27 TV Helps People See The Future from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

27 TV Helps People See The Future from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

 

Transcript:

In the same way, we could do a whole episode on you know Star Trek and Lieutenant Uhura that’s why Mae Jemison is the first African-American astronaut because she saw Lieutenant Uhura when she was a kid. She’s like oh look a black woman could be involved in space and Tada she’s the first astronaut. So just amazing the power of Television even more than films because TV comes into your house. Really I think an important thing.

 

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18 The Beginning of Bingability from Why Torchwood Still Matters (2021) with Dr. Rosanne Welch , San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today. 

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

18 The Beginning of Bingability from Why Torchwood Still Matters (2021) with Dr. Rosanne Welch , San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

Transcript:

They were early in the concept of bingeable television right –  the idea of doing five episodes, five nights in a row. Bang bang we’re done. That’s a season? Nobody was doing that. I will say nobody – we actually did do that in America in 1977. Eight nights in a row but sadly that’s because they produced Roots and then the network got cold feet and went “Oh my god. No one’s gonna watch this. What are we gonna do?” So they dumped it into one week hoping that one week would be the bad ratings and it wouldn’t hurt the whole season and it turned out to be the highest rating thing in like the last 15 years and went on and on for many years after that to be the highest rated mini-series ever. So we had done it but nobody had done it since then right and it was not a big thing in England and then suddenly we have “Children of Earth” and for me was very bingeable before Netflix and bingeability existed. I remember starting it at like you know maybe eight or nine o’clock at night. We’re like we’ll just watch a couple and then we’ll watch the rest tomorrow and then you got to like the end of the second one you’re like oh we gotta watch one more one more and then it’s two in the morning and you’re done and you’re crying because it was so terrible and so sad.

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26 The Companions and History from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

16 The Companions and History from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

So to think about what’s a piece that even in the UK they need to remember their own history and always not the good parts right and the choices that were made. So what a perfect way to use Yaz and what a cool thing you want to see your grandmother’s wedding and then Oh gee it’s a wedding. It’s a wedding for Rose and these are places you shouldn’t haven’t been. So I think that’s a lovely bit and of course, I’m tracing that all the way back to the Original “Star Trek” which is the ultimate sci-fi on tv right, and this beautiful episode – which if you don’t know what you need to know – but won several science fiction awards back in the day by Harlan Ellison “The City on the Edge of Forever” right. Which is where Kirk falls in love with a woman and when they before – Joan Collins, exactly, before “Dynasty” – and then learns – spoiler alert – that she is she’s pushing for peace before World War II and if she succeeds Hitler will have time to rise and he will, in fact, take over the world. So she has to die and you’re like No No No No No, he’s never fallen in love – yeah it’s great. Very funny. Very funny and just the other day right William Shatner is now going to go up to space at the age of 90. Like wow. Amazing how TV affects things. Really it’s William Shatner. He’s just an actor from Canada but he’s Captain Kirk right?

 

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17 Spoilers…or not from Why Torchwood Still Matters (2021) with Dr. Rosanne Welch , San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today. 

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

17 Spoilers…or not from Why Torchwood Still Matters (2021) with Dr. Rosanne Welch , San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

Transcript:

Rosanne: In terms of – I think again innovation – I think this was – I’ve not seen this in American show, right? This is not a thing. So I think it’s very cool that they got away with it twice and they get away with it because of being creative with their publicity and that the – I mean the UK is not that small but smaller than here – and the idea that they could go to the newspapers and say “Do us a favor don’t – you’re going to figure it out from the call sheets. You’re going to know these people don’t exist after a couple of episodes but let us do this. Let us have this surprise.” So both shows were put out with the extra character as if they’re a regular. This is the cast of this new show and you’re looking at it going well that makes perfect sense and even – especially the picture with The Doctor it’s like Oh you want to have the two flanking each side. It looks balanced. It looks perfect right and but they’re not. So they literally worked with the journalists and the people that they had to deal with which I think is cool. We don’t necessarily do that here. It’s all about breaking news. I just found out this character’s dying next week. Thank you for ruining it for everybody.

Audience: I don’t want spoilers.

Rosanne: Exactly. Exactly. I want a little book where they’re hidden in. Don’t tell me.

Audience: I don’t watch the social media at all because they ruin it.

Rosanne: Yeah. They totally do. I mean and I think that’s a problem. So it’s so interesting to me that the UK can sort of be tight enough that they’re all willing to get in on the act and I think they understand that’s what’s going to make the piece more popular. They want the piece to be more global and more people to pay attention. So this is a big deal. I can’t name an American show that got away with this right? So I think that’s pretty cool.

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25 Referencing the History of the Show from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

25 Referencing the History of the Show rom The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

Now what you have to do when you’re taking over a franchise like this that’s been around forever and you’re the showrunner, you have to remember its history and I think you have to homage that to the new audiences. So that they feel like this is new but it’s also old, right? I’m still in a world I understand and I appreciate and for me, that’s demons of the Punjab because “Father’s Day” was such a beautiful episode for Rose. I know. Any time a character, of course, wants to go back and see a moment in history that they shouldn’t be tampering with and that’s the temptation of being in a TARDIS. You can do that. Should you do that? So I think it’s so cool that he could have done that with any of the characters right? Graham could have gone back to see something maybe that happened to him when he was younger. Obviously, Ryan could have gone back 10 years. He’s kind of young but I don’t know something might have happened when he was 12 that made him upset but he decided to have Yaz go back and to go back to a part of history that – again in the United States – the Partition – when did I ever learn about that in some high school history class. Barely right unless you did maybe Western Civ and even then they didn’t really get deep into it.

 

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16 The “Bury Your Gays” Trope from Why Torchwood Still Matters (2021) with Dr. Rosanne Welch , San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today. 

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

16 The

Transcript:

When I talk about Buffy The Vampire Slayer we get to the Tara/Willow relationship and that’s the first lesbian relationship on television and then – spoiler alert – Tara is killed and that is the beginning of the “Bury Your Gays” trope which went on for a few years, but then Emily Andras who does “Wynonna Earp” – if you haven’t seen that. it’s quite good, on SciFi and now it’s on Netflix – when she created her series she gave Wynonna a little sister named Waverly and she’s a lesbian who has a relationship with the local town sheriff and, the producer, Emily, promised to in the run of this show will either of those 2 women die. I will break this trope and, sure enough, you get to the end of the fourth season – the series finale – and it’s the ladies’ wedding. She’s gone all the way to that point. So, some people told her that’s a bad idea because we want the worry about our characters but because she promised they wouldn’t die she also got to be more innovative because she put them in some of the worst possible situations where you could never get out of and, as an audience member, you were like, ok, they can’t die. How – so you were equally involved. It wasn’t like well I know they can’t die. I don’t care. it was like, how are they going to get out of this? So the interactivity stayed. So, I would say that that is not – I don’t think that is “fridging.”

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24 The Voice of the Writer from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

24 The Voice of the Writer from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

Now, this was great out of Witchfinders. Obviously, he had to keep reminding the audience that this is different and I have to deal with this difference and we have to look in history about this difference right? So literally that’s him, I think, that’s Chris Chibnall talking to the audience okay. If i was still a bloke I could get on with the job and not to waste time defending myself all right but I understand that – and think about it they were defending themselves in the public a little bit in the whoa what a choice you made what a crazy choice why’d you do that. So, in a way, sometimes when I’m watching movies I’ll hear a line and I’ll say oh that’s the writer telling us how they feel right now right and putting it into the mouth of the character and this is one of those lines for me. I really think that was the impression that it gave me.

 

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15 They Keep Killing Suzie…and Grace from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today. 

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

15 They Keep Killing Suzie…and Grace from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

Transcript:

What they did in Torchwood they, of course, repeat when we come along to the Jodie Whittaker Doctor because they made you think we had a regular we didn’t have in the pilot. Right? That’s a trick that’s hard to get away with, but they made sure and wrote in a person who looked like they were part of the team and everything was happening and then they die in the pilot. And you’re like, whoa what happened?

They knew what they were doing. They knew they were killing the woman of color in that pilot, but they made sure she came back in Graham’s visions – right – he saw the visions of her and Ryan talks about her all the time. They even show The Doctor going to a funeral. How many people have died in the course of Doctor Who – I never once saw any of the Doctors go to a funeral. They respected her enough she stayed to go to her funeral. That’s how important that character is. So I think, I wouldn’t claim it as that but perhaps that is something they learned and they tried very hard not to do. Which I think is really interesting.

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23 The Voice of the Character from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

23 The Voice of the Character from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

So it was a real like getting to know the voice of a character and a character that has had similar but slightly different voices across all 50 years. They all have had their own way of doing things and their own sort of idioms. I think that’s really delicate but that line really stuck out to me and you just can’t imagine thinking your way through it so long and then I think this is really important because it keeps us with the theme – the overarching theme – of the series which is really about pacifism and about really attempting to bring peace to the universe, not war. Even though of course David comes back from the time war and all that stuff but I think keeping that in mind and allowing a female character to bring forward that idea. In a funny way I’m a huge fan of Robert Redford and all that sort of thing and “The Way We Were” is one of my favorite romances and the idea that there was the Barbra Streisand character – ban the bomb, pushing for pacifism. It’s a woman is always trying to say let’s not go to war first let’s get to the solution because I don’t want to see all the people I know get hurt. So I think that’s very true not just that she’s a female character but it’s Doctor Who. That’s the job right? So we try to do it without a gun. Sometimes they show up but they really don’t belong there. They really don’t belong there.

 

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14 Owen Harper from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today. 

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

14 Owen Harper from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

Transcript:

 

…and then Owen was an interesting character. I mean he could be your bland white guy except he wasn’t a nice guy necessarily and they had to put up with him because of his talent and he had to learn and grow. So I think he was an interesting character. He’s not the most interesting of all of them. The fact that he had a relationship with Tosh says a little bit about him right? So it’s not the best character but he was you know i mean if he had to have a second white guy he was okay but here’s where i start thinking about the writing makes the show stand out.

 

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