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tencrushDear All at Torchwood HQ,
Thank you for my big gay show. I love it, I absolutely do. I'm a ming-mong, and therefore I feel the need to state the thing about how much I love it, because, obviously, I hate the show. I hate everything about it. But that's only because I love it so much. Are we clear on that? Good.
Because I hate and love this show so much, I just thought I'd pop in a word of advice for whoever takes over from Chibnall, and it's this: That idea you guys had about not having a show bible? That groundbreaking and innovative and, dare I say, avant garde approach you've taken to continuity and just sort of winging it in that whole area?
IT'S RETARDED.
Seriously. Every single one of us ming mongs thinks it's the most retarded idea ever to have befallen a televisual production. And that's NOT because we're anal sci-fi fans who want to know every character's grandfather's name and date of birth, honestly it's not. We just think it would be nice to believe that at least SOME THOUGHT has gone into this show that we love and hate so much.
It doesn't even have to be a bible. Maybe just a piece of A4 paper, yeah? That tells you, and the actors, and the scriptwriters and the novelisation guys and the guys that do the website and the magazine WHEN CHARACTERS WERE BORN, WHEN THEY WERE RECRUITED and maybe a little timeline as to when sigificant events we have and haven't witnessed actually happened. Personally, I'm not that bothered that Ianto's been 26, 27 and is now 25, I don't care that Tosh has been working for Torchwood for a number of years that seems to differ every time it gets a mention, and I'm not even that worried by the fact that Owen being 27 when he died, given what we know of the length of his employment at the NHS and Torchwood, makes him DOOGIE FUCKING HOWSER, I don't care about any of those things, it's just that I'm AFRAID for you guys. I'm AFRAID that one of these days you're going to screw up so badly, you'll have to spend an entire season and not just one episode (Hello Fragments!) retconning yourselves out of the quagmire you've created. And nobody wants that, do they? We're only thinking of YOU, we're being totally selfless here. Give it some consideration, would you? Piece of A4 paper. Copy it, hand it out. No biggie.
And before you go getting all defensive on me and saying I'm not giving you guys enough credit here, I'd like to state my opinion, again, that I think in many instances we fans, even the ming mongs, are guilty of giving you FAR TOO MUCH CREDIT. I'll refer you to an observation I made in the comments of an earlier post, an observation about the Hoix Owen encountered in Exit Wounds, the Hoix first seen in the Doctor Who episode Love and Monsters (which, funnily enough, I love, I'm a ming mong who loves Love and Monsters, you don't see many of those, feast your eyes.) Now when we first saw the Hoix it was mentioned by quite a few people that the alien looked very derivative. It resembled something out of Alien or Buffy, and wasn't hugely original looking. I didn't see this as a problem at all. You see, I figured what you guys were trying to do was to tell me that, because we were seeing the story from Elton's point of view and he was recalling what happened from memory, the way the alien looked was also something that came partly from Elton's observational skills, and partly from Elton's cultural sci-fi conditioning filling in the gaps where his memory faltered. And therefore, in Elton's mind, that is what the alien looked like. I thought it was very clever of you, making it look all derivative like that, and making him think that it had been defeated by means of a bucket, which was obviously not the case but just a detail Elton had latched onto in his mind and given slightly too much importance to. I was happy, I had faith in the thought that you'd put in. And then Owen ran into one, and proved unequivocally that THEY JUST LOOK LIKE THAT. Way to go. So you see what I did there? I GAVE YOU TOO MUCH CREDIT, I thought you'd put loads of thought into that element of the story, when in fact this was not the case.
Now that's just an example of how these things work, and of course, I'm an anal sci fi fan, I put WAY TOO MUCH THOUGHT into analysing television, it's true. But sometimes you guys don't seem to put in ANY. I love a happy medium. Do you think we could strike one somewhere?
A piece of A4 paper and a photocopier. That's all I'm asking.
Yours with love and kisses,
Why A. Whelk.
P.S. Gareth David-Lloyd? HE'S A KEEPER. He singlehandedly saved the portrayal of the Jack/Ianto relationship from becoming a confusing mess with no more than a bit of body language and a cleverly raised eyebrow in those places where the script was sadly lacking and Barrowman was too busy emoting at Eve Myles FAR TOO VEHEMENTLY. Honestly. KEEP HIM.
P.P.S. But tell him to lay off the pies.
Thank you for my big gay show. I love it, I absolutely do. I'm a ming-mong, and therefore I feel the need to state the thing about how much I love it, because, obviously, I hate the show. I hate everything about it. But that's only because I love it so much. Are we clear on that? Good.
Because I hate and love this show so much, I just thought I'd pop in a word of advice for whoever takes over from Chibnall, and it's this: That idea you guys had about not having a show bible? That groundbreaking and innovative and, dare I say, avant garde approach you've taken to continuity and just sort of winging it in that whole area?
IT'S RETARDED.
Seriously. Every single one of us ming mongs thinks it's the most retarded idea ever to have befallen a televisual production. And that's NOT because we're anal sci-fi fans who want to know every character's grandfather's name and date of birth, honestly it's not. We just think it would be nice to believe that at least SOME THOUGHT has gone into this show that we love and hate so much.
It doesn't even have to be a bible. Maybe just a piece of A4 paper, yeah? That tells you, and the actors, and the scriptwriters and the novelisation guys and the guys that do the website and the magazine WHEN CHARACTERS WERE BORN, WHEN THEY WERE RECRUITED and maybe a little timeline as to when sigificant events we have and haven't witnessed actually happened. Personally, I'm not that bothered that Ianto's been 26, 27 and is now 25, I don't care that Tosh has been working for Torchwood for a number of years that seems to differ every time it gets a mention, and I'm not even that worried by the fact that Owen being 27 when he died, given what we know of the length of his employment at the NHS and Torchwood, makes him DOOGIE FUCKING HOWSER, I don't care about any of those things, it's just that I'm AFRAID for you guys. I'm AFRAID that one of these days you're going to screw up so badly, you'll have to spend an entire season and not just one episode (Hello Fragments!) retconning yourselves out of the quagmire you've created. And nobody wants that, do they? We're only thinking of YOU, we're being totally selfless here. Give it some consideration, would you? Piece of A4 paper. Copy it, hand it out. No biggie.
And before you go getting all defensive on me and saying I'm not giving you guys enough credit here, I'd like to state my opinion, again, that I think in many instances we fans, even the ming mongs, are guilty of giving you FAR TOO MUCH CREDIT. I'll refer you to an observation I made in the comments of an earlier post, an observation about the Hoix Owen encountered in Exit Wounds, the Hoix first seen in the Doctor Who episode Love and Monsters (which, funnily enough, I love, I'm a ming mong who loves Love and Monsters, you don't see many of those, feast your eyes.) Now when we first saw the Hoix it was mentioned by quite a few people that the alien looked very derivative. It resembled something out of Alien or Buffy, and wasn't hugely original looking. I didn't see this as a problem at all. You see, I figured what you guys were trying to do was to tell me that, because we were seeing the story from Elton's point of view and he was recalling what happened from memory, the way the alien looked was also something that came partly from Elton's observational skills, and partly from Elton's cultural sci-fi conditioning filling in the gaps where his memory faltered. And therefore, in Elton's mind, that is what the alien looked like. I thought it was very clever of you, making it look all derivative like that, and making him think that it had been defeated by means of a bucket, which was obviously not the case but just a detail Elton had latched onto in his mind and given slightly too much importance to. I was happy, I had faith in the thought that you'd put in. And then Owen ran into one, and proved unequivocally that THEY JUST LOOK LIKE THAT. Way to go. So you see what I did there? I GAVE YOU TOO MUCH CREDIT, I thought you'd put loads of thought into that element of the story, when in fact this was not the case.
Now that's just an example of how these things work, and of course, I'm an anal sci fi fan, I put WAY TOO MUCH THOUGHT into analysing television, it's true. But sometimes you guys don't seem to put in ANY. I love a happy medium. Do you think we could strike one somewhere?
A piece of A4 paper and a photocopier. That's all I'm asking.
Yours with love and kisses,
Why A. Whelk.
P.S. Gareth David-Lloyd? HE'S A KEEPER. He singlehandedly saved the portrayal of the Jack/Ianto relationship from becoming a confusing mess with no more than a bit of body language and a cleverly raised eyebrow in those places where the script was sadly lacking and Barrowman was too busy emoting at Eve Myles FAR TOO VEHEMENTLY. Honestly. KEEP HIM.
P.P.S. But tell him to lay off the pies.
