I think I'm actively trying not to care about Torchwood now but

[beccaelizabeth]

Captain Jack Harkness is not American.
... the WWII guy who got his name nicked by the time traveller is American, but Torchwood Jack is *not* American.
He is from Boeshane. In the 51st century. This does not map to America even if it's on the same planet, no more than England now maps to... what were we three thousand years ago anyway?
He has also been in Cardiff for more than a century. More than a century and a half even. He serves in a crown agency. He's a citizen, he said, to Gwen, in an episode RTD wrote even. He is, by now, bloody well British.

Also we invented him so he's ours. And not American.

All this trying to be American is *stupid* because it will lead to inevitable massive failure on account of not in fact being American. The unique selling point is Wales, not Generica USA yet again. Doing stories different and distinctive is the useful bit. And if the show was appealing enough to go sell then why make it into something else entirely? Except that one is already lost because RTD liked Children of Earth and... I will drop that right there because the rant is old. I know I'm not going to like whatever gets done under the name Torchwood. I should just drop it.

(But Jack is not American.)

(Even less than the Doctor is British.)

(... actually I could make an argue that the Doctor is British but I'm pretty sure he thinks he's Gallifreyan and Time Lord and that's that.)

... why can I not just drop these things?

*sigh*

Comments

[philippos42]

For someone from GB, the actor has a ridiculously thick American accent. Even to American ears. Seriously, if he & I were in room together, people might think I was the one who'd been living in Wales for years, & I've never been to Wales.

[philippos42]

So perhaps RTD always tended Jack to read as "American", or "alien in an American way." A bit like how the aliens in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy seem to be Americans as seen by expat Brits.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

He's "American" in the fact that he's descended from people who are mostly from somewhere else?

[beccaelizabeth]

Heh, actually that definition works
and helps with the grumpy, thanks.


It still feels like 'American' is stealing all the imaginary land.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry. :-(

It's just our way. When we see a good thing we want it for ourselves! (And that includes imaginary planets. And a certain Captain.)

Er...don't go and revoke our independence over this?

[beccaelizabeth]

:-)

you steals our stuffs, we steals ur independenz?
... somehow that doesn't quite work out...

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

no more than England now maps to... what were we three thousand years ago anyway?

Actually we were pretty much England in terms of the people. Most modern English people will largely be descended from people who lived in what is now England back then (almost everyone will have some immigrant blood, but virtually nobody would be without some of the original 'English British' blood).

In terms of language there is more dispute. There is some evidence for our language having Germanic elements even then, representing the long tradition of immigration from that part of the continent to eastern Britain. Others maintain it was a Celtic tongue similar to Welsh or Cornish. But very few words or even elements of words would be recognisable to us, and certainly we would have a completely different accent.

In terms of culture, we were pre-industrial farmers, craftsmen and traders, living in settlements some of which would be large and complex enough to be considered towns. The religion was polytheistic and I think still included elements of human sacrifice (I might be wrong). Most modern English people would find they had little in common with such people.

So by analogy, even if Boshane was part of the North American continent formerly the US, Jack would have little more than genetics in common with 21st century Americans.

[beccaelizabeth]

human sacrifice: I googled only a little but found the same Big Argue I found previously. On one side there's people saying reports about it are always about The Other Guys and there's no dead people that absolutely definitely got sacrificed, and on the other there's people saying there's quite a lot of people talking about specific Other Guys and quite a lot of dead people that could plausibly have been sacrificed.
I figure we probably did it. Humans aren't always nice.

But we don't even know, and don't identify with the people that did it, so yeah, little in common.

It's just not thinking SF enough or historical enough to muddle things like that.

[riftghost.livejournal.com]

Somebody really should give RTD a copy of season 1 and 2 to watch. I can't decide whether he didn't like the old series or really has no patience for the past. He has no respect for stories already told, backgrounds that have already been set. It's all about 'the new story and the new audience'.

I'm really going to miss Cardiff. The setting alone made the show interesting and different.

[beccaelizabeth]

I suspect he watched, but in that writerly frame of mind that is serene in the belief he could do better. By chucking it all out.

I think he believes the emotion of the moment is more valuable than consistency or character arc or values or any of that stuff that lets you figure out what might happen next. So new is good to him because of new impact.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

In-universe, I can see the case for "Jack is American" on the reasoning that "Jack is obviously Not From Around Here, and is rather obnoxious, therefore..."; and I could also see a scenario whereby his not actually being American could be used as an interesting storytelling point if he ended up in the States for whatever reason.

Out-of-universe, I mostly just want to punch whoever came up with it.

good icon

[beccaelizabeth]

In-universe I can see people who don't know Jack concluding just from his accent. But it's not what he says about himself. And he didn't choose America, so if he ends up in the States after 150 years of not being there, that would be a Story, yeah.

[riftghost.livejournal.com]

If RTD 'changes' Jack, such as background, certain characteristics, will he ever be back on Dr. Who? If RTD makes changes to the Torchwood history, is he breaking ties with Dr. WHo?

[riftghost.livejournal.com]

(I meant will Jack be able to fly with the Doctor again?

[beccaelizabeth]

Honestly, I don't konw how they could put him back on the kids show after the end of CoE anyway. Yet they did. Presumably it's easier because they warned kids not to watch the other show.
*big sigh*

I do think it's worrying to have the spin off show get ever further from 'home', because putting them back together again may get more difficult, and Jack had a whole story going with the Doctor that I don't think is done yet.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

I feel that RTD is just dumping Torchwood that was. He's saying the rift simply doesn't exist now. It's all a little bonkers to be honest. I don't know what he is playing at. Watching Sherlock Holmes made me think that TW could have stayed the way it was, it's like he planned to dump Cardiff, take it to London, kill it, so he could just run off and make it into US Excalibur, which will no doubt resemble the X files.

Jack is not American. He nicked the persona and admits that in Dr Who.

[beccaelizabeth]

Yeah. The Rift can't not exist, it's already connected up bits of future to bits of narrative-present and past.
Unless he means the universe got a reboot and the Rift *never* existed.
... actually I could play with that idea and get story out of it.

The Rift can't be the same phenomenon as the latest season of Doctor Who because it didn't act the same way. Except if he says it was the same phenomenon then ... big mess.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

The Rift was where the cracks dumped things?

...Yeah, I got nothin'.

[bk_forever]

As far as I can tell, it seems RTD never wanted to make Torchwood and as soon as it was a big enough hit, he threw out everything that made it a hit in order to turn it into what he originally wanted. The 'Jack is American' thing is ridiculous, apparently now he has a whole new audience he feels that he can throw continuity and established backstory out the window. Sadly, whatever he's creating now is not Torchwood and is nothing I want to waste my time watching. I already lost 5 hours of my life to CoE and I have no desire to subject myself to more so-called drama.

[beccaelizabeth]

I do think RTD thinks he's making Torchwood what it should have been all along. The tone he likes matches his first episode and not most of the other 25.

I like that he got Doctor Who and Torchwood going, I don't so much like the things he personally writes.

[bk_forever]

Agreed. He's just not that good a writer, everything he writes seems a bit samey. He hired some very good writers for Torchwood, but I think even the first 2 series might have been better if he hadn't had the final say on things. There might even have been better continuity then. I don't know. Sometimes it seemed each episode was written in a vacuum with the writer having no knowledge of what happened in other episodes.

I'm not going to be watching season 4. I liked the first 2 series, they weren't perfect but the rift allowed for anything to happen and the team had some very interesting characters. Even when it was dark, there was a sense of hope and that Torchwood could prevail. Now it seems it's going to be very dark just for the sake of it. I don't find that entertaining and if I'm watching TV, I want to be entertained, not depressed.