New Torchwood radio plays are being made

[dieastra]

I am so excited it is official! John already told a small group of fans at the stage door but we were asked to keep quiet for the moment. Today it is official, he chose the convention in Pasadena with lots of journalists to reveal that new Torchwood radio plays will be made, with the whole old team! I can't wait to listen to it

Comments

[dieastra]

Sorry but I have to disagree with you.
I have been to the Torchwood convention last year. With almost the complete cast on stage. They are all still very eager to do more. They know the fans are still out there. Someone said on stage that we deserve more Torchwood - with any other fandom, the fans move on when it is over, we are still here after how many years?

There was even a competition to write a script for the first episode of season 5 with bringing all the characteres back. I happily send in my script for the radio show.

I just refuse to see Miracle Day as the end. That would be a quite very sad end. Nobody liked it, not even RTD, and I guess that is saying something?

It says "the whole Torchwood team". Jack, Gwen and Ianto from CoE are not the whole Torchwood team.

Of course, it can be that you are right and I am wrong. We will see. But for me "the whole Torchwood team" implies the old team. Anything else would be silly. They know what we want. Isn't it nice that they are finally listening to all the campains and petititions?

And maybe they find indeed a way to retcon it. It is a sci-fi series. There are parallel universes. Anything is possible.

So, at the moment, anything new is good for me. Once it has aired we can start complaining again. And since you can listen to radio shows for free, they won't earn any cash for it?

[chamilet]

I liked Miracle Day.

[dieastra]

I like certain scenes and characteres in it. Others, not so much. So overall, it wasn't exactly what I had expected - especially with all the interviews telling us before this would be the best Torchwood they ever had done. That title still goes to CoE for me. Then again, of course it would be hard to top that.

I am honest, I am a Jack-fan. And I think he should be the leader of the Torchwood team. I felt he was too much side-lined, like a guest actor in his own story. Others were making the decisions. There was not much leading from him until right the end. It felt like they were setting up a Torchwood America team with Rex as the leader.

And the whole Oswald Danes story was just creepy and did not really add anything. He was not important in any way and not connected to the rest of the story.

There have been lots of discussions about all the plot holes and story angles that led nowhere so I won't repeat them. But overall I got the feeling that each author only saw their own episode, and things that were talked about onen week suddenly were not important anymore the next. No connection. No stringent told story.

It probably wasn't actually bad as a series on its own, and certainly different than what American viewers are used to and so lots like it - including my brother - but I just don't think it was Torchwood.

And that was a very long reply to a very short statement. Sorry!

[chamilet]

It was the first series of Torchwood that I got to watch unfold as I came into the show right after CoE ended. I loved the experience of watching it and being in a chat room with other fans at the same time. I loved the characters. I loved the storyline and thought it was exciting. I hated the death of my favorite character at the end.

[dieastra]

I think we are in kinda the same situation actually! I also came late to the party, so for me CoE was the first I ever saw. It blew me away, I was very excited about it, and then I went to find online forums to talk about it and everyone hated it for certain reasons. I guess it is indeed a difference if you just watch it as a casual viewer vs. watching as a fan, and having expectations how the characteres should act like.

Did you then go and watch all the previous seasons, and then watch Miracle Day again, and did it change your view on it? Now that you knew the backstory and how it is all connected? And did you probably also go and watch the Doctor Who episodes, where the Jack Harkness character originally comes from? I feel that a lot of the backstory for him created in those episodes, was totally dismissed and rewritten in Miracle Day, and that just does not feel right.

I liked Esther and I also liked Vera and was very upset about her death. And I love Angelo. I have in fact met the actor at a convention and he was so nice to everyone.

Cheers! I hope I did not come over hostile, that really was not my intention. It's always nice to have a good discussion but I have to go to bed now, it's almost 3 AM in Germany.

[chamilet]

No, I came into the fandom, I think, as people were watching and talking about CoE. I think the buzz was hitting my LJ from people who were into what I was into at the time and also Torchwood. So then I started at S1 and went through CoE (so Ianto's death didn't hit me as hard because I knew he was going to die going into S1. Tosh and Owen's deaths were more of a surprise for me). It was a few years before Miracle Day came on the scene. I'd also seen all of the new Who by then.

It was more like a puzzle, trying to make it all fit together with the flashbacks and whatnot.

Esther was my favorite character and I was absolutely floored when I found out she was dead. I liked Vera too, but she was killed about mid way so I hadn't gotten as attached.

I'm in the process of writing an Esther/Ianto fix-it that I hope to maybe finish this year. jedi-harkness was working on it with me.

Not hostile at all:)

[dieastra]

Ah, now I understand what you were trying to say. Trying to catch up with a show with nobody to talk to vs. watching it "live" as it happens and being able to discuss every detail with other fans online. That is indeed a huge difference and can add to the enjoyment. I remember the first time I watched a Doctor Who season "live" in that way instead of just old episodes from DVDs nobody was interested in talking about anymore. I always had to watch the episodes a second time as people mentioned so many details I had not seen. Moffat is good at hiding them.

Funnily enough, I also knew about Ianto's death long before I started watching, my friends had talked about it and the name was so unusual, it stuck with me. So I also never had the time to get really attached to him but I can see how his death might have come unexpected for the people being in fandom for years.

Since it was only Jack, Gwen and Ianto in CoE, I also kinda knew something might happen to Tosh and Owen. It has never been heard that someone left Torchwood on their own will...

I have heard of people though for whom MD was the first Torchwood and made them become a fan.

Good luck with your fic! We do have a mutual friend then in jedi-harkness The world is small.

[tlen2]

As someone who watched the show before CoE I had the same feeling about CoE. You could clearly tell that it was a script RTD had written long before TW and then forced upon the characters. It never felt like the "real" TW. If CoE would have been a show by its own it would have been great tv, sicne it surely raised soem interesting question about what humanity is capable of doing in the worst ways (as MD did I guess as well, from what I read about it). But so I had the feeling that the team was only guestarring in their own show. Also I watched TW because it was this funny, campy show with a great team, the alien of the week and open mindedness regarding sexuality. And suddenly it was all dark and conspiracy and unreflected homopobic comments and Gwen, the character who was supposed to be the avarage girl trough which eyes audience could see the show, had become the super-heroine. It just didn't work for me.

I was sceptical for a long time to watch Warehouse 13 since it very much sounded like a TW-copy just with artefacts instead of aliens. In the end it had become the better TW. They showed that you can mix humor with drama and have it stay that way then go all dark. There even was a cliffhanger once where beloved characters were killed and the next season was about what their friend would be willing to sacrifice to bring them back. They did so succesfully in the end. That's what I have wished TW do in season 4. They actually lost me with Jack running away and drowning in sorrow instead of trying to fix things. And if not for his teams or his loves sake he at least should have tried for his daughter and grandson. Maybe he should not have succeded, maybe the dead indeed should have stayed deed but that he never tried made the character unbearable for me. I mean he tried to resurrect Owen once (and partly Suzie as well), who should have ment less to him then Ianto and Steven

[tlen2]

I've really learned my leassons regarding not to put faith in anything TW-related. There have been so many false promises. I rather stay sceptical now and be positively surprised later than having high hopes and get disappointed again. Of course they will cash in. All the radio plays were released on CD in the past (or itunes or what so ever), surely this will be, too, and fans will buy it because you can't download BBC audio files outside UK (not sure if you still can in the UK). If they really want to retcon it why haven't they done it with MD or the Audio plays released back then? If tehy indeed would do it now then only because TPTB have realised that'S the only way to keep the cash flowing. But I doutb they will. They will drew some bones at us and I'm not going to chow it till I know for sure it is indeed a bringing back of the whole old team in a permanent way.

[dieastra]

I have recently downloaded lots of audio plays with David Tennant directly from the British radio. They always state that they are free for a certain amount of time, a week or a month, before the link does not work anymore. That’s why I expected it the same with the Torchwood plays.

IMO there is no reason to retcon anything, just have the stories set back in old times. People write still fanfictions about the old team, I don’t see this being anything different?

[tlen2]

But if they just have them set in the "old times" for me this feels even more as if I'm being used. They killed my favorite characters off but they still want me to spent my time probably my money on them. It's a difference if you continue a show which my be not on air any more but which characters are "alive" but RTD gave some pretty harsh comments towards the fans who asked for Iantos or Tosh or Owens return and now, suddenly as it suits him he uses them to get some money. No thank you. He's not making this for free as no one will work for free on it. Even if it is free for us to hear in the end for them it's all about the money.

[bloodredroses1]

For RTD & Gardner, yes it may very well be all about the money and ONLY all about the money but for the cast of the show itself, not so much. The actors have always seemed to enjoy working together a great deal and that they would welcome a chance to work together again. so for the cast the money could be an added bonus to working together on a project they like with people they like.

[dieastra]

Thank you! I absolutely agree. I was at the Torchwood convention last year, we had Eve, Gareth, Naoko and Kai, four main guests, and they all expressed how much they had loved the show and would like to come back one way or the other. You could see the bond between them. Having them all on stage together, laughing and playing pranks on each other, was wonderful.

They also were amazed how dedicated the fans still were, years later. They said usually once a show is over they just move to the next thing, but not the Torchwood fans. They are still here, and that's why we would deserve more of it. Their words.

Recent news have shown that RTD might actually not be involved but that it is done with his blessing.