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avevale_intelligencerOkay, now that the tumult and the shouting has died down a bit I'm starting to see people saying how good this Torchwood was.
And that's fine. Really, if you enjoyed it and thought it was good, more power to you. Skip merrily on and ignore me for a moment, because I'm going to go into some details
Here's a storyline.
"Once upon a time there was a big rock going to crash into the earth and everybody was going to die and there was nothing anybody could do and it was all really really sad and then somebody found an even bigger rock and threw it at the big rock and the big rock went away. The End."
This is the kind of story I wrote at the age of seven. Well, actually, I think I was a bit more capable than that even then. This is the kind of story Russell T Davies writes *all the time*. I can't swear to it that he starts writing with no idea how he's going to finish (he's said as much, but then he lies all the time as well), but that's certainly how it feels when he pulls another stupid rabbit out of his stupid hat at the last minute. And while, for a dilettante like myself or a natural genius like the Countess, this is perfectly okay, for a writer who is being paid to entertain millions it is lazy and it is sloppy and it is unprofessional.
If you plan your story, then you know what your antagonist's fatal weakness is going to be from the outset and you drop clues. They don't have to be immediately understandable--one of the best feelings in the world is looking back on a story and seeing how all the pieces fit into place and show the way forward from where you are--but they have to be there. It's called playing fair with the audience and it's a mark of respect.
We knew very little about the 456. We knew that they could transmit through children, but not how or why. There was never at any point, till halfway through the last episode, any suggestion that it might be possible to send a signal the other way, let alone how or why. It would, I would think, have necessitated the 456's equipment or whatever being set up for receiving as well as transmitting, and why would they bother to do that? How would the government, or Torchwood, know that they possessed any technology that could achieve it, let alone have it all together in one place and in working order at the right time and in the right place?
Plotting: zero out of ten.
Add to this the fact that the gratuitous emotional manipulation to an insanely excessive degree was present in full force, that the final two episodes were so completely opposed to fun that at the moment they were broadcast an equal amount of fun spontaneously annihilated itself, and that he pressed the damn stupid reset button at the end despite the fact that he had just made it excruciatingly clear that no way was western civilisation coming out the other end of this whole...
...and I can't help wondering what the people who think this Torchwood was good, who talk about "compelling writing" and "coherent plotting" and "he actually pulled it off this time"...what they were actually watching.
But whatever it was, I'm glad they enjoyed it.
And that's fine. Really, if you enjoyed it and thought it was good, more power to you. Skip merrily on and ignore me for a moment, because I'm going to go into some details
Here's a storyline.
"Once upon a time there was a big rock going to crash into the earth and everybody was going to die and there was nothing anybody could do and it was all really really sad and then somebody found an even bigger rock and threw it at the big rock and the big rock went away. The End."
This is the kind of story I wrote at the age of seven. Well, actually, I think I was a bit more capable than that even then. This is the kind of story Russell T Davies writes *all the time*. I can't swear to it that he starts writing with no idea how he's going to finish (he's said as much, but then he lies all the time as well), but that's certainly how it feels when he pulls another stupid rabbit out of his stupid hat at the last minute. And while, for a dilettante like myself or a natural genius like the Countess, this is perfectly okay, for a writer who is being paid to entertain millions it is lazy and it is sloppy and it is unprofessional.
If you plan your story, then you know what your antagonist's fatal weakness is going to be from the outset and you drop clues. They don't have to be immediately understandable--one of the best feelings in the world is looking back on a story and seeing how all the pieces fit into place and show the way forward from where you are--but they have to be there. It's called playing fair with the audience and it's a mark of respect.
We knew very little about the 456. We knew that they could transmit through children, but not how or why. There was never at any point, till halfway through the last episode, any suggestion that it might be possible to send a signal the other way, let alone how or why. It would, I would think, have necessitated the 456's equipment or whatever being set up for receiving as well as transmitting, and why would they bother to do that? How would the government, or Torchwood, know that they possessed any technology that could achieve it, let alone have it all together in one place and in working order at the right time and in the right place?
Plotting: zero out of ten.
Add to this the fact that the gratuitous emotional manipulation to an insanely excessive degree was present in full force, that the final two episodes were so completely opposed to fun that at the moment they were broadcast an equal amount of fun spontaneously annihilated itself, and that he pressed the damn stupid reset button at the end despite the fact that he had just made it excruciatingly clear that no way was western civilisation coming out the other end of this whole...
...and I can't help wondering what the people who think this Torchwood was good, who talk about "compelling writing" and "coherent plotting" and "he actually pulled it off this time"...what they were actually watching.
But whatever it was, I'm glad they enjoyed it.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 06:42 am (UTC)And subconciously, you telegraph the ending.
Complete agreement that Davies writes as if he's got his brain in a blender, and his miracle endings don't scan. But I wouldn't blame lack of planning as much as lack of talent. I know many fine writers (and story tellers) who can weave a formidable tale off the tops of their heads.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 08:39 am (UTC)But I believe it's possible to play fair with the audience and plant the seeds of your ending without telegraphing it to any but the most perceptive, if any at all.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 10:59 am (UTC)"But I believe it's possible to play fair with the audience and plant the seeds of your ending without telegraphing it to any but the most perceptive, if any at all."
It certainly is in text, good mystery writers do it, and in music. I'm certain that it is in other media as well. But it's awfully easy to cheat and use a deus ex machina ("What you failed to see, Watson, and I never pointed out to anyone else either, is that the dog had no nose which is why it didn't smell the intruder"), or especially in SF to suddenly pull out $tech-solution, and many authors do that. Asimov was very aware of that tendency and commented on it, his mystery stories (both the SF Wendell Urth and the non-SF Black Widowers) are very good at putting the clues into the story in such a way that looking back or re-reading they are obvious but they aren't to the first-time reader (or at least not to most).
"I never saw that coming (but I should have done)!" is a good reaction. "That doesn't follow!" is not...
no subject
Date: 2009-07-13 01:38 am (UTC)If you're talking about building a plausible foundation for the chosen ending, I'm in agreement. Davies shows deep levels of ineptness in this area.