I have to admit, as a media and SciFi junkie, news like this makes me bite my nails a bit.  Apparently the wildly popular Dr. Who spinoff, “Torchwood” is being brought across the pond to the US.  Russell T. Davies, part of the amazing team that revitalized Dr. Who and brought us the BBC version of Torchwood has been lured to the high budgets and glittering illusion of Hollywood.

See, but here’s the thing.  He’s going to be here in the US, working with US production studios.  There’s a “look” to different production studios, in case you’ve never noticed.  A clearly defineable way of doing things visually that carries across in each and every show they do.  As a showrunner, when there’s a look you want for your show, you go to the production house that has it, you don’t try to get the guys who do LOST to give you a look and feel that approximates Brisco County Jr., you don’t get the studio that did V to try and push out a look and feel that better matches Sunny in Philadelphia.  That’s not to say that these studios, given funds and time *couldn’t* make a shift, but there’s not really a point to going that route.

The BBC production houses have a very clear look and feel that they seem to specialise in.  Their actors have a different look to them, the wardrobe departments have different sensibility, the lighting and weather are handled differently to appeal to a predominantly UK audience.  If you drop that aspect (and we are visual critters, you might argue that having the visuals just right is the first step to finding a fanbase) you’re going to have something that may alienate the BBCAmerica fans, arguably the core audience that Torchwood is coming to the US to find.

I’m not all that worried about the writing.  Russell T. Davies and his crew are going to handle that part as well as they have been for both Dr. Who and Torchwood.  But I’m worried that the charm, the visual grounding that worked *so well* with the original shows is going to be gone.  I think if Russell is going to work on a US production he either needs to kitbash his own production team, or he needs to get a UK production house to handle it and export the show, much like what has been going on with the current generation of both shows. 

Having a big budget is Sexxy.  It mean’s you’ve arrived.  It means that someone out there listened to you and is willing to let you go the extra mile.  But there’s a danger in that as well.  When you have as big a budget as you need, you lose that Serindipidy factor.  You lose the opportunity of brilliant convergence, of having to change something that you never would have looked at twice otherwise.  Without being forced into innovation, oftentimes innovation never happens.  After all, making a TV show is about PRODUCTION.  You have to kick out a new eposiode and another and another.  It’s not so much about innovation *unless* innovation is forced upon it (usually because someone ran out of money.

So Russell, pretty please take a look at what they’re offering you.  It’s going to be easier to just take the big budget and write your way through the first season.  But you’re going to (oddly enough) cripple yourself by doing it.  You’re going to fall into the same trap the makers of The Matrix did when they got the budget to stop slinging Keanu Reeves around on wires, the same trap the original Dr. Who fell into when they made that slick and stylish made for ABC movie back in the 90’s.   Just DON’T DO IT!  Take whatever they’re offering and cut a quarter off the top.  Find yourself a young and starving production studio who can be brilliant, who can find a bar-refrigerator someone chucked out on the side of the road, spray-paint it copper, rip it’s guts out, get artsy with the lighting and kitbash it into a Quantum-spin deceleration transistor.  A group of guys and gals who don’t mind standing waist deep in the estuary at 1am chasing a dog wrapped in foam-rubber and latex tentacles.

Part of the charm and appeal to these shows has always been that fantastic low budget element.  Brilliant writing can shine through because we are not distracted by the newest and coolest special effects.  We want a little camp, we want guys in rubber suits.  I know you don’t *have* to use them anymore, but that’s not the point.  Get too far into the bigger budget visual perfection and you lose the story, people can’t parse *both* and we already know you have the storytelling locked down tight.