Re: Should Doctor Who have remained shelved?

Dahahn wrote:
> "Diane L" <diane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:43dcba15$0$82638$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Tasem wrote:
>>> "The Doctor" <doctor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:drh5gk$ot$4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> In article <1138497513.764303.291030@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>>>> <rob.ocelot@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> There is one aspect of this that isn't touched on...
>>>>>
>>>>> If Doctor Who got a FOX series after the 1996 TV Movie? At the
>>>>> time I was dead against it because it would have killed the
>>>>> chances of Doctor Who coming back on television for far longer
>>>>> than it took to get the latest series off the ground. I'm glad
>>>>> things played out the way they did, with Star Trek going off the air
>>>>> and the
>>>>> revamp of BSG -- the timing was right for Doctor Who to step in a
>>>>> fill that void, and be bolstered at the same time by something
>>>>> else new like BSG. Funny, innit? Doctor Who is finally getting
>>>>> the recognition it
>>>>> deserves (outside the UK too) and the wankers are still not
>>>>> happy. The sad thing is that they will never be happy.
>>>
>>> The sad thing is that some people will be happy with anything. It
>>> is getting the recognition it deserves, which is the problem. If
>>> you're a cult tv nerd you're not going to care because you are a
>>> singularly undiscerning lot.
>>
>> No, if you are a cult TV nerd you're going to be desperately unhappy,
>> because you can no longer convince yourself that only 'special'
>> people like you are capable of enjoying the show. You'll then try to
>> convince yourself (and others) that the show can't be any good
>> anymore because 'ordinary' people are enjoying it, forgetting that
>> in the show's heyday it was very popular with general audience.
>
> A cult tv nerd is someone who can't convince themselves that they
> are capable of enjoying the show? I don't think you though that one
> through, quite.

I don't think you read what I wrote, quite. Try again.

> Cult tv nerds think they are fans of "Lost" and
> "Mutant X", A grade and C grade, for nearly the same reasons. They
> don't discern between the two. They don't get people who do. I think
> this is an honest blind spot for them, the way asperghers don't get
> body language... They're the ones who actually, geniunely, really
> aren't entirely sure just how different the starswars prequels are
> from the sequels. They're the ones that aren't bothered too much by,
> say, the portrayal of Watson in Jeremy Bretts Holmes and the
> portrayal of Watson in Rathbone's movies. Instead, they'd have
> conversations about incidental things, and you'd just look at them
> marvelling at what they seem to be missing - that one is derivative
> crud and the other has integrity. One is Watson, one is not Watson.
> But the nerd would say, "yes, it is Watson, it is Watson reimagined,
> oik...".

The Rathbone movies aren't *that* bad, although Watson as a
bumbling idiot does get on my nerves. The Brett versions are
probably as close as you'll get to the books, or at least as close
as one could reasonably ask for. But for some people when they
come to read the books it's a surprise to find that the original
Watson had a brain.

> Astonishing. They see all of it as one big thing of which
> they are "fans". This isn't against the law, but it is undiscerning.
> I was once asked by a cult tv nerd friend what I thought was
> different about newWho. I boggled; "the actors doing it, the way they
> do it, the look of them, the look of the show, the way it sounds, the
> way if feels... are you kidding me with this question!"

So how would that be different from your answer to the question "What
was different about the Pertwee Who compared with the Hartnell Who?"?

> It's like
> asking, "ok smartypants, what's so different between "Empire Strikes
> Back" and "Phantom Menace""? or "yeah, the Jeremy Brett Holmes and
> the cartoon Holmes that takes place in the future are different, but
> their both Sherlock Holmes so enjoy it!" Eeerrrnnnt.
> Talking of a "general audience" is a tad misleading. A pbs general
> audience is not the same thing as a sci/fi channel general audience.

A BBC general audience is also not the same thing, it's much larger
for a start.

> Drwho, in it's heyday, didn't have the same appeal as Starwars or
> Star Trek or Buck Rogers.

Here's a piece of information that may come in handy. America is not
the world. Really. There are a whole bunch of other countries out there,
one of which was the one in which Doctor Who was made and over here
it was much *more* popular than Star Trek and Buck Rogers. Star Wars
was very different, but the TV successors to it like Battlestar Galactica
(the original) didn't do as well as DW either.

> I don't know exactly how much of it was
> unintentional (probably too much), but in it's heyday, drwho was not
> "tv as usual". It wasn't "the military in space" or "dashingly
> handsome captain in space" or "kung fu warriors in space" or
> "rocknrollers kickin arse in space"... Today it is "cockney Buffy" in
> space.

Anything to back that up with, or is this going to be another of your
"It's so obvious I don't really need to explain it" hand-waving
exercises?

> Also, Britain is a smaller place than America and most other
> places, meaning it will be more lowest common denominator

Again, you need to back up arguments like that with something a
little more substantial than "I said it so it must be true."

> (like radio is compared to tv because radio has a smaller audience)

So it's true what they say about American radio, then? I can
assure you that this, also, is not the case everywhere. Radio in
this country broadcasts some fantastic drama, documentaries,
comedy and news and magazine programmes.

> and the BBC cranks out programming that is so awful that something just a
> little bit shiny is going to get stared at (get a high appreciation).

"I said it, so it must be true."

Diane L.


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