I've never seen Project X, but that sounds pretty horrific, especially if you're expecting a comedy.
I think the interesting thing is if you look at the promo stuff that was aimed at the general populace, it was much more focused on the action and the Gwen/Rhys relationship, while the stuff in Torchwood magazine, Gay Times and After Elton tended to focus on J/I, which says to me that they were specifically trying to give fandom and the gay community (recognising, of course, that there is a lot of overlap between the two) a false impression of what to expect. It just seems so cynical, and disrepsectful, especially given that these communities are the ones who have been most likely to buy their tie-in novels and audiobooks and magazines, etc, during the 15 months that the show wasn't on air.
I mean, it really contrasts starkly, for me, with the promotional interviews in the leadup to Journey's End, in which Donna's fate was also rather contraversial. Because RTD did at least say, openly in interviews that he'd written something that was going to upset people, that he didn't expect everyone to be pleased with what he'd done. Whereas with Torchwood, we got the whole "personal and professional sacrifices" line, alongside a bunch of other stuff that implied that the J/I story was going to get a happy ending, and statements that the relationship was going to be central to the way that storyline was resolved, which kind of implies that Ianto was not going to be DEAD, at the point in time at which the storyline was resolved.
And then the first issue of TW magazine to come out after CoE was all "We warned you!" *eyeroll*
I do think it's odd to level a charge of fannish entitlement at fans for an emotional response to the text that is actually what RTD said he wanted. (He said he wanted to shock, right? And here we are, shocked! So why is our shock somehow wrong? Is it too focused on the plot holes? To strident? Too dismayed? Too female? What?)
The impression I have is, according to TPTB that the emtional response should not in any way be accompanied by disappointment at the story they chose to tell. That anything negative constitutes an attempt to interfere in their creative processes, which is O SO WRONG (like the Whoniverse hasn't always been collaborative anyway).
I don't think it's so much the writers being misleading, as a mismatch in communication. You have Davies saying "we're going to develop the Jack/Ianto relationship and make it important to the plot", by which he means "we're going to write this like an actual relationship between real human beings, with all its ambiguities and imperfections, and the plot will turn on the relationship's untimely end", but which Jack/Ianto shippers interpret as "they'll have lots of frothy uncomplicated sex and live happily ever after - yay!"
but which Jack/Ianto shippers interpret as "they'll have lots of frothy uncomplicated sex and live happily ever after - yay!"
Absolutely not. Honestly, that's a gross simplification of Jack/Ianto shippers. There are probably some people who wanted that, yes, but I think there are a lot more who wanted the relationship to continue beyond CoE preceisely because it was complicated and messy.
The Gwen/Rhys relationship has ambiguities and imperfections, yet it was still developed in depth. I don't think there were many J/I shippers who expected (or even wanted) that relationship to be the SAME as Gwen/Rhys, but a similar level of depth would have been more consistent with the way the show was promoted. Instead, we were presented with a relationship that was LESS developed, and for the most part, had less depth, than in Series 2. There was no continuity between the way the relationship was portrayed in Day One, Day Three, and Day Four -- it was as though all three writers had vastly different interpretations of the relationship based on what they'd seen in S2, and they didn't consult each other at all, creating a situation in which the relationship CAN'T develop.
I would have LOVED to see the J/I relationship develop as something full of ambiguities and imperfections -- but that's not what we got in CoE at all.
This is the conclusion that I've come to, and just today, thanks to the comment made by dalekboy, I've finally figured out why. Once my migraine has passed off a bit more, I'll be replying to him, so if you're interested, keep an eye on that thread.
I think the interesting thing is if you look at the promo stuff that was aimed at the general populace, it was much more focused on the action and the Gwen/Rhys relationship, while the stuff in Torchwood magazine, Gay Times and After Elton tended to focus on J/I, which says to me that they were specifically trying to give fandom and the gay community (recognising, of course, that there is a lot of overlap between the two) a false impression of what to expect. It just seems so cynical, and disrepsectful, especially given that these communities are the ones who have been most likely to buy their tie-in novels and audiobooks and magazines, etc, during the 15 months that the show wasn't on air.
I mean, it really contrasts starkly, for me, with the promotional interviews in the leadup to Journey's End, in which Donna's fate was also rather contraversial. Because RTD did at least say, openly in interviews that he'd written something that was going to upset people, that he didn't expect everyone to be pleased with what he'd done. Whereas with Torchwood, we got the whole "personal and professional sacrifices" line, alongside a bunch of other stuff that implied that the J/I story was going to get a happy ending, and statements that the relationship was going to be central to the way that storyline was resolved, which kind of implies that Ianto was not going to be DEAD, at the point in time at which the storyline was resolved.
And then the first issue of TW magazine to come out after CoE was all "We warned you!" *eyeroll*
I do think it's odd to level a charge of fannish entitlement at fans for an emotional response to the text that is actually what RTD said he wanted. (He said he wanted to shock, right? And here we are, shocked! So why is our shock somehow wrong? Is it too focused on the plot holes? To strident? Too dismayed? Too female? What?)
The impression I have is, according to TPTB that the emtional response should not in any way be accompanied by disappointment at the story they chose to tell. That anything negative constitutes an attempt to interfere in their creative processes, which is O SO WRONG (like the Whoniverse hasn't always been collaborative anyway).
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Absolutely not. Honestly, that's a gross simplification of Jack/Ianto shippers. There are probably some people who wanted that, yes, but I think there are a lot more who wanted the relationship to continue beyond CoE preceisely because it was complicated and messy.
The Gwen/Rhys relationship has ambiguities and imperfections, yet it was still developed in depth. I don't think there were many J/I shippers who expected (or even wanted) that relationship to be the SAME as Gwen/Rhys, but a similar level of depth would have been more consistent with the way the show was promoted. Instead, we were presented with a relationship that was LESS developed, and for the most part, had less depth, than in Series 2. There was no continuity between the way the relationship was portrayed in Day One, Day Three, and Day Four -- it was as though all three writers had vastly different interpretations of the relationship based on what they'd seen in S2, and they didn't consult each other at all, creating a situation in which the relationship CAN'T develop.
I would have LOVED to see the J/I relationship develop as something full of ambiguities and imperfections -- but that's not what we got in CoE at all.
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