am eagerly anticipating what will come of this.

I really didn't want to go into the homophobia debate, but I feel a post brewing about the messages sent by Torchwood about homosexuality and bisexuality. I apologise in advance if I get tl;dr about that topic some time in the next few days, but I feel I might need to poop that out regardless of my never-wanting-to-talk-about-CoE-again. I need my brain for other stuff.

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Thanks for the

kelticbanshee link - I'd thought about doing the same thing, until I realised my reserves of impotent-anger antidote were way, way too inadequate. I do have a few links and snippets to chip in, though.

Twelve, thirteen days on and I'm still seething about the misdirection. It'll be nice to get it all corralled and substantiated but I know when I've been fucked up the arse without consent or lube, bastards. Otherwise, as long as I never mention That Show or That Thing Especially again, and continue to quietly live inside the pathetically marshmallow fix-it I constructed for myself last week, it's all good.

Also, it's fun to watch the twitter response in the US, which as of end of Day Two seems to be roughtly in the order of YAY TORCHWOOD! closely followed (if not bettered) by YAY IANTO! and then a mishmash of comments about the show, the JCB, pixellating Barrowman's bare arse on BBCA to protect delicate sensibilities, Ianto's kickass family, Ianto and Jack... and the occasional mention of Gwen.

Is it wrong that I am waiting for the utter shitstorm of reaction to come this Thursday with a certain grimly contented anticipation?

Yeah, I also thought about doing the same thing, but I just don't have the time and I feel I'm just a bit too biased and angry.

I want to warn the US peeps and at least lube them up for the arsefucking, but at the end of the day, everyone's just going to have to deal with it when it happens. I too have the grimly contented anticipation thing going on, but on the other hand, I don't really think I can deal with having to think or talk about this whole thing AGAIN from square one, you know? I might just hide for a few days and then point people at things that have already been said.

RTD is finally coming right out and saying that CoE was conceived as a relaunch of the show for a mainstream audience, as opposed to its previous "small, cult" audience. Certainly this isn't how the show was initially sold to us in the interviews leading up to CoE. Take a look at the Declassified transcript that

qaffangyrl has put up at

torch_wood for the "small, cult" remark. I think the agenda that Julie Gardner and RTD were working from was even more scorched-earth than yours, since CoE also makes it difficult if not impossible for the new leadership at BBC Wales to continue with the show, it not only eliminates the "gay" character and relationship it also makes it possible to eliminate the omnisexual character, and essentially hollows out the "Torchwood" concept to something that can be set anywhere, with any cast, and only the vaguest possible connection to what went before. That is to say, they made it a property that they can remake or sell in the US.

Was it well-done? Well, they certainly had a lot more money to throw at the screen in terms of locations, guest stars and overall size of cast, and they didn't stint on promotion. The script was structured for maximum emotional impact, and Peter Capaldi in particular was worth every penny they paid him. Even so it got about half the audience that the DW Christmas specials do, though a good audience for July.

Edited 2009-07-22 12:27 (UTC)

I still maintain that perhaps Moffat somewhere along the line stipulated that RTD/BBC Wales could continue with Torchwood ONLY IF its ties to Who were severed, and the two 'verses, as it were, would no longer intersect and cause canon headaches.

I am reading around and about that Torchwood Series 4 production jobs were advertised internally at the Beeb long before CoE even aired.

Which means that Jack is gone, since he's the canon link. No wonder JB feels punished, since it's his very popular character getting cliffed. Do you think they'll bother with a Cardiff setting for TW4 since the Hub is gone, or will they just re-set in London the way Who and Sarah Jane do. It's weird though, SJA doesn't seem to have any impact on canon, though they clearly plan to continue recycling Who aliens etc in it.

I'm trying to visualise the meeting which must have happened when RTD explained to the BBC the outline of where S3 was going to end.

RTD "So basically, at the end of day five, the hub is destroyed, Ianto is dead, Jack is broken and off-planet, and Gwen is heavily pregnant"

(cue exchange of looks between BBC reps)
BBC overlord, "Um, well you see, RTD. The problem is, when we make a show that will hopefully get us good ratings, we actually would like to be able to you know, make more episodes of it?"

RTD (waving disdainfully a la Dogbert) "Piff, it's the story, I have to write the story, who cares if nobody wants to watch it again, it's the story dammit!"

(and this is when TPTB at the BBC should have called for the men in white coats, followed by a writer who could rewrite COE to actually give them a potential S4)

Gosh... yeah, I can so see that one happening! *sigh*

There's that whole thing where Andrew Cartmel was showing up somewhere online (my brain says wiki, but my Google-fu says not) as having written an outline script for a Torchwood Series 4 ep, commissioned well before CoE aired.

There was also something in a Julie Gardner interview I read yesterday, post-CoE, where she was talking emphatically about TW returning but not in any format necessarily resembling what's gone before. It didn't excatly sound like a new notion to her, merely one that the unexpected ratings for CoE had pushed very fast higher up the to-do list.

I closed the link with my usual huff of annoyance, but I'll see if I can find it again now.

No, it's in his bio/cv somewhere, I don't think it was wiki, more like IMDB or somewhere like that.

I thought the Cartmel script was just a spec script, originally for s3 before that was cut to 5 eps. And Julie Gardner's in the States now isn't she, BBC World or BBC America with Jane Tranter?

When I saw the link I can't find now, the Cartmel script was specifically described as "Torchwood Season 4". No idea what its provenance might have been - as you say, very possibly from an unused spec script. But it looked like there was at least some early thinking (and spending) to secure it as a potential s4 script or concept at least.

I don't think this - http://www.televisionaryblog.com/2009/07/heavens-themselves-blaze-forth.html - is the interview I was thinking of, but this quote from it suggests JG still sees Torchwood as, to some extent, her property or hers to have a vote on.

Televisionary: Given that you're now over here in Los Angeles with BBC Worldwide Productions--

Gardner: Hurray!

Televisionary: We're very happy to have you over here in LA.

Gardner: Thank you very much. The weather is considerably better. (Laughs)

Televisionary: I'm wondering, how likely is it that Torchwood will continue after the five-part transmission of Children of Earth?

Gardner: Um, we're having conversations now. We don't have any firm decision. We don't quite know what we're going to do next. But we're thinking about what could be the next editorial offering, so all I can say at this moment is: hold this space.

I think I saw this in the dead wood media somewhere. I thought well unless you're making a US version you don't really have a say in whether it's remade as far as I can see. So it may be US version on way.

I don't see how they think a US version is going to be oh-so-very popular when they've killed everything that made Torchwood Torchwood. We have plenty of shows here that are similar to Torchwood already. It's not [i]that[/i] original of a concept. Unless they think one of the big networks will pick it up...maybe once Lost wraps they can have a new Torchwood base on a tropical island with lots of weird stuff happening. 'Cause network TV? I'm really not seeing it...

I hope I'm not the only person who saw Cartmel's name and went "Oh so Jack is literally God in that, yeah?" (And I loooove Cartmel!Who.)

I dunno I think at most Moff would say he wasn't going to do them. I don't think inheriting the parent-show means you necessarily inherit all the others. I mean, he's had nothing to do with Torchwood and SJA so why give him those when other people have been doing fine with them?

RTD is finally coming right out and saying that CoE was conceived as a relaunch of the show for a mainstream audience,

Translation, we have just been watching the five hour pilot for Gwen-wood.

I don't even believe in that, though I think Eve Myles does. If we get any more TW made at BBC Wales, then yeah, though I have no idea how they're going to do this dark, "mainstream" Spooks-with-aliens show with Gwen and Rhys and a baby, just doesn't fit. But I'm more and more of the opinion that the goal was to set up an American reboot.

Eve seems SO CERTAIN that she's part of it, though, given what she's been saying recently.

Eve seems SO CERTAIN that she's part of it, though, given what she's been saying recently.

Is it wrong that a part of me will be somewhat glad if they announce S4 and she's not included?

She shouldn't be included. She had a nice end for her character. Bringing Gwen back negates all of the 'Torchwood die young' and 'Torchwood is dangerous for real!' messages that presumably necessitated the deaths of Tosh, Owen, and Ianto.

So, of course, she'll be back... *ergh*

See, I don't get the whole it's dark and dangerous and our leader is a mom with a small child thing.

Why would Rhys even consider saying, yeah,you should put yourself in danger? What mother would hold her baby in one arm and shoot her semi automatic with the other? That's just wrong.

Eve's comments about Gwen with gun in one hand, baby on other arm always sound kind of 'cracky'. (Though she could be playing up for effect or it could be the way it's was being reported.) The way she describes it comes across as going back to the style of the first two series not like CoE which I can't see happening.

It's funny - and by funny I mean "would like to shoot in the face" - how much difference there is in what RTD was saying pre- and post-CoE airing. This interview from a couple of days ago - http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20090720_torchwood - is full of evasion: look at the answers to direct questions about the Jack / Ianto relationship (RTD blabs on about other shows with other gay couples he's written, and the general theory of how heroic he's been to put a gay relationship into mainstream drama - nothing about the substance of it on Torchwood itself). Or the question of the future for the character of Captain Jack:

"RTD: Well, I can't be specific about anything for the character who I started on "Doctor Who" and now on "Torchwood" and I'm so lucky that the timing in my life would be so good to coincide with John, an openly gay actor who looks like the most dashing, handsome hero you could ever meet who is playing a bisexual leading role. It's very rare to have that chemistry there and John carries it off the style and talent. God bless him! "

Translation = "Captain Jack is deleted, but if JB plays along with us I might just consider letting him have another role in something else I might do at some time."

I swear, the more words I read out of the mouths of these people, the more bitterer I get...

It's horrible, isn't it?

(I thought Moffat lumped RTD with Captain Jack, now he's suddenly Russell's brilliant creation?)

Captain Jack is apparently insanely popular, so they all want to take credit? I do hate the way RTD has just eviscerated that character in CoE.

But the Doctor will heal him! And Jack will be back to his ol' self again! Ready for more hijinks in S4! That seems to be the general consensus on the boards...

Please.

sn't denial a wonderful thing? JB was onset a day or less according to shooting reports, I doubt that anything much will happen to fix HIM, it's all about winding up Ten's story, Jack's just a prop. God only knows what BBC Wales is going to do, given the wreckage of TW left behind.

And of all the actors on the show, JB is the one who needs RTD and the BBC least - he's the one turning down work all over the place, from theatre to American network TV (he was offered the gay brother role IIRC in Rob Lowe's Brothers and Sisters) in order to put Captain Jack first. Way to treat your stars.

Edited 2009-07-22 14:38 (UTC)

Err... I might be wrong, but doesn't writers/producers who does things like salt and burn usually find themselves with next to nothing to do for the rest of their career? And oh gods, if RTD and JG thinks they can just repackage and sell TW to an American audience, I think they just killed the only fresh concept TW had compared to other sci-fi shows and what's left of TW is very much "been there, done that, Joss is more popular".

It's been almost two weeks, I still feel used and dirty every time I think about CoE.

What gets me, is how RTD and JB talk about Jack/Ianto in relation to simply having a gay relationship on tv, rather than in relation to Jack and Ianto themselves. John virtually never talks about Jack's feelings for Ianto and RTD virtually never talks about Jack/Ianto as a couple, just how great he is to put same sex relationships in his primetime shows.

Not sure where I stand on the 'were the fans lead up the garden path in relation to Jack/Ianto?' situation.

I loved the Retconed Ianto idea. So much more imaginative than death, death, death.

...never met him, never worked with him, couldn't care less about him personally but I challenge anyone to discover the "internalised homophobia" in RTD.
Is it buried sooo deep that the only people who are capable of seeing it are straight fangirls?

I've just posted this very recent interview on TW Institute, and I'm reposting it here because since the Doctor Who revival I've watched every adolescent male-oriented forum call RTD out on his "gay agenda".

Oh, and those forums have spent years making every homophobic comment possible about buttsex and sucking cock. Homophobic being defined as an "irrational fear or aversion to homosexuality".

Ianto's death is not the result of homophobia.

(I did both of those things last night btw _ as did probably about a million people worldwide and a good time was had by all. It's not dirty or disgusting, people. It's just sex.)

From a recent interview:

"JH: You also have this great romance in the middle of it all with Captain Jack and Ianto. How does this same sex romance fit into the landscape of this world?

RTD: From the very start, "Torchwood" has had a sort of free and easy attitude towards sexuality, which is true towards everything I write. I invented "Queer as Folk" ten years ago and I know a version ran for five years on Showtime. Even "Doctor Who," which is a family show that sometimes goes out at 6 o'clock in the evening and I introduced Captain Jack, who was this bisexual, swaggering hero and there have been absolutely no complaints whatsoever. Obviously I carried that over into "Torchwood."

I think it's great to have a prime time drama with a gay couple at the center of it.

When "Children of Earth" aired here in Britain, we were the number one show for the week and it was fantastic. It ran Monday through Friday and I'd hoped it would do quite well.

JH: The show also makes a point of not completely revolving around the relationship. It just happens to be a very natural part of the world.

RTD: I think that's why the relationships seem normal because I've got a long history of writing gay and lesbian characters so it's not new to me so I'm not bothered and it's my life and the more natural thing. There's never been a single producer who has ever told me to stop so that's been wonderful."

Dear Lord, man, first of all you're making assumptions about my sexuality and that of the others engaged in this debate that I can assure you are incorrect. Don't come in here and assume you know me. Secondly, stop trolling around attempting to start this homophobia debate everywhere you go, which mostly seems to be here. I said I'd address it in another post and I will, so you can pipe down until I do. For the record, I don't think RTD is homophobic, but I will be talking about what I DO think in future.

And just to clarify, I love sucking cock and I also enjoy anal. But there's such a thing as TMI dude, ta.

To which I might add - I'm not a straight woman, don't assume I am either. "Prime time drama with a gay couple at the center of it" - I assume you're talking about some other show than CoE.

Ok, last time I will post here. Honest.

I just don't believe that Ianto's death was the result of either RTD's homophobia or a big conspiracy to make TW more acceptable to the mainstream. (I have no doubt that there are plenty of individual homophobic tv producers around, but RTD wasn't working with one of those.)

I think RTD wrote it as if it was going to be the last TW. So he shredded Jack's life. Any person intimately involved with Jack would have died - so goodbye Ianto.

That's all - no big Anti-Gay Plot.

You're welcome to come and debate the topic, don't get me wrong, you just seem to want to start a comment debate ON this topic every time you come here. I've never seen anyone claim that there's a big anti gay plot and I've never claimed RTD is a homophobe, just that for someone who pimps himself out as being so liberal about queerness in his shows, he doesn't actually pay an awful lot of attention to some of the homophobic messages this show -inadvertently I'm sure- sends out sometimes.

hat was a quote from RTD's interview - the "prime-time" bit.

That was a quote from RTD's interview - the "prime-time" section.

And I take the liberty of disagreeing with that description.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think it really doesn't matter if RTD is homophobic or not - his treatment of the characters in CoE imbues Ianto's journey with homophobia, and that's what he's being judged for. Casual homophobic remarks might not seem radical "in the real world," but they are jarring, considering the complete lack of casual homophobia in the other two series.

And when you put Ianto's death and Jack's destruction beside Gwen and Rhys's married and pregnant, heterosexual "ideal," CoE does seem homophobic.

(Ianto's death, on the other hand, was a result of lazy, cliched writing - a cliche that happens to coincide with Homophobia In Film and TV.)

Yes, exactly this.

We have two series of Torchwood in the bag, where Ianto starts in a (presumably sexual, certainly passionately committed) relationship with a woman, then moves on into a firstly sexual, then more emotionally significant relationship with a man. In those two series, the fact of an ongoing relationship was guessed at by his colleagues in the first season, and treated as an openly acknowledged fact in the second, even to 'outsiders' such as Martha and Gwen's entire wedding guest list.

And at no time in either series did ANY of the characters ever remark on Ianto's sexual orientation. The only individuals who even referred to the relationship with Jack were Owen, who was seeking to use the fact of a sexual liaison with the boss as a means of twatting Ianto over his chain of command hang-ups - NEVER as an issue about his orientation: and Martha and Gwen (separately), who were both simply interested in gossip about Jack as a lover, not in the fact that this was a homosexual relationship.

Against that Torchwood context, when what was significant was Ianto's relationship with Jack, the significance and history of that relationship, but never any issue of the homosexuality of it - we get CoE, where Ianto himself is suddenly (and IMO OOC-ishly) questioning, not just the mutuality of his feelings for Jack, but his own sexual orientation. This from the character whose reaction to the team's prurient second-ep debate about whether Jack was gay or straight was a calmly unequivocal 'and I don't care'. Where did the sudden 'gay' insecurity come from?

And in CoE, practically every other character Ianto meets overtly and crudely flags up his public, outed 'queerness' - when the language is no longer 'shag' or 'dabbling', but 'gayboy', 'taking it up the arse' and 'queer'. I personally found it hard not to read CoE as a deliberate exercise in a kind of queering-up of Ianto, which emphasised that he's gay but Jack is some kind of sexual orientation that doesn't need to have any attention drawn to it, because while our hero should be sexually potent enough even to turn little straight boys queer, that doesn't actually make our herop a poof himself, oh no.

It also came across to me as an attempt to paint Ianto being in some kind of denial which needs to be forcibly broken (when strangers like Clem and Andy can, apparently, 'smell' or sense his gayness even if Ianto himself refuses to acknowledge it openly.

Oh, and that sympathetic characters like Johnny, Clem and Andy can use that kind of derogatory language and it's either a bit of a laugh or just the kind of mild social faux pas that nice, but poorly-educated people sometimes slip up with.

RTD may or may not have homophobic issues, but he sure as hell knows how to shape and script a show laced with overt and subtextual homophobia - and two seasons of Torchwood without his expert hand on the tiller somehow managed to avoid doing that, even while they built that relationship from scratch.

But being a straight fangirl, what the hell would I know about any of this, of course?

Perfect. Thank you.

Exactly. The ONLY references non-Torchwood characters make about Ianto are about his sexuality. And this from a show that made such a big deal in S1 & S2 about how labels shouldn't define people.

Can you imagine this, Jack's partner is well...Jewish (a convert no less, OY!).

And his Christian sister says, "So, you were seen coming out of Temple Shalom last Saturday - when did you give up the true faith?" Followed by his B-I-L with "so you're a Jew-boy, have you been circumcised yet?"

And Clem sniffs around and says "OMG its a kike." And Andy says "was he really Jewish, I did see him eat a ham sandwich you know" I mean he didn't seem Jewish you know....".

Ok, and to make this work, RTD would of course have to be Jewish himself. Would he anti-semitic? Would Jewish viewers be raising a shit-storm. You betcha! (There would of course be the apologists just like they are for RTD - oh, but he's one of ours, we can't diss him before the non-Jewish public).

Its just like the discussion over on the BBCA chat boards of "Hey I'm not homophobic, I just don't want to see it on TV." Hmmm... sounds a lot like the old (and unfortunately not so old), "I have nothing against blacks, I just don't want my daughter to marry one, or uh, live in my neighborhood, or, uh be my President.

Um... and I just spumed all over your comment to get all that off my chest. Sorry!

Don't be! I'm afraid I suck at details. You've managed to explain exactly what I meant, for me. Thank you. :)

The next time I hear this I'll explode. This is what I call negating the evidence.

1) They ELIMINATED the gay relationship.

2) They KILLED OFF the gay character (I firmly object to the fact that Ianto was the gay one, but still)

3) They NEVER showed Jack and Ianto like a proper couple. Less than ever in CoE.

This may be not homophobia but the end result is suspiciously exactly the same.

RTD has made television in the past that was accused of homophobia, that is nothing new. Especially with his show Bob and Rose. So he may well say that in his interview, it doesn't mean that others have never seen him in it, or always been happy with his writing.

What rivier has said above is exactly right. Two series with no mention of the relationship, or Ianto's sexuality as an issue at all. Suddenly he is all conflicted about it. Then we get the casual homophobia around him and about him. Much as the scene with his sister was very good, the scenes with him nagging Jack about the word "couple" were not only a total waste of time, it's bad writing, Show don't tell, the basic rule. Let us see how they are together, let us work it out. They weren't even given a chance to act like a couple, unlike in S2. It was like the Ally McBeal school of story telling. No doubt Season 4 will have a little voice over at the end for idiots who don't get the point.

Oh, wow, thanks for the promotion! I will be snagging a few links I have seen in the comments for my big "digging through all the crap we've been told in the last year" project.

I have more to say, but brain is fried. Will be back afer sleep...

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