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Jane Espenson on Torchwood

C

captcalhoun

Admiral
Admiral
Jane Espenson, recently announced as a writer on the third season of the show, tells Blastr how she came to work on the series. "I'm thrilled to say I was invited. My agent told me about it very casually; I was already busy at the time, and he thought I'd want to decline, but I jumped in fast to say I absolutely wanted to participate. I will be writing three episodes of the 10-episode arc," she says. She also let slip that some of the information already out on the Internet has been changed. "We've already changed the name of at least one character that was announced in the press. And there's nothing to stop us from changing more—so if you hear anything, even if it was true at some point, it probably isn't anymore. So the more you learn about 'Torchwood', the less you know
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so, there we go...
 
Jack Bauer said:
I can't. I hated season one which is why I never watched the other seasons.
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I hear ya.

LOATHED it.

But watch the third series. Bear in mind my words above and believe me when I say it is some of THE MOST gripping tv SF you will have ever seen!!!
 
Actually I didn't think season 1 was as bad as people make it out to be, but on the other hand I don't think season 2 is in any way significantly better.
 
Both of Torchwood's first two years are execrable. Children of Earth was amazing, though, and it proved that Torchwood's concept works best as a tightly focused story about a team working to stop a threat. A ten-episode length worries me.
 
The Mirrorball Man said:
Actually I didn't think season 1 was as bad as people make it out to be, but on the other hand I don't think season 2 is in any way significantly better.
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I think season 1 is a curious mixture of really good episodes ("Out of Time", "They Keep Killing Suzie") and really awful ones ("Countrycide", "Day One"). On the other hand, season 2 is a non-mixture of boring episodes that aren't really bad but aren't really good, either. I think I prefer season 1 on the whole.

Of course, season 3 makes both look like the scrawlings of a precocious five-year-old.
 
Re: Torchwood: The New World

Warning: SPOILERS for Desperate Housewives fans... ;)

From Den of Geek:

Torchwood: The New World news round-up

Shooting doesn't start until the beginning of 2011, yet a few more bits and bobs have been seeping through about the return of Torchwood with The New World next year. The new season of the show is a co-production between BBC America and US cable network Starz, and show boss Russell T Davies has lured in some impressive writers to work on it.

One of them is Jane Espenson, a veteran of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica episodes, and she's been talking to Blastr about how the new season of the show is being put together.

Espenson confirmed that she's writing three of the ten episodes of the show, and that all of the scripts will be written this time before the cameras start rolling. She revealed that "Because of the length of our season and the lead time before production begins, we're actually approaching Torchwood in a very unusual way-all the episodes will be written before any of them begin shooting.

"This is allowing us to ‘break' all the episodes at once, with the entire writing staff working together in a very concentrated one-month work session. This is making for a very intense and collaborative process, all guided by Russell's very precise vision. The final product is going to be tightly plotted and lovingly crafted."

She also revealed that one of the previously-announced character names has been changed.

Furthermore, John Barrowman has confirmed his return, something we didn't actually appreciate was in much doubt. He's basically said that he's ultimately chosen returning to the character of Captain Jack Harkness over continuing in Desperate Housewives.

He said, "I was in discussions with the creator of Desperate Housewives, one of the top three television series in the whole world, and he invited me to play Patrick. It was such a good role playing the baddie and I really wanted to do it. But, I also didn't want to spoil the Torchwood deal, so I told him that if I played Patrick he'd have to find a way to kill me off and he went along with that. Desperate Housewives is so huge that it actually helped to seal the Torchwood deal, so everyone is happy."

Torchwood: The New World will be arriving on TV screens next summer.
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I recently finished watching all of Torchwood on DVD for the first time and I enjoyed it. It wasn't a perfect show but it was fun.

But I've noticed that on these boards people seem to really despise the show. This may seem like a stupid question but why do people hate Torchwood so much?
 
Personally, I only disliked the first season. And not even hate. Just didn't enjoy watching it. The scripts were overtly dark for dark's sake. Sexual content and violence thrown in for mere shock value. No real merit to the drama or plot, which served to undermine the flavor of the show as something cheap and puerile. A blatant focus on attracting a teenage demographic that marketing seems to still believe lacks the shrewdness to recognize transparent hollowness of any real art. Not to mention, the characters (save Jack and possibly Gwen) were completely unlikable on any real level. Why would anyone want to spend time watching them? In other words, there was no reward for enduring the dark and misery of their world.

The second season was fun, lighter. More 'Buffy' like in its tone, which is what it should have always been (even though I also dislike Buffy, but for other reasons). And then it's third season, Children of Earth. Wow. I fall directly into the majority that views it as the pinnacle of RTD's abilities. It was the first script I've seen by him where I didn't feel he was subconsciously apologizing for writing science fiction. If he put half of that effort into any single season of Doctor Who, his era would have been a flawless diamond in my eyes. But, I digress... ;)
 
I'm in the middle of being introduced to the awesomeness that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and after having seen a good number of awesome eps that were written, produced, and/or story-edited by Jane Espenson, I can say that I am SO UBER-EXCITED that she's writing for Torchwood this season!
 
Joy said:
I'm in the middle of being introduced to the awesomeness that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and after having seen a good number of awesome eps that were written, produced, and/or story-edited by Jane Espenson, I can say that I am SO UBER-EXCITED that she's writing for Torchwood this season!
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Ditto. Getting Espenson on board is a great bonus.
 
I am not Spock said:
Joy said:
I'm in the middle of being introduced to the awesomeness that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and after having seen a good number of awesome eps that were written, produced, and/or story-edited by Jane Espenson, I can say that I am SO UBER-EXCITED that she's writing for Torchwood this season!
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Ditto. Getting Espenson on board is a great bonus.
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I guess I'm the lone dissenting voice here for I am not sold on the idea of Jane Espenson on Torchwood. While I have not seen Buffy, I have seen episodes written by her in Firefly, nu-BSG and Dollhouse. To be honest I am not terribly impressed. Espenson does bring good and innovative ideas to the table, but she's weak at presenting said ideas in the form of a well told story.

A case in point is her treatment of BSG's "The Plan". I appreciated her idea of having two Brother Cavils going on completely different journeys and ending up with conflicting views on humanity. However on screen, it was just a mess of disjointed, weakly connected scenes.
 
intrinsical said:
A case in point is her treatment of BSG's "The Plan". I appreciated her idea of having two Brother Cavils going on completely different journeys and ending up with conflicting views on humanity. However on screen, it was just a mess of disjointed, weakly connected scenes.
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That was her? Oh. Yeah, I agree, I didn't get that one. At the end I wasn't certain it made any real sense at all...
 
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