Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

I don’t know what to think about producer Tony Garnett’s attack on the BBC’s management of drama output.  On the one hand, it comes the week after the BBC broadcast one of the best dramas I’ve seen in years, and scores of great writers are trotting out to shout down his comments.  On the other hand, he was the executive producer behind Between the Lines and Cardiac Arrest; where are the shows like that now?

I note one thing though.  Children of Earth may have been excellent, but there’s not doubt part of the reason it got made was because it was part of a huge franchise and written by one of TV’s biggest hitters, with an enviable track record of high quality dramas.  One of the writers to speak out in support of the BBC is also part of that franchise.  Though I love (another of those writers) Tony Jordan’s series, some of which are peerless exemplars of crafted and polished entertainment, none have had the punch of Garnett’s best, or Edge of Darkness, or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

What’s missing, or at least rarer, are those one-off plays and mini-series.  Poliakoff still gets them made, and occasionally we get an adaptation of a novel on BBC 2, but there’s nothing like the A Foreign Field, or even Ghostwatch from the Screen One and Screen Two strands anymore.  The BBC needs to put plays back on, to put out a volume of new work that allows for some failures so they can really start to take risks. Because although I believe these great writers that BBC Drama is thriving, they’re all well established and I’d be very interested to know whether those who don’t write TV for a living can get their projects made.

Okay, it’s not as bad as the 6th Doctor’s coat, but why go back bow ties for the new Doctor’s new look?  I preferred the look in the publicity shots for both 11 and Amy Pond.

David Mamet took a firm line on this sort of thing:

It’s the truth that you should never trust anybody who wears a bow tie. Cravat’s supposed to point down to accentuate the genitals. Why’d you wanna trust somebody whose tie points out to accentuate his ears?

Contains (tagged) spoilers.

It’s over. One of the most intellectually and emotionally challenging pieces of drama I have seen in a long, long time. I’ve only just managed to scrape together the detachment to throw together a few words about it.

It was a strange mix of factors that drew me into the show, but in the end it comes down to quality. The quality of the writing and the quality of the performances.

It did undoubtedly help that we got five instalments in daily doses; it would have been impossible to bear week long waits between episodes and momentum carried through as each day turned out to be even, impossibly, better than the one before. Having been out on Tuesday night I watched two episodes on Wednesday. Excitement overload.

And a peculiarity was that as the third season of a generally puerile show which had done little to develop the characters over the previous twenty-something hours, there were familiar characters that we grew to know far better than in the three years we’ve known them.

Then there was Ben Foster’s music: beautiful and exciting. Euros Lyn’s dynamic direction has been full of pace and frenetic action, but with moments of intimacy and the ordinary; the use of colour and the stunningly designed visuals have enhanced every shot.

But the writing: Russell T. Davies can be brilliant, but has rarely been this good, collaborating for one episode with James Moran. He manages those beautiful, heart-warming character moments so effortlessly, yet in other respects the writing has been unflinching. Almost all of the characterisation has been pitch perfect and even at its weakest, in the dialogue and motivations he has unerringly hit target. The collaboration in producing the pacing, structure and tone across the week has been impressive. And new to Who John Fay produced two outstanding episodes.

And the performances: so universally excellent, but notably Susan Brown, Ian Gelder and Paul Copley (whose technically accomplished performance was riveting). And Peter Capaldi. Wow. Peter Capaldi.

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But it must be strange, if you liked the show, to have it grow up quite so suddenly and unexpectedly. A bit like finding your toddler has become a 35 year old father of three over night. For the rest of us, it’s the unprecedented phenomenon of what has apparently been tweeted about as “Jumping the Shark in reverse”. Perhaps the more worrying thing is the shock that the 3m or so viewers who were new to the show will get if they go back and watch some of the old episodes. Whatever the temptation, just don’t do it. It will probably make you physically ill.

Will there be more? “I’d like to do a continuous story like this again, I have to say.” RTD told the Stage.

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Whether it returns or not, this past week of Torchwood stands alone.

Counting with Torchwood…

3,2,5,0,0,0
4,4,8,0,0,0
2,3,4,0,0,0
6,700
35m/6.7bn
29,158*

Here are a few more…

5th, 1st and 3rd most watched programme (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3).
The 456: the scariest Doctor Who monster ever?
3: Who episodes since Rose even close to being this good.
22h37m until Day 5 airs.

*Those numbers mean…

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…I’ll never look at OFSTED in the same way again.

Even the ideas I thought most feeble are transformed into virtues with the benefit of great writing in Children of Earth: Day 1.

Everyone knowing about the Daleks and Cybermen has seemed to me to compromise the promising scenario of a covert organisation working to keep an unknowing public safe from an extraterrestrial threat. But in Gwen’s speech to Dr Patanjali, Russell T. Davies sold me on it totally for the first time in Torchwood or the mother series. In the trailers, the insane concept of all the children stopping seemed ridiculous (and derivative of The Christmas Invasion) but RTD made it sinister. And then there’s Jack living through the entire 20th century (let’s not mention the last two millennia) to which RTD, apparently effortlessly, added a whole new emotional dimension. Even before some Cardiff slag mooned Ianto from the triple deadlocked arsemobile I found myself actually enjoying Torchwood…

I was wary of hype. Even after being pleasantly surprised at the quality of last week’s trilogy of Radio-4-ified Torchwood Afternoon Plays, the claims of those who’d seen the National Theatre preview that it was “the best hour of Torchwood yet” left me thinking “and it could still be sh*t”. But though it had its flaws (mostly in the last 10 minutes) this is… well, let’s just say, I likes it.