could ianto be resurrected? // bbc promotional photo

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Fox has commissioned Russell T Davies to develop an American version of his hit British series Torchwood, a spinoff of Doctor Who which I am quite fond of.

At first glance, it’s a major epic flail.

Davies has signed on himself, along with Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter, to bring Torchwood stateside, an unusual move for international series being adapted for America.  And according to THR, some of the cast, perhaps including John Barrowman, could be brought over to star in the series.

Spit-spot: tweet, change your GChat status, hurt your ankle jumping around the apartment.

Then pause.  Think about it.  Huh?

Now I have a lot of questions.

Does this mean that Torchwood is done in the UK?  Last I heard, season four was a go.  If the show is still going to continue in the UK and start up over here, and if Barrowman’s coming over, what does that mean for the canon of the series?  According to THR, “the U.S. version will contain a global story line compared to the more localized sensibility of the first two BBC seasons.”

This may be an ignorant question, but what stops networks like Fox from purchasing the rights to air standard Torchwood on our airwaves, just like Sky One in the UK and Global in Canada do?  Why develop whole new versions when the existing version is still thriving?  What would make more sense to me–and what I’d be trying to do were I a network executive–is forming partnerships between US and UK networks, in which, say, Fox helps significantly to fund production of Torchwood in exchange for the right to air the series stateside–and an agreement to take on more global storylines.

All of that said, I am cautiously intrigued about this venture.  And I definitely like the idea of America claiming John Barrowman.

Meanwhile, Tranter is also considering developing an American version of Doctor Who, which is the worst idea I’ve heard in my entire life.

And, finally, here’s this, because I like it.

Says the pilot’s writer, “Alaska is a place where people disappear and now you know why.”

Of course, the writers hope the whole werewolf thing will serve as a nice allegory for social unrest, suburban dystopia, etc. etc. etc.

I am not and will never be a Twilight fan, and I think Stephenie Meyer is a disgrace to pop culture.

BUT I will say that I much prefer werewolves to vampires.  My favorite member of the Order of the Phoenix is Lupin (that’s a lie, it’s definitely Sirius Black, but I still love Lupin like whoa), my favorite Doctor Who series two episode is “Tooth and Claw” (or maybe it’s “The Satan Pit,” I don’t know), and I do enjoy seeing Taylor Lautner without a shirt on.

So if we have to do supernatural crap, I’d much prefer werewolves to vampires.  But I’d also prefer just about anything else to werewolves OR vampires.

Finn Hudson (Glee) – “I am thankful that the Pilgrims didn’t celebrate the first Thanksgiving by eating Great White Shark because I bet they’re much harder to kill than turkeys and my mom’s oven isn’t very big.”

Sue Sylvester (Glee) — “I’m thankful for bamboo’s durability and resistance to splintering, making my ‘discipline cane’ the perfect teaching tool.”

Dr. Lance Sweets (Bones) — “I am thankful for neurosis and sexual tension between partners.” (Aren’t we all?)

Dr. Walter Bishop (Fringe) — “I am thankful that I still have wonderful LSD flashbacks.”

Dr. Robert Chase (House) – “I am thankful for… well, actually, not very much right now.” (Aww.)

For the rest of the thankfulness, click here.

The fellows who run Project Rungay lovingly call her “Bad Mommy,” because Laura always seemed to talk about her kids with as much disdain as affection.  They’ve got a new interview with her in which she spills the details on her pilot:

It’s hard to judge your own work but the initial reaction to the book has been amazing. Sony Entertainment optioned the book to be adapted as a scripted television comedy, with Jamie Tarses as executive producer. Sort of Sex and the City meets Malcolm In The Middle. I went to Los Angeles during network pitch season and made the rounds to all the networks. Fox picked up the project and ordered a pilot script. Which is totally exciting. Can you imagine, the same network as Family Guy and Glee! Jane Lynch would be a perfect Laura.

A quick search of both Hollywood Reporter and Variety archives reveal nothing about this project; also, Jamie Tarses has been working pretty seriously on the Matthew Perry project for ABC.  It sounds to me like Fox asked for a pilot and chose not to shoot it.  Or the project is in the works, but the news just hasn’t broke yet.

It does sound like an interesting concept–although I think Melora Hardin from The Office (she of oversharing and talking over everyone else in the room) would be a much better Laura than Jane Lynch.

this is brennan's momface. // fox promotional photo

I guess I’ll add my two cents to the Bones and Canada confusion, because there seems to be a lot of it.

Let’s start with a little recap.  Bones has been preempted for the last two weeks because of baseball, and depending on who wins the game tomorrow night, it could get pushed another week, too.  (Go, Yankees!)

For about a year now, I guess, Bones has been airing on Thursday nights in America and on Wednesday nights in Canada, prompting many if not most episodes to hit the Internet before hitting American airwaves.  It has become a favorite pastime of American (and other non-Canadian) fangirls to find and watch the episodes beforehand; in all likelihood, this is the most dangerous criminal activity in which most of us will ever participate.  (One could even liken us to Brennan herself, whose biggest transgression so far has been dining and dashing–and Booth paid behind her back.)  But speaking of American pastimes …

Because we don’t know whether or not Bones will air in America this Thursday, we also don’t know whether or not it will air in Canada tomorrow.  While it would be a treat to see it tomorrow night, I’m guessing that it’s not going to end up on, and here’s why:

I don’t know how it works up there, but here, it’d be a big problem if, less than twenty-four hours before an episode was scheduled, there hadn’t been any promos for it and fans didn’t know whether or not it was going to be new.  This is precisely why Fox scheduled reruns of Glee for tomorrow night–that was the plan whether or not the Series ended in time.  (Glee won’t air at all tomorrow because of Game Six.)  They felt they wouldn’t have had enough time to promote the show between when the series would have ended (as early as Sunday night) and when the new episodes could have been scheduled.  Meanwhile, they’ve been promoting the hell out of Bones–during the World Series–with the almost-humorous “IF NO BASEBALL” tag at the end.

Yes, Global is in Canada and is not affiliated with Fox and doesn’t give a rat’s behind about baseball because they are far too busy fawning over the Queen and speaking French and getting free healthcare.  BUT.  20th Century Fox produces the show–they decide when and where it goes.

If this wasn’t true, Global would have already aired the next episode, right?  They’ve only been on a three-week hiatus because we’ve been on a three-week hiatus.

It seems like the way it works is that 20th Century Fox distributes the show episode by episode to their global markets.  They worked out a deal with Global to allow them to air Bones a day early.  I’m sure it doesn’t really affect viewership, since most of the American nuts who watch it online Wednesday nights end up catching it on Fox the next night anyway, purely to see David Boreanaz’s stubble in high definition.

But I imagine it would start to affect American audiences if it started airing on Global a whole week early.  20th Century Fox is probably unwilling to do that.  Why else do you think Canada’s episodes got so screwy last spring when Fox ended up airing, like, seven episodes in a three-week span?  (For those of you who don’t recall, Canadian episodes ended up airing way out of order to compensate for not being able to keep up with how quickly Fox was airing the last ten episodes of season four.)

So I bet what’s happening is 20th Century Fox has been trying to hold out on giving Global the go-ahead for tomorrow–I’m sure it would’ve been business as usual if the Yankees had already clinched the Series.  Now, it’s basically too late, and they’re not going to know whether or not Bones will air Thursday until late Wednesday–after the episode would have already aired in Canada.

The bottom line is that linking a production company to a network (see also: ABC & ABC Studios; NBC & NBC Universal) gives that network a huge advantage.  Yeah, sometimes it’s a bummer that the Canadians get to see Boreanaz’s stubble a whole day before we do, but at the end of the day, it’s the American audiences who benefit.  We always see episodes in the canonical order, we don’t have our schedules messed with by sports we don’t care about (did you know there’s such a thing as Canadian football?), and it’s our preemptions that affect everybody else.  It’s actually a very American system.

Hell, I’m just glad I’m not on another continent–you guys have it rough.