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Jherek wrote:Gut reaction. No. On the other hand it might not be so bad as long as they don't, as you say, over homogenize it. I wonder if it'll carry on from Children of Earth or bypass it. It might be neat for Doctor Who to have an American cousin show.
Over at television without pity they have a great article (which is the link) about the pros and cons of this move. I enjoyed reading most of the comments, but this one really stood out for me:
Stupid question, but why do a remake or strip out things like the Doctor Who connection?
Just do a straight out spinoff. You're going to have some character in the pilot who acts as a proxy for the audience and needs to have the background explained, so just explain that Queen Victoria was attacked by a werewolf, rescued by an alien traveller, and decided form an organization to keep that sort of thing from happening. Then come up with some plausible reason for there being an American version (in the 1890's Torchwood was involved in a mission in the U.S. which led to an Anglo-American cooperateive effort until Teddy Roosevelt, who didn't want the U.S. to play second fiddle to the British Empire, spun off the U.S. version in the early 1900's (which would explain why it never got mention in the British series)).
With the exception of the Cyberwoman episode, the hand in the jar, and Martha's visit, Torchwood was pretty much isolated from Doctor Who, so you could have a U.S. series with even more oblique references that would make the fans squee but wouldn't bother newbies if they didn't get them. You could also have the events of CoE still haunting Captain Jack (if he's in it); the fans would know and appreciate the enrichment of the character, and the newbies would have a character with a mysterious past, and God knows there are plenty of those on TV.
Of course, that makes perfect sense, so there's no way FOX will go for it. They were the ones that attempted to resurrect an American Doctor, after all.....
