amand_r | Torchwood, 4.0 Master Post

So, the Big Bang. Yeah. Here we are.

My memory is like a sieve and so it is probably faulty when I say that I blame all this on

lefaym, and her innocent question on a writing meme: Someone puts you in charge of TW S4 -- you have complete creative control: What happens?

Then looking at the comments, it seems that I had already started to ferment the idea (indeed elements of episode 1 and 3 come straight from my comments there), but it was probably Hub 3, where Gareth answered a question in which he was asked if he thought Ianto should come back in the next season as a ghost or possibly evil!Ianto from another dimension. I don't remember what his answer was (probably evil!Ianto), but the fact is that between that and Liz May Brice saying that the Beeb wouldn't let her keep her costume (which they do if they are planning to reuse sometimes OR BRING BACK THE CHARACTER), I already had three paragraphs in my travel journal before the panel was over.

It was supposed to be a story about Jack, coming back and dealing with a new Torchwood, and with Ianto and what had happened. And Agent Johnson was going to be there on the team, because COME ON, that's awesome. It'd be like Moonlighting with slime and immortality.

I assigned myself a date and created a bang, because I am lazy and need incentive, and you know.

But then when I sat down, it started to…mutate.

What if. What if I could do all the stories that I wanted? The stray plots I have running about in mah skull? Surely I could do all those adventures modded for a different cast. I could do that Queen Mab story, and that casino story and—

But once you go down that road, you say, "Well, what if I just did a whole season's worth? The equivalent of 14 eps? (Haahahah it was 13, but I had to squeeze the plot for episode 9 in there, and in so doing created a new character).

ME: That would be…woah.
SELF: But it would be a lot of work.
ME: Yeah, but you haven't done this before.
SELF: You know what else you haven't done before? Ear candling. I don't see you lighting a match and singing happy birthday to your tympanic membrane.
ME: But we could do everything we wanted to do.
SELF: …you got me there.

It started with the pictures you saw, again and again and again. And so now X words later. Here we are.

Then in June we got the news that Torchwood was doing a season 4, and wasn't that grand. In my head I thought, "You have to do this before it's jossed entirely." You were all making wish lists and I couldn't bring myself to look, much in the manner that I haven't read a werewolf novel since 2002, because I'm writing one. Eyeroll.

I have lots of things to say about it, but I'll narrow it down to three things that I liked about it:

1. It deals with emotional issues and fallout from CoE, but it's not overwhelmed by them. Jack doesn't just shrug off Ianto's death, but he's not at the bottom of a bottle. Gwen is having a hard time with it too, and there are other "casualties" of CoE who need to be dealt with that I wanted to cover, most importantly being the organisation of Torchwood Three itself. In fact, Torchwood Three is one casualty of CoE that never returns.

2. Everyone gets an ep. I used the team all the time, but it becomes clear that each character has an ep in which they are critical: Dee's comes early on, but Lois's isn't until towards the end. Even Rhys gets an ep in which the team is reliant on him.

3. It started as a few plots that I always wanted to do, and then I got lost when I expanded it to 14 stories, so I asked you all for common scifi tropes you'd like to see TW do. You gave me tonnes of ideas, some of which I did, and some of which I sadly had to let go. Some were already in the stories. And in the case of the finale, I found that I didn't use anything because in the end the idea that I came up with on my own was just as good. You'll see a bunch of stuff here: dreaming different realities, undercover work, the required rip off of Buffy (that should be a trope), groundhog day syndrome, work-mandated 'self evaluation day', the 'Hey remember that thing from that old ep that we never did anything with?' syndrome, a shapeshifter, a (Doctor!)Whodunit, AND THEN A WHOLE MESS OF SHITBEARS. It was fun.

I don't know what else to say, except that it was great, and I hope you can like it, even if you didn't care for CoE. I don't think it's entirely faithful to the idea of a virtual season or even a series—some stories are longer than others are, and some would be considered less filmable than others would. I was going to try to make them very filmable in a VS sort of way, but then it started to harsh my vibe and I realised that yeah, it's a season, but it's not wedded to the screen, so I don't have to worry about length or budget or camera angles. More importantly, I remembered that I was writing fanfiction, and that it's fun and indulgent and I don't have to worry about a bottom line, and I shouldn't say to myself, "Don't put in too many jokes, and don't kill that dog. People hate when you kill the dog."

And parts of it might be….uhm, cute. I'm sorry.

So maybe a collection of stories would be better. And more importantly, it went in places that don't make good general television. Some places focus too hard on the interpersonal relationships. I thought about pulling away from those parts, and then I thought, "No, it's okay. This will never actually BE a series, so you don't have to try so hard to model it."

And that was what I got. So not meant to be Torchwood Season 4, but in some ways, it's what I would want to give you if I could.

THANK YOU:

blue_fjords, for being a masterful and patient beta! To the previewing and brain-unsticking team:

cruentum, my little bro,

paragraphs, a fantastic writer who loves the long stuff as much as I do,

neifile7, who preread everything with no idea of what was coming next and ended up pulling beta duty as the episodes got longer and longer. Thanks to all you people who participated in the big bang, and I hope you all had as good a time writing as I did.

This is the master post, and so is the nexus for all soundtracks, credits, references and deleted scenes for every episode. So:

[General Character OST] [Episodes 1-4 OST] [Episodes 5-6 OST]

4.00: Daily gRind (aired 11.10.10)
4.00: Frustrate their knavish tricks (aired 11.10.10)
4.01: The Inquisition (aired: 8.15.10 and 09.15.10) [Art]
4:02: Safe as Houses (aired: 09.29.10 ) [extended scene]
4.03: Sure Bet (aired: 10.13.10) [extended scene] [undercover cigarette girl art] [fandoodle by heddychaa]
4.04: …in shining (aired: 10.27.10)
4.05: The Golden Hour (aired: 11.24.10 ) [extended scene] [deleted scene]
4.06: The Salt Pillar (aired: 12.16.10)
4.07: 15 Minutes (aired: 03.04.11 soon!)
4.08: WHOdunit (airing:)
4.09: Ataraxia (airing: )
4.10: The Bitter Glass (airing: )
4.11: Lather, Rinse, Et Cetera (airing: )
4.12: Volume Control (airing: )
4.13: TBA (airing:)
4.14: TBA (airing: )
4.DRUNK: AMAND-R GETS WASTED (decanting )

Deleted Scenes and Ephemera
Soundtracks

Thanks.

Current Mood: energetic
Current Location: the hub tub
Current Music: sophie b. hawkins, 'live & let love'