Inviting us in

[beccaelizabeth]

I've been thinking about beginnings. Teaser scenes, those shiny bits before the opening titles that are there to tell you why you should bother watching the rest. And first episodes, which have much the same function but for the whole series.

Torchwood has two contrasting openings thus far. And they're interesting in what they expect us to know and where they invite us to stand.

First season, dead guy in the rain. Torchwood are the mystery. We're with Gwen, knowing nothing about them, with just tantalising glimpses of Jack drawing us in.

Second season, blowfish in a sports car. Torchwood are the common knowledge of little old ladies. And we're still with Gwen, but also the rest of the team... still getting Jack walking in as an outsider, not revealed by the little fishy monologue.

"Bloody Torchwood" is in an odd way a really arrogant way to begin. Because we're expected to know. Here's the quick character tag lines, here's a situation, oh look they dealt with it, moving on... It's like they expect Torchwood to be as famous with the viewers as they are with Cardiff. Welcome back fans. But it's subtly deceptive too, because this is Team Torchwood version 2, new and improved with actual competence... kinda. Everyone is just a bit different than they were last we met them. And we find that through Jack being the ousider, failing to fit back in... so we're with Jack then, watching the team he doesn't quite know. Like we were with Jack the first season, introducing Gwen to the things we'd learned from Doctor Who. Gwen and Jack offering us different places to stand, both seasons.

Then there's the difference in approach to both presenting a problem and solving it, and consequently in what the first eps say the series is about.

Dead guy in the rain - there's darkness out there, mystery, and these few have seen just that little bit more of it. They think that makes them better able to handle it... if they don't fall in.

That's the series that hooked me. Darkness, mystery, human fragility in a big weird universe.

Blowfish in a sports car... that's actually a different series. Because yeah, Owen hanging out the window had that classic mix of *facepalm* and coooool that is Torchwood getting the job done by the skin of their teeth, but what else is it saying? This isn't mystery, this is action. We don't have to figure out the threat, there's no slow reveal on it. Here's a blowfish in a sports car... on drugs in your living room... oh look we shoot him dead. Different series, different hook. Bit more... pop. Threat comes from outside and can be fixed with a gun. Pretty much opposite of 1-01.

And then Captain Spike turns up and the new threat is Jack's relationships catching up with him now he's reconnected to the world. Which is interesting, way more interesting than blowfish, but it's still all running around shooting and nearly getting blown up, there's no mystery there. There is dark though, and damaged people, someone who fell in quite some time ago.

So now I'm interested to see where they're going next. Do they mean to keep changing things? Did they think they were writing the same show? Will we get more mystery/internal/darkness or more action/external/kaboom?


I was also thinking, a first episode for a TV series has pretty much the opposite job than a first for a fanfic series. TV wants to draw in new viewers. They want to present something fresh and exciting, something you can catch on to in the first few minutes, something that uses the toys already established, sure, but also makes sure people watching for the first time don't feel like they'd have to invest 13 hours before they could bother with this next bit.

This isn't an invarying rule. Stargate has a tendency to cliffhanger their seasons and be seriously arc heavy on their first episode back. And they managed 10 years on that model, so it can't actually be wrong. Stargate must therefore want a lot of returning fans and not worry so much about the newbies. Y/N?

Fanfic though... if there's any newbies out there, we be a bit surprised. Fanfic is for people who have not only watched but memorised the available canon. Only in xovers do we tend to give the infodump on background. Otherwise it comes up with references, quotes, maybe a line about spoilers or author's note about what episode it is set after. And part of the job of a good fanfic is to prove we've watched the show. Learning Criteria: Demonstrate you haven't find/replaced the names on a fic from elsewhere. So writing something that newbies can jump into without knowing the background would tend to be judged suspiciously, on account of it looking a teensy like a newbie jumped in without knowing the background. Therefore fanfic first episodes are not in fact firsts, they're somewhere after the last minute of what we've got. Even if they're set before. The hook isn't 'cool new show!' it's 'my take on what we've all seen'.


So my plot bunny needs an opening scene. I'm thinking of throwing together a few quotes to show what I'm pulling together into this fic, then zooming out to Cardiff from above... because I want to write script format and really visually, because I'm practicing.

This, too, is going to be a bit of a clash with fanfic standard. I haven't read anything script format. I've read more chat format than script format. So I'm considering tweaking it back to being just a very sight-and-sound oriented bit of prose. But then I consider how prose can refer to taste and smell and touch and get right into people's heads to watch them thinking, and the narrator voice has a different perspective than the descriptives in a script, and... I get tangled up in differences, pros and con, pro and fan fic.

I guess fan fic invites a different audience in. And seeing as y'all are the ones who might actually read it, I should do that.

But I kind of really want to play on TV too, and practice that, and we all watch TV so...

... complicated.

Comments

[secbeth.livejournal.com]

OOOOOOOO deep, I understand what your saying I think. I write xovers and plan jane fic. I try to write in book format but it never works that way. It comes out script or mash. For the most part I think I follow this idea that you start with something that draws the reader in.

[beccaelizabeth]

script and prose are tools with different effects, and do not turn into each other as seamlessly as might seem.
If you don't grab your reader within a couple of minutes, you've got to be pretty sure they've got nothing better to do. Which... well, this is the internet, there's always something to do.

[the-annexe.livejournal.com]

Interesting meta. If you're looking for a brilliant script-style fic, check out sam_storyteller's 'Carnival Show' -- it's basically a rewrite of 'Out of the Rain' -- and much better to boot. Might give you some ideas and inspiration! Linky here (http://sam-storyteller.livejournal.com/127247.html).

[beccaelizabeth]

I did read that one. The script style suited the fixit nature of the project. competing on the same level, sort of thing.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

Fanfic is for people who have not only watched but memorised the available canon. Only in xovers do we tend to give the infodump on background. Otherwise it comes up with references, quotes, maybe a line about spoilers or author's note about what episode it is set after. And part of the job of a good fanfic is to prove we've watched the show

thank you for stating that
i really really hate reading basic summaries of what we already saw onscreen in fics

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
I think the 'more of' impulse can be taken a bit far.
I like redoing episodes in my head, but I don't think other people want to read it.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

even if it's like a post-ep fic, we don't need to read about everything that happened in the episode, WE WATCHED IT! just pick up where it left off, sheesh
and i forgot to say HI!

[beccaelizabeth]

hi back.

sometimes the particular word choice in an episode description sets the scene and changes the spin on what other people might have thought they'd seen.

But yeah, repetition not always fascination.

[coffeegirl18.livejournal.com]

Well I think we definitely had 'mystery/internal/darkness' in From Out of the Rain. It was spooky and revealed a small mystery about Jack. It was a sense of who are these creepy carnival people and what are they doing here and why is Jack in that film. I like the even amount of action and mystery...LOL can you tell I'm also hooked on CSI. :D

[beccaelizabeth]

Out of the Rain... I think it closed down a mystery about Jack. Jack was in that film because he was on an assignment. That tells us no more than we already knew about him, and leaves no gaps that need filling in. If Jack instead ran away to join the circus, maybe after his experiences in the war, there's huge amounts of character mileage to be made from that.

I thought the episode had a problem with character voice and specificity. It didn't seem very Torchwood. I liked the spooky plot, I didn't like the oddly unscientific solution.

Your right though, is further towards the mystery/darkness than many in season 2.

[coffeegirl18.livejournal.com]

Good point. But it cleared up why he looked kind of distant saying he was the 'man who could never die'. He was actually marketed like that...that's kind of sick.

I agree although I liked it in parts. I personally wanted another truly terrifying episode along the lines of Countrycide. It just lightly touched on the horror part...they could have done more to that side.

Thanks. Yeah I just wished it was more so. I like some action with my mystery...it'd be better if they almost alternated a mystery ep with an action one.

[beccaelizabeth]

I thought Countrycide went too far, because there were no genre elements in the end, nothing but humans doing bad things. That's not shocking, that's what every other TV show does, and I avoid. But Countrycide did do the buildup really well too. Could have been anything. And if it was anything but humans I'd have been able to sleep that night...

[coffeegirl18.livejournal.com]

I meant the actual horror elements...the whole isolation part and the not knowing what's behind that door. Oh and Jack talking about how he used to torture people. I like that it could have been a wild animal or an alien and it ended up being crazy people. They kind of rubbed our faces in it more than a little though. I seriously thought that guy was going to eat Gwen's ear at the end.

I think they should have added a bit about maybe that they were sacrificing the people to the aliens and that's what it was...but I really like that for once it wasn't aliens.