(no subject)

[amand_r]

Okay if I was….doing an episode run down of funny/awesome sci-fi tropes/themes whatever for a season of Torchwood, what would be fun to do? (Keep in mind this would be a post-CoE fourth season, not a s2 team)

I say this because I am doing one, and I already stole the "everyone has lost their voices" thing from Buffy's Hush episode (though in this case it's just the team and not all of Cardiff). I wanted to use the "this day repeats itself" thing for a Lois Habiba centred episode, but is that too much biting off Buffy?

Other episodes feature a whorehouse, alien casino, the queen of faeries (Jack loves this fucking episode), FAKE TARDISES, a shapeshifter with a heart of gold, an annual review, GhostHub and more.

So any ideas? Is "day in the life" acceptable?

Comments

[beeej.livejournal.com]

"This day repeats itself" was also done on Trek, so I think that's spread out enough to be any fandom, and not just Buffy, so your safe there.

There's body switching, although I know you've already covered that. Reset button, where something happens and there's a reset button that goes back to before the bad stuff happened. Virus or machine that causes everybody to switch sexes. Immortals! Mysterious book that someone's reading and everything that happens in the book happens in real life. Alternate universe where they all meet their dopplegangers. Jack would get two Iantos!

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

agreed -- "This day repeats itself" is common enough to have its own name: Groundhog Day, after the 1990s film. So it is OPEN FOR BZNZ.

Also, second Ianto would need a beard.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Well, Ianto is dead, so no two Iantos. I already did the genderswap thing, But the book thing is good. It should be a civilian or something. LAWL.

I desperately want one of the episodes to be a crossover with either Highlander or Buffy. No matter which one it would be, it would contain a teaser before the credits when Jack and the team would run across the Slayer or Immortal, who would get away, and then Jack would lay there on the ground and stare up. Then he'd mumble, "Slayers. It always comes back to Slayers."

Or, you know, Immortals, as the case may be.

SciFi Season in a Blender

[mtgat]

1. Groundhog Day, which you're considering
2. Evil twins
3. Stranded / couple stranded together on alien planet
4. Body switching (which you've done, so genderswap, without trans!fail thanks to useful meta)
5. Hallucinogen/etc makes everyone crazy/paranoid
6. Thinly veiled social/political commentary episode WITH ALIENS
7. Strange artifact grants/removes superpowers
8. Mind-reading (already canon, so Naked!Invisible!characters)
9. Character is "killed" in the teaser, team mourns but finds out by Act Four that s/he is just held hostage or in another universe (Star Trek: TNG did something like this to every character except maybe Troi)
10. New/old love interest shows up for a character, turns out to be related somehow to Monster of the Week (which you're doing)
11. The musical episode!
12. Part one of episode with bad guys seen previously and not quite defeated so what's the surprise really? Possibly robots involved.
13. Part two, with resolution pulled out of the air / some orifice, with surprise return of characters introduced earlier in season.

Mix and serve cold, possibly with a side of evil laughter.

*watches too much damn TV*

Re: SciFi Season in a Blender

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Aw, does my bodyswap contain transfail? I was so careful!

If I could do 11 I would, but I suck. On the other hand 7 is a fantastic idea.

Re: SciFi Season in a Blender

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

This is because of troi dies no one would care. OH ZING.

[pocketmouse]

I'd suggest a 'trapped in a fake reality' a la TOS' The Cage type of mindfuckery, but, uh, to be honest I doubt I could trust Torchwood to catch on to it...

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I already have something like that, but you have a point about clueless TW!

[behindblue-eyes.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see other parts of "armor" found. Just the gauntlets made it through the Rift? I don't think so.

And I wouldn't worry about stealing ideas from other shows. Chances are they stole it from someone else, anyway. ;)

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Ooooo. There are so many good fanfics out there that have already covered this, I'd be afraid to try. But yeah, what if they got like, the helmet?

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

The Risen Codpiece?

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

hmm... since we're on buffy - is there a "transformation" trope?
i'm thinking of when giles is turned into a demon, but maybe it's a bit of tech that can... i dunno, make the person appear like, or maybe even actually turn them into, an alien (for infiltration purposes or something), but the team doesn't understand how it works and they have to figure... STUFF out!
that's all i got this late in the day

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

[sqyd.livejournal.com]

Lithe young girl (possibly slightly crazy) kicks ass - Joss Whedon's fave (could be alien)
It Was All a Dream
blue-skinned earth-mother type alien (Farscape)
the bashful vampire (ok, I just made that up)
the team switch bodies
everybody's singing (that was Buffy too I think) aka Life is a Musical
everyone falls in love with the wrong person (Midsummer Night's Dream)
a whole episode plays out like a classic black and white movie - maybe a film noir (Xfiles did something similar) they'd have to talk in period style
they get accidentally transported onto the Starship Enterprise in the Tribbles episode

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I wish I had the voice for the film noir one!

[behindblue-eyes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Reading through the other comments got me thinking.

One of my favorite things about Buffy was the continuity. Despite the fact that this was where the term "jossed" originated, the show had a mythos about it that they could pull from and respected. Jonathan was the comic relief nerd in the background for five seasons until he had enough, hung out with a bad crowd, and turned into a "villain". Torchwood tried to do that but couldn't quite get the hang of it. There were consequences to the characters' actions (usually) and that's one of the things that made it interesting.

So my question is, how permanent do you want the changes in this season to be? Are we talking zombie!Owen and surprise!Cybergirlfriend in the basement or just your standard Monster of the Week stuff? If it were the former I'd go back to what Jack was always saying: The 21st century is where it all changes. Did the 456 bring aliens out in the open or did people think it was a mass hallucination? Is there something else lurking on the horizon or was that it? Were we ready?

And I've rambled enough.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

You have a really good point. This Torchwood is conceived and created in a different location, obvs. I think they might still be rather...public shy about what they do, but there's no mistaking that the characters are pretty flip about the "oh yeah, and we get aliens about every once in a while" thing.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

I think Lois should get an evil twin!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

EVERYONE LOVES THE EVIL TWIN THING!

[taffimai.livejournal.com]

I think this little cliched plot is much fun: http://www.tv.com/starsky-and-hutch/a-coffin-for-starsky/episode/32891/summary.html

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

OMG, THE TITLE ALONE IS WORTH IT.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

This day repeats itself is an X-Files thing too, but is awesome sometimes.

Another X-Files storyline I loved was the Speed storyline. Someone can't stop doing a certain thing or there's a terrible outcome. What was it in Speed? Bomb on the bus? On the X-Files, a man had to keep driving west to relieve pressure on his brain. Alien in nature!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Heeeeey, that's a great idea.

It's kind of like how I can't stop eating these Twinkies, right?

[sthayashi.livejournal.com]

Day in the life of is always good, but you usually have to do it with one of the supporting characters. Like Rhys.

Another popular or at least memorable trope is an entire lifetime or long period of time happening to someone in a few hours and only he/she can remember it.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and the VS going on right now just did a great Day in the Life of Rhys. It was fucking sweet.

Wait, that second one. can you explain it in fuller detail? Or give me an example I might know?

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

SG-1 did several eps with AU main characters that were great, particularly if the folks who are involved or dead vary tremendously in the other world. Also android versions of the team.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

That's...I don't think I understand.

[dil-deal.livejournal.com]

Groundhog days and Tabula Rasa episodes are always fun.
Also, I don't know if you want to include Gwen's baby, but there is always the alien or demon posessing the baby storyline ala Ghostbusters, but that might be a tad cheesy.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Gwen's baby is in it, but I'm keeping him as fr from TW as possible, mostly because any intelligent parent who works for TW would never ever bring him to the Hub. Ever.

[stuffphile.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's funny you're asking about this. I always wished Torchwood would revisit my favourite tropes from ST: TNG & Voy, in particular the ones I call Woke Up in the Wrong Universe/Universes Collide/Surprise Universe Duplication.

I remember them from that TNG episode where Worf returns home to the Enterprise, but in the wrong universe.
The Voy ep where there were two Voyagers but one blew up minus Harry Kim & a baby.
Also another TNG ep where there was a dealie with a version of a past Enterprise (Captain Garret?) that was supposed to have been destroyed but had slipped through time instead.
Oh, I almost forgot that really fun Voy episode where Harry Kim finds himself back in his old home on Earth with his fiancee, and the world's as if he'd never been on Voyager.

I hope you know them because I'm terrible at explaining. SORRY!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I actually know some of those!

[annemjw.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to tell you to just go on TV Tropes and find the ones that amuse you the most, to be honest. But I'm lazy like that.

I do like Suddenly Smart, where one character gets a brain dump about a specific topic, usually from a dying person/alien/machine and must use it to save the day, which is sometimes permanent. Like DoctorDonna except not TRAGICALLY SAD.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I think I actually have over 13 picked out now, which is killing me because if I did a full season, I'd use about...10 (the first ep is signed for, and the last two have to be a season finale), and look man, if every ep is about 20 K, that's 260 words by August.

I think I'm crying.