There's not enough room for both.

[5500]

rollerboogie on the creative processes behind Doctor Who v. Torchwood.
Hint: one is awesome; the other is not. And this from a girl who loved Captain Jack.

Saturday night, people are coming round mine. In the meantime, 'The Runaway Bride' is on the iPlayer. I think I'll watch it before bed, actually. Why not, really?

Comments

[datura800]

I wouldn't agree with all of that - I mean 'Human Nature/Family Of Blood' weren't RTD scripts (and, incidentally, were based on one of the Who novels), but they were fundamental to the arc of that season. The Cybermen and Beast two-parters in Season 2 were both important to that arc, and neither were RTD scripts.

Also, as bad as 'Torchwood' is, it also tries to have something of an arc and indeed tie into the arc of 'Doctor Who'.

We all know RTD's love of 'Buffy' and how he's modelled new 'Who' on it - I think 'Torchwood' is his attempt at 'Angel' - a darker, apocalyptic tale of a rag bag of people fighting evil (hell, they even have the 'undead' hero and this season he's joined by another (a la Spike, and that's not even getting into Spike ACTUALLY BEING ON THE SHOW OMGZ)). It's immediately undermined by being set in Cardiff which, you know, doesn't have the grandeur and menace of LA. I also think that 'Doctor Who' can get away with cutting corners a lot - I mean I wouldn't say 'Gridlock' or 'Utopia' were particularly well-written, and if there was no shared history or affection for the characters we'd be mocking them too. But instead they have the Doctor, and they have MACRA and THE MASTER which excite us all from our childhood. 'Torchwood' relies on affection for a character who, pre-Torchwood, had been on-screen for about 3 hours in total and a bunch of characters we know nothing about (I stopped watching it long ago but still keep up on Wiki summaries, and I notice that this season they've delved a lot more into their backstories).