American Torchwood

I can see how Torchwood could possibly get American treatment, especially with Julie Gardner, Russell T Davies and Jane Tranter all based in California now.

And honestly, I'd so much rather have an American Torchwood than an American Doctor Who remake. Which is something that really does scare me, after all. Especially if it is one not also trying to serve the UK market, which the 1996 TV movie did.

I really don't have a massive opinion about it. After all, it's a genre show on FOX -- it will get canceled after at most a dozen episodes anyways.

BBC America Success!

It's good to see that BBC America has had success with Waters of Mars.

And here are some clips from them in support of The End of Time which are coming the next two Saturdays on BBC America. I'm quite excited at this point!

Fantastic RTD and David Tennant Interview

If you haven't seen it already... good stuff.

The Writer's Tale

I picked up Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale over the weekend at Chicago TARDIS and I devoured it almost immediately. It's an incredibly detailed look at the creation of the fourth series of Doctor Who through a series of e-mails between Russell and Ben Cook.

There are a lot of things that you realize very quickly -- first of all, that yes, the complete set of departures and gap year have all been part of the plan for quite some time -- down to even Tennant's departure. It felt that way when you watched Series Four -- it felt like RTD had wrapped up almost everything that started all the way back in 'Rose', after all.

You also get a feeling for the insecurities of Russell T Davies -- and how it people that focus on how the "other" writers are better than Russell miss the point -- Russell rewrites almost everyone, and his fingerprints are all over the series as a whole. There's a notable piece where Russell feels sorry for himself for people not giving him any credit for his work on Human Nature, when he certainly helped on it. (Paul, in fact, has mentioned Russell's contributions.) That doesn't discredit that Human Nature is fundamentally Paul's story -- the novel, after all, is proof of that.

One of the best things is that part of Russell's strategy is clear -- there is certainly a risk that the new Doctor Who became so strongly associated with Russell, or the current cast, that when they inevitably leave, the show can continue -- but even that, it's part of the set up that the show may go away for a year or two -- but then will come back. Doctor Who becomes something that comes back; so we'll have Doctor Who now, and there will be Doctor Who for the fiftieth anniversary, and it will come back and regenerate itself again, and again.

And one part of the Writer's Tale is that it's part of one very strong strand of Doctor Who history. One of the reasons why Doctor Who was successfully revived is that people like Russell T Davies, David Tennant, and Steven Moffat learned about how televison was made by reading old Doctor Who magazines or books like 'The Making of Doctor Who'. This book will be read by people who will write for Doctor Who twenty years from now. They'll write other things as well -- just like RTD and Moffat have written wonderful things like Bob & Rose and Coupling -- but future writers will also continue to contribute to their favorite television show; the reason why they got into the business to begin with.

I can't recommend the book enough. It is a fascinating insight into this era of Doctor Who, and the writing process of Russell T Davies. It's accompanied by some wonderful sketches -- I'd love read a full Russell T Davies Doctor Who comic strip as well.

I read it in the Times

Today's new york times has a profile of Russell T Davies.

Russell T Davies Interview To Read

This interview with Russell T Davies has some interesting little spoilers and cameo reports that I'm sure will be very interesting to some of you.

Doctor Who after Russell

Another article about Russell T Davies -- and this one also goes on about what Russell will do after Doctor Who.

I think it's an interesting question -- is this new Doctor Who so defined by Russell T Davies that it'll go back into hibernation when he has told all of the Doctor Who stories that he wants to tell?

I'd like to think that Doctor Who can just continue on and on -- and I believe that it is an ever green concept, like Superman, Batman, James Bond, Robin Hood, or Sherlock Holmes, that will be brought back on a regular basis and every "generation" deserves their own version.

At the same time, best to enjoy it while it is here.

Seeing the future

A couple of interesting thoughts as I read this interview with Russell T Davies in the lead up to series three.

First of all, there's the (unsurprising) news that a fourth series has been commissioned. But I wonder if that'll be the last series of the Russell T Davies era. There are certainly hints that could be the case -- "This is one of the reasons why Davies is ready for a new challenge" and "If you stay too long somewhere you start missing out on chances like that."

And while we've proven that the new series can comfortably change Doctors, and I am sure that we'll show that it can change companions with the next series, the big question will be whether it can change lead writers. I don't think there's any reason to believe that Doctor Who needs to end with the departure of Russell -- it is a series designed to run and run, constantly refreshing itself.

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One other amusing thing about that article is how they over-play The Ten Doctors play as a stage production at Gallifrey One this year. It was amusing, but it was by no stretch of the imagination a serious stage production of Doctor Who. There have been a few "serious" stage productions over the years, and I've imagined that one could do something like Tomb of the Cybermen very effectively as a stage production, but that wasn't what we saw at Gallifrey.