A warning straight away, that the initial part of this post will very likely contain SPOILERS regarding plot elements from Torchwood's upcoming third season, so you've been warned! Look away if you don't want to know... Last chance... I'm telling you, shoo - or those SPOILERS will bite you on the ass!
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Right, you're still with me. Good! Means you're crazy enough to read what follows!!
Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook's book of email corrospondence - "The Writer's Tale" - finally saw its official release today, and I can confirm (having read the book earlier this week... hooray!) that RTD talks about Torchwood at great length - including this juicy titbit of information...
Right, the back story: Davies has chicken pox, at the same time he's supposed to be writing Doctor Who 4.13 "Journey's End". He's up to the scene on Bad Wolf Bay where the Doctor and Donna bid farewell to Rose Tyler, and the newly born 'second' human Doctor. Only things aren't clicking as well as Davies would like, and he doesn't know why. Then he figures; he can't understand why Rose (after searching for him for so long) would choose to stay on the parallel Earth, when the chance to travel with the real Doctor is open to her...
Davies wants to give Rose a sort of inter-reality 'virus' that means she can't travel to our Earth, or she'll die. Of course, as Davies figures, this then hampers Mickey - who'd have to suffer a similar fate. A dilemma, when a promise has already been made...
"I just realised," Davies writes, "My plan to make the Bad Wolf scene work - the one involving the Voidstuff - won't work, because I'd forgotten that Mickey has to be free to stay in our universe. Bollocks. Julie [Gardner]'s upset. She's saying, 'Leave Mickey in the parallel universe,' and I'm saying, 'Too late! We promised Noel that we'd bring him back in Torchwood series three.'"
So... there we have it. Semi-confirmation (of course, plans could have changed since Davies wrote this on February 9th... but I think not!)
Earlier in the book, Davies also discusses his aborted plans to write Torchwood 2.1, which would have taken place in a 24 hour supermarket ("have you ever been in one at 3am? Weirdest places in the world - so bright and empty, and staffed by the Damned.):
"I pulled out of that Torchwood script. I'm not doing it. Poor Julie [Gardner]. She bears the brunt of all this, and protects me from the consequences. It's easy for me in some ways, because with my status as a writer, frankly, I can get away with anything. That's awful, isn't it? No one shouting, no one berating me, no contracts being waved, just everyone running around making that decision easy for me. You could go power mad. Mind you, I'm mild and lovely compared to some of the stuff you hear about other writers. Or maybe this is the start of me getting worse."
He goes on, " The truth is, I wasn't not-writing because I couldn't think of anything, but because I'm sick of fixing other people's problems. I sat there at 4am and thought: what am I getting out of this? Nothing. Just misery. So sod it, I'm off."
To put that quote into some form of context, Davies had been deseperately trying to write the Torchwood script for almost two months, and the process was evidently making him quite distraught. One gets the feeling that he wanted to write the series opener as a means of 'fixing' the show after its bumpy first series... ("Torchwood's failure of voice... which is my fault, I suppose, though they're all working hard to fix it for Series Two")
"That was severe. First time I've ever done that," Davies decides, "As a result, I'm quite cheery again. Nightmare welcome-back-to-Cardiff dinner with the Torchwood cast tonight, just when I feel I've abandoned them. (I haven't. I'll try to script-edit more.) Eve Myles got drunk, which was lively. Gareth David-Lloyd is just the sexiest bastard on this Earth. And Johnny Barrowman regaled us with how many Joseph's he'd like to sleep with, so it was a bit of a laugh. The panic has abated."
Episode 2.1 ultimately turned into "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", written by Chris Chibnall and introducing James Marsters as Captain John Hart.
Davies returns to script two of the five series three episodes.
"The Writer's Tale" is out now, priced an RRP of £30 - although it's much cheaper online!
12 comments:
I'll believe Noel is in it when I see it. He's filming a movie right now.
And if Mickey is in S3? Yeah, won't be watching....
I agree with the above poster . . . it's not a dumping ground for DW people, and he's not exactly a fair replacement for the brilliant Tosh.
The movie is "A Beautiful Game", directed by Michael Winterbottom, and it started filming in Manchester on 8th September. So Noel's not really free until (possibly) the very end of TW's shoot, assuming they don't finish before the film does.
WHAT. Torchwood S1 was miles and miles better than S2 - that's nonsense. Davies is an idiot.
Also, looks like he just gave up on trying to figure out how to make it logical for Rose to stay on the parallel earth again. Coz it still made no sense.
I'm convinced there WERE plans at one point to bring Micky and Martha back to Torchwood, but things change. There have been various sources saying they are no longer involved. Even one trusted source on OG reported John saying (at a private dinner) that M&M would not be in S3 at all.
I have read some of the book and it recounts huge changes happening all the time. It's very rare there are no changes. When Noel and Russell discussed him moving to Torchwood it was before his movie career took off and of course he wanted to ensure he'd still have a job after leaving DW. After starring in and writing the #1 hit movie his plans could definitely have changed. Don't know why people are convinced M&M will be in S3, there is no evidence.
Well, the comment from the book is one piece of evidence...
Things might have changed. Fans might be grasping at straws. But Davies' comment proves that the wanna-believers do have a basis supporting their wishful desire to have M&M appear.
Anthony.
"Davies returns to script two of the five series three episodes"
Has this been confirmed? All sources I have come across suggest that he is only writing the first episode out of the five...
Trust me, he's writing episodes one and five :)
Anthony.
"Gareth David-Lloyd is just the sexiest bastard on this Earth."
Truer words were never spoken. So looking forward to The Hub next month. ;-)
--tam
BBC America is saying that Torchwood will be back in 2009, so that tells me not only is it gonna happen, it'll happen HERE in the US, too. Woo hoo!!
I agree, Gareth David-Lloyd is quite sexy, even if I am old enough to be his mother (I think.)
Is there anyone who doesn't think GDL is one of "the sexiest bastard(s) on this earth"?
i agree with the above about series 1... Why is it generally accepted that series 2 was better than 1? Series 1 had something different about it... it was more daring, had more variety... even the worst episodes such as Cyberwoman had a comical charm to them. Out from the Rain was TERRIBLE. There were some brilliant moments in series 1, whereas series 2 was more consistent, but slightly... bland.
and on the spoiler side... i think completely new, fresh characters is the way forward for TW.
Oh and i've just lost a little bit of respect for Davies; i forgave that terrible bad wolf bay climax because i thought, even if i disagreed with him, Davies wrote it because he was being true to his characters. Of course she would have gone with the Doctor! Why didn't he just kill her off, have a proper tear jerker ending? and the contract problems are solved too.
Dont read this book on the loo .. you end up leaning on your knees as its so heavy and your legs go to sleep.
But hooray for Mickey! Cant wait!!
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