{"id":4174,"date":"2010-09-16T08:53:06","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T12:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/?p=4174"},"modified":"2010-09-16T08:53:11","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T12:53:11","slug":"a-soapbox-doctor-who-a-family-show-david-mitchell-is-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/a-soapbox-doctor-who-a-family-show-david-mitchell-is-right\/","title":{"rendered":"A Soapbox?  Doctor Who a Family show? (David Mitchell is right&#8230;)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Folks,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tmdwp.co.uk\/TMDWP\/TMDWP_YouTube\/TMDWP_YouTube.html\">As Luke Harrison says, Let&#8217;s get some perspective here.<\/a>..  David Mitchell has made this simple statement in his <a href=\"http:\/\/davidmitchell.blip.tv\/file\/4100512\/\">video blog<\/a>. &nbsp;I am going to paraphrase here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I (David Mitchel) liked Classic Doctor Who better than Modern Who<\/li>\n<li>Classic Doctor Who was targeted towards the Children, it was a <strong>&#8220;Family Show&#8221;.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Modern Doctor Who is targeted at the Adults (or Teens), but it&#8217;s a Family <strong>Friendly<\/strong> Show.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What&#8217;s wrong with this? &nbsp;Why are we even having to dissect this?<\/p>\n<p>Doctor Who, when it started back in 1963, it was fully intended to be an educational children&#8217;s show, using what we now are calling Pseudo-Historical adventures. &nbsp;Adventures where the Doctor and Companions travel back in time to fix, change or otherwise mess with history. &nbsp;A good modern Pseudo-Historical adventure example, would be the Shakespeare Code, from Season 3&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">&#65279;The&nbsp;<a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"Tenth Doctor\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tenth_Doctor\">Tenth Doctor<\/a> takes Martha Jones on her first trip in the&nbsp;<a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"TARDIS\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/TARDIS\">TARDIS<\/a>. Arriving in&nbsp;<a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"Elizabethan era\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Elizabethan_era\">Elizabethan England<\/a>, they meet&nbsp;<a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"William Shakespeare\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Shakespeare\">William Shakespeare<\/a>, who is writing his play&nbsp;<em><a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"Love's Labour's Won\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Love%27s_Labour%27s_Won\">Love&#8217;s Labour&#8217;s Won<\/a><\/em>. However, evil, witch-like&nbsp;<a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"List of Doctor Who creatures and aliens\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Doctor_Who_creatures_and_aliens#Carrionite\">Carrionites<\/a> plot to end the world by placing a code in the new play&#8217;s closing dialogue. Shakespeare will have to give the performance of his life in order to save the&nbsp;<a style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;\" title=\"List of Doctor Who planets\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Doctor_Who_planets#E\">Earth<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#65279;The Pseudo-Historical adventures are set in the best, have real world elements, but often add Science Fiction \/ Science Fantasty elements, to make it uniquely Doctor Who. &nbsp;For example, in the Shakespeare Code adding &#8220;Alien&#8221; witches to the plot. &nbsp;In the Classic series, possibly the best example, would be &#8220;The Talons of Weng-Chaing&#8221;, or &#8220;Horror of Fang Rock&#8221;, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the series being aimed at the older market, isn&#8217;t unexpected. &nbsp;After all, The series was placed on hiatus in 1989, and the telemovie in 1996. &nbsp;So, figuring someone that was 10 in 1989 started to watch the series in 2005, they would be in their mid-twenties. &nbsp;Even someone that was born in 1990 would in their middle-teens&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>These days, ratings are important, if the BBC wanted a hit, it would have to be something that the adults, teens, and children would watch. &nbsp;I presume that restarting Doctor Who was potentially a risk, and Russel T. Davies and Julie Gardner, wanted to keep the spirit of the show as a family friendly show, but maximize their potential return on viewership.<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind what episodes we had for the first season&#8230;.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Rose<\/li>\n<li>The End of the World<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Unquiet Dead<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Aliens of London<\/li>\n<li>World War Three<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dalek<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Long Game<\/li>\n<li><strong>Father&#8217;s Day<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Empty Child<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Doctor Dances<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Boom Town<\/li>\n<li>Bad Wolf<\/li>\n<li>The Parting of the Ways<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>What episodes were really frightening? &nbsp;The Unquiet Dead, Dalek, Father&#8217;s Day, The Empty Child, &nbsp;and The Doctor Dances. &nbsp;I would argue that Unquiet Dead, and Father&#8217;s Day shouldn&#8217;t be on the list, since I didn&#8217;t personally find them too concerning&#8230; &nbsp;But the really scary episodes, were a DALEK episode, and a scary little kid asking for his Mommy&#8230; &nbsp;(The Empty Child &amp; The Doctor Dances really really really was a great 2 parter&#8230; &nbsp;I&#8217;m not trying to make light of those episodes).<\/p>\n<p>My Point? &nbsp;There were not a large number of scary episodes that season&#8230;. &nbsp;Compare it to Season 2:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>New Earth<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tooth and Claw<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>School Reunion<\/li>\n<li>The Girl in the Fireplace<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rise of Cybermen<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Age of Steel<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Idiot&#8217;s Lantern<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Impossible Planet<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Satan Pit<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Love &amp; Monsters<\/li>\n<li>Fear Her<\/li>\n<li><strong>Army of Ghosts<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Doomsday<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Even if we eliminate &#8220;Fear Her&#8221;, and the &#8220;Idiot&#8217;s Lantern&#8221;, right off the top, there are still significantly more peril, and danger in Season 2&#8230; &nbsp;More than half the episodes in Season 2 probably had children running for the back of their couches. &nbsp;(As any good Doctor Who series should&#8230;.)<\/p>\n<p>Doctor Who has always been a children&#8217;s show, but the new series is aimed for an older base audience. &nbsp;That isn&#8217;t better or worse then the original series, it just is. &nbsp;By my guess, the original series was probably aimed for a target audience in the 8-12 range, but was family friendly (Do I dare say Peri?). &nbsp;The new series is probably aimed more for the 12-15 crowd, but is just as family friendly.<\/p>\n<p>As the TV market has changed, Doctor Who has changed. &nbsp;Take a look at the number of Teen Angst series running on TV these days, we should be glad that The Doctor didn&#8217;t regenerate into a Teenage Emo Goth&#8230; &nbsp;After all, hasn&#8217;t Smallville been running for almost 10 or 11 years now? &nbsp;What about The Vampire Diaries, One Tree Hill, Supernatural, Gossip Girl, and all of the other popular shows that are on lately? &nbsp;How could they have adversely affected Doctor Who.<\/p>\n<p>The only complaints that I have, are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>There has been too much reliance on the Daleks, and Cybermen in the new series. &nbsp;They need a rest, and Steven Moffat has stated that in Season 6 there are no plans for the Daleks to appear&#8230; &nbsp;Hopefully, this will give the writers a chance to use the Daleks as they deserve.<\/li>\n<li>Too many of the Doctor&#8217;s companions have had crushes on him. &nbsp;What happen to the Father \/ Son, or Father \/ Daughter, or Mentor \/ Trainee relationships of the Old series? &nbsp;Out of 6 companions only Donna Noble and Amy Pond have broken out of this, &#8220;I pine for the Doctor mold&#8221;. <\/li>\n<li>I want to see more of the TARDIS. &nbsp;Season 5 has shown us more, and given us a larger more impressive control room&#8230; &nbsp;But let&#8217;s see more of the interior&#8230; <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>While these are issues I have, neither have really harmed the series in my eyes too badly. &nbsp;I am looking forward to the future of modern Doctor who, and hope that even more elements from Classic Who return as Steven Moffat leads on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Folks, As Luke Harrison says, Let&#8217;s get some perspective here&#8230; David Mitchell has made this simple statement in his video blog. &nbsp;I am going to paraphrase here: I (David Mitchel) liked Classic Doctor Who better than Modern Who Classic Doctor Who was targeted towards the Children, it was a &#8220;Family Show&#8221;. Modern Doctor Who is <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/a-soapbox-doctor-who-a-family-show-david-mitchell-is-right\/\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[99,24],"tags":[29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4174"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.schollnick.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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