You're Kidding

[coalescent]

'BBC to screen 'Doctor Who for adults' as new spin-off show':

The new programme will be called Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who) and will follow a crack team investigating alien activities and crime in modern-day Britain.

It will feature in its starring role John Barrowman, who played Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and who will play the same character in Torchwood.

[...]

[Davies] said: "Torchwood will be a dark, clever, wild, sexy, British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show with a sense of humour - the X Files meets This Life,"

According to the BBC page, we can expect this next summer, on BBC3. I will spend most of the time between now and then boggling.

EDIT: Private texts made public, episode 632:

coalescent: They're making a Doctor Who spinoff.
immortalradical: ... please tell me it's not called 'At Home With The Slitheen'
coalescent: It's the Captain Jack show.
immortalradical: Why do you tell me these things?
coalescent: They're calling it Who for adults.
immortalradical: STOP IT!
coalescent: "No. They won't see this coming."
immortalradical: Captain Jack - he so gritty!

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

You can boggle. I'll be rubbing my thighs in anticipation.

[blackbeltbarbie.livejournal.com]

SQUEE! With any luck there will be canon slash! And naked Captain Jack!!

Please excuse me while my brain melts.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

For once, I'm with you in the boggling. Not that I don't see the attractiveness of the premise for, uh, a range of reasons. But RTD was evidently stretching himself writing a large chunk of a 13-episode Doctor Who series. I'm seriously worried that the writing will get worse if he takes on another similar-size project. Plus, as with so many RTD stories, "The X-Files meets This Life" sounds like a great pitch, not a great story.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

I suppose that explains why he wasn't available for the next series of Dr Who. I think I'm just going to wait and see what happens. The whole thing has more than a whiff about it of supposing that jaded palates need yet more novelty

[fba.livejournal.com]

I think the problem that RTD had with Doctor Who was that he wasn't writing sassy adult drama and he wasn't writing clever kids drama - he was trying to hit somewhere in between, and freqently failing. It sounds like this could be more along the lines of what he is used to, playing to his strengths as a writer. I can't help thinking it will be a SciFi Queer As Folk, which is no bad thing.

I do agree that he may end up spreading himself a bit thin though...

[fba.livejournal.com]

Everything I've read since PotW (at least from RTD) has suggested that he didn't want Jack in S2 because he wanted to see the regeneration through Rose's eyes (as Jack has probably seen it all before). It could be this was in his mind all along - but who knows...

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I can't help thinking it will be a SciFi Queer As Folk

Well, given the direction the last five minutes of QaF went in, I can't help thinking we've seen this already...

[wishus.livejournal.com]

Oooh - interesting!

Personally, I'm all for the proliferation of British sf on the telly meself. Let some of it be bad, as long as some of it is good and sets an adequate benchmark for future endeavours. Sounds like it might be good!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

You can't just leave that hanging.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

canon slash

Surely a contradiction in terms? Or, depending on your reading of the first season, already a reality.

(Can, open ... worms, everywhere ...)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

And thanks for sharing that image with the class.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I think I just did.

OK, to be more precise without spoiling: the last 5 minutes of the British QaF take a very distinct turn away from mimetic realism. Some people really like the ending, some people really don't.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

(Can, open ... worms, everywhere ...)

Niall, you have to realise this can't end well...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I can see myself getting optimistic all over again--it's 'for adults' this time! It's post watershed! It's RTD not having to moderate what he does for kids!--and then getting burned all over again.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I believe that's what the phrase 'can, open, worms everywhere' usually implies, yes.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I love RTD all over again.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

PotW

My brain starts to auto-parse this as 'Pirates of the ...' and then stops going 'NO NO NO'. Just so you know.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Fair comment, although would it be too much to ask for some that's an original premise and not a Who spinoff? :)

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Oooh, more Captain Jack, and in an Adult show...

That's made my first day back at work soooooo much better.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Unless you're a bird. In which case, RESULT!

[fba.livejournal.com]

As Jack is the main character the chances are that all the stuff you found interesting about him (wiped memory, former time agent &c) will be the driving force behind the character development. TBH I think it is better that they do this in a standalone vehicle - I don't think there is room in Doctor Who for three characters to get meaty character development and certainly not while we have Rose getting used to Ten...

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

And it would be nice to go, you know, off Earth once in a while for more than a glimpse of overly large spaceships.

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

Whereas mine goes 'Pick of the Week'...Huh?

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

I'm never really going to hack it as a fangirl, am I?

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I fear not, but don't worry about it - each to their own.

Although I think I remember the MKS equivalent of squeeing, provoked by Christopher Frayling (and Rob Holdstock?).