Nat

This Sunday is going to be the 20th anniversary of the 1990s version of The Tomorrow People.

I've been obsessed with the show since I saw that first serial aged 13, but it's not a fandom I've shared with many other people. In my 20s I obsessively tracked down the VHS, the 1970s original series and the books associated with both, wrote fan fiction (the only series I've ever done this for) and ran a fan site for a year or so that gained pretty much no interest. I've had a few good discussions at sci-fi cons and occasionally on Twitter, but my TP fandom was always very ...personal, and Doctor Who was always a much more mainstream fandom.

I was planning to spend Sunday rewatching the 1990s Origin Story and reflecting on 20 years of loving the show, but this evening I got home from the supermarket to discover that two of the co-creators and producers of Arrow and The Vampire Diaries and the writer of Chuck are getting together to remake 'Tomorrow People' for the American CW cable network(!!!?!?!?!).

It took me a good hour of giggling and flailing before I even managed to process the news. I haven't reacted as pessimistically as others have. I've wished for another remake for years. I'm already a fan of a remake of this show, and the original, I have no problem with it being done differently again. I genuinely regularly dream that I'm watching the pilot for a new series of The Tomorrow People then wake up upset that it wasn't real. I watched two seasons of True Blood despite not really liking it very much, just because one of the characters was a bit like a Tomorrow Person. I really will watch anything with telepathy and/or teleportation.

I don't even have a problem with this being American; The 90's series was an American co-production with Nickelodeon and an Australian lead, so it's not that much of a jump for me (although I'd love an international cast - let one of those many British actors in US TV use their natural accent!). I also really like The Vampire Diaries, Arrow and Chuck and actually feel like the show might be in good hands. People who grew up watching the 90s version (on Nickelodeon or ITV) could be TV executives in their 30s now, so this show could have been pursued for remake by genuine fans! I don't even mind this being on the CW which tends to go for the teen romance angle - both the 70s and 90s versions of the show had prominent 'teen heart throb' stars after all. So unless they utterly miss the point or manage to make it completely terrible, or it doesn't even make it to pilot, there's a good chance that I'm going to love this show!

This is REALLY not the 20th anniversary of the remake I was expecting - from now on it's going to be 'the first remake'!

Update 2013-04-30: For the 40th anniversary of The Tomorrow People, I re-recorded the vocal to reflect the newer lyrics I wrote based on feedback from Talis and others in the UK Filk community. The song is now slower, makes use of the different vocal qualities my voice is capable of, has a new bridge, a gratuitous key change and a softer ending.

Update 2011-11-02: Now updated with an improved vocal performance (I hadn't warmed up and only did one take yesterday).

Inspired by listening to Talis Kimberley on BBC iPlayer this morning, I wrote and recorded a new song over my (extended!) lunch break.

It's about classic British children's television science fiction and the experience of being a queer teenager. Listen for free here:

http://quarriesandcorridors.bandcamp.com/track/the-changes

( Lyrics for The Changes below... )
Big thank you Talis for inspiring the folk protest song style I'm using here (and probably the tune, I not usually very original with that sort of thing).

You also may be interested in a video I made for PracticalAndrogyny.com about vocal androgyny, where I sneakily included some filk music:

Practical Androgyny - Vocal androgyny in speech and singing

I'd be interested to hear your feedback!

The following post doesn't go into details about Children of Earth (Torchwood series 3) but the resulting comments almost certainly will...

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not keen to see Torchwood continued after the ending the series was given during Children of Earth: Day 5.

However, after discussions with some friends, I have an idea for the continuation of Torchwood which I would absolutely LOVE to see.

Now Torchwood has been around since the Victorian era and Captain Jack has been a member of Torchwood Three since it was run by two Victorian lesbians. That's a century of Torchwood and Captain Jack continuity that's completely untapped.

So let's treat present day Torchwood as finished, leave the modern Doctor Who universe free for Steven Moffat to play with and instead explore Torchwood's shady past!

There are some options for how this might work:

You could have series 4 set entirely in the Victorian era with Captain Jack working as a junior member of a steampunk Torchwood, hiding secret knowledge about Torchwood's arch enemy, The Doctor. After that, series 5 could be in, say, the 1920s, as previewed in The Golden Age, then series 6 could be in the 1960's, series 7 the 1980's and so on. Each series would move on enough that we have a completely different team with very few characters crossing between. Eventually this would have the nostalgic appeal of Life On Mars or Ashes To Ashes and it could even feature ongoing threats and big bads that persist or develop through the decades.

Alternatively, the story could follow Jack working on some sort of shady quest (looking for something to travel in time to change events perhaps?) alone before the CoE epilogue while flashing back Lost-style to related stories that occured at some point in Torchwood's past. Not only could this give us more of Torchwood's missing past (and that steampunk Victorian Torchwood) but it could include missing stories from Torchwood's recent past, even including characters that died in past series.

Or you could ditch the framing story and just have an anthology series exploring different Torchwood stories set in different time periods and different locations. We know from The Golden Age that Torchwood has a base in India, for example, so why not all over the empire? Then you'll have a series with lots of different stories in which anything could happen with only Captain Jack as the main recurring character.

A series set in Torchwood's past could be pretty dark, because we know for a fact that Torchwood in the past was an unethical organisation willing to do anything to protect the country and the empire. We also know that they used to treat Jack more like an abomonation who could be used to do dirty jobs almost certain to result in death. We'll also see an ongoing dynamic where Jack's position in Torchwood gradually changes going from a dispensable and untrusted pawn to eventually leader of Torchwood Three.

So what do you think, is this a good idea? Which option would you prefer? Or would you prefer to see a present day series 4?