"terrorists on the run"
In a moment of weakness, before I finished my coffee, I read Rusty's interview in SFX magazine. Now I will go find a brick and hit myself with it....
Well, at least it does clarify that TW4 will, in fact, be CoE2. Rusty summarizes the TW team--well, duo--as "demoted" during and after CoE, and they are "terrorists on the run." I don't even pretend to understand that last description: I don't see where that applies to what happened in CoE or how the team was treated....Subversives, perhaps--but terrorists? Rusty, I don't think that word means what you think it does.....
Rusty promises that the show is "about society, about the people and the government and how we live our lives"; SFX helpfully clarifies: "As Davies explains, it's SF with the metaphor stripped out." Definitely CoE2--and really ironic, since, as Rusty is simplifying his writing to comic book stick figures, Moffat has been elevating DW to art through the rich layering of imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and allusion.....Rusty promises "strong new American characters coming into [CoE2], and I think that'll just be a hoot." He repeats the idea he mentioned long ago about "culture clash," specifying word pronunciation as an example and noting that the writers laughed over the different meanings of "bender." Sounds deep, Rusty.
And then there was this:
"It's like how we live in the world now, when we're at war and we send soldiers out to die; we all just have our tea, watch EastEnders and surf the internet, and it doesn't enter our thinking for of the day. That's fascinating. That sort of story, questioning who we are and what we're capable of, is now Torchwood's heartland."
CoE2. A preachy diatribe about TEH EVOL guvmint and how terrible people are for living their lives.....Again--the science fiction aspect seems to be entirely gone: it's another political potboiler. As Rusty makes sweeping assumptions about how, in fact "we" live our lives.
Oh--and the Rift that Rusty forgot about in CoE? It's gone now, thanks to Moffat: Rusty does give credit to Moffat for filling that plothole (of course, Rusty doesn't say 'plothole,' 'cause Rusty's brilliant, in case you didn't know--if you didn't, he'll tell you so). "When I watched those cracks seal up I was like, 'Oh, thank you!'" Rusty has decided that the Rift, if we ever saw it, would have looked like a crooked smile.....Apparently, Rusty has forgotten that he showed the Rift back in DW......Whoops. Well, Jack's American now, too, so that's all okay. ;)
But interesting continuity questions are now raised: if the Rift is sealed, because it was one of the cracks in the universe....Well, we don't need Gwenyth anymore--she's gone. The Doctor used to refuel the TARDIS at the Rift--how does that work? I didn't quite get the refueling part, anyway, but this would now mean he had been refueling at a crack caused by the TARDIS' exploding...which is odd. And now there are no cracks--so the TARDIS can't refuel? The Doctor also wouldn't stop by the Rift anymore--so the end of "End of Days" and "Utopia" never happened?
In fact--Torchwood never happened. There's no Rift. Rusty just reconned TW1, TW2, CoE1, and CoE2.
Which, I suppose, might explain why he dodged the question of SooperCooper's baby and how she was going to lead TW as a terrorist on the run with an infant.....