Friday 10 September 2010

John Fay Talks Torchwoord COE and The New World

The guys over at SciFiLove have managed to bag an interview with TORCHWOOD screenwriter John Fay, who worked on Children of Earth and is the only British writer to be invited to join the new writing team for The New World. The Interview is quite long, but here are the best bits.

The New World
“I’m very excited about The New World. Like anything in life you can rest on your laurels, or you can try to push on again and achieve something new. That is what Russell has done. On Children of Earth he had a very clear and defined vision, but what he has outlined for The New World is equally, if not more ambitious than before. I’m very proud of CofE and it was one of the few things I have been involved with when I watched the DVDs and thought ‘this is good’. Normally I look for flaws.

“It is early days for The New World, but having met the other writers and talked to Russell, I’ve every reason to think we’ll get somewhere close to where we were before.”

"I was concerned when there was talk of the Torchwood going to Fox,” he said. “Then when Julie asked me if I wanted to write for the show again, she said they were working with Starz. To be honest I’d never heard of Starz, like most people I expect, but after looking into it I saw that the guy who runs the network used to run HBO. That was all I needed to know. He has to be ambitious but has one hell of a track record of producing adult and intelligent drama, just like Torchwood. What’s more Julie and Russell are still in charge. I’m sure it will stay as people would hope.”

“I mean, fucking hell, Russell has assembled one hell of a team and then there’s me! I was very impressed by the other writers when I went in to meet them. I knew Jane Espenson’s work from Battlestar Galactica, while I was delighted to talk to John Shiban too because Breaking Bad is one of my favourite shows at the moment. They all really know their stuff and that kind of expertise means everyone raises their game. We worked from 9-5 each day to storyline the show, but in much greater detail than I was used to from working in England. For instance in Children of Earth I was in Cardiff for three days with Russell, Julie, James Moran, Euros Lyn and Brian Elsley to work out the episodes from Russell’s vision. That was more ‘we want it to be kind of like this’, a looser structure, whereas in America we beat out every detail of each episode and went one step at a time. It was fascinating to see that approach.”

“We are starting from scratch to some degree, but what helps us is we have got such well established characters in Jack and Gwen that people know and love. We will be bringing new characters in too for a new audience, and telling a story that encompasses and could affect the whole world. Children of Earth was the same, but we will see more of the world this time than then. Obviously Torchwood is an established show with an clear history which we will refer too, but we have to embrace people who maybe haven’t seen any Torchwood before. If you get too self-referential it can get dull, so what’s gone before will be referenced, but in a subtle way.”

He also went on to discuss his role on Children of Earth, and his involvement in killing off well loved character, Ianto Jones.
“Russell wanted that to happen, although they are my words,” he said. “It was absolutely the right thing to do though from the point of view of the story and what it gave to the last episode. The strength of Torchwood and Russell’s vision is that you don’t know the heroes are going to survive. That’s been well established now!That adds a sense of jeopardy to the show which leaves everyone wondering what will happen next.”

“In my mind, I was always aware that Jack had gone through this situation many times before, and that was really interesting to me. How do you have a relationship and fall in love with someone when you know – absolutely know – you will be around to see them die?That’s a real tragedy that Jack has to carry around with him, as well as a fascinating weight to hang around a character’s shoulders. At the time, Children of Earth was the first thing I had written after my dad died and I wonder if I feel that way because I was writing about my dad in some way through that time. I still think I didn’t quite nail it. There is a line there that I never managed to put my finger on, or maybe didn’t want to.”

When asked if Ianto would be brought back in the new series, he had this to add...
“I’m not going to answer that. You’ll just have to watch and see."

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