Re: Should Doctor Who have remained shelved?


>> 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.

Those are incidentals. The point is, one is Watson, the other is not. It
wouldn't make sense to say, "Rathbones Watson is Watson, Watson
*reimagined*... can't we just enjoy having Watson on the screen, erk?" It's
not Watson. Why don't I watch the cartoon version of Sherlock Holmes that
takes place in the future? Because that's not Sherlock Holmes. If I did not
have a problem with this, I would cop to not being discerning in these
matters.

>> 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?"?

I don't know what that's about. You'll have to point that out. Don't
recall anything about that. Maybe you're thinking of someone else...

>> 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.

It was popular here, too, but it was on PBS - and I think it was Tom
Baker who was popular. It wasn't network material, which is what I liked
about it.

>> 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?

I could use that same schtick on your statements, too, and you could go
chasing ppl. down on this newsgroup alone until the crack of doom for not
providing supporting statements with their assertions. Lessee, RTD idolizes
Whedon and copies his style, has declared as much, RTD also has a deep sense
of nostalgia for the 1980's, which is certainly reflected in the
cinematography, the particular colour schemes and the way their contrasted,
etc. - that "1980's futuristic look". He has declared, and everyone has
talked about it, that his stories are more about characters having little
heart to hearts, so called character driven, and less (much less, as in
none) about science - the same sickly sentimentality that dominates
mainstream teevee and movies and is used by Whedon (when I think of every
time I've seen Buffy on teevee all I remember are two emotional teenagers
standing face to face having some kind of cow eyed heart to heart - followed
by a waifish blond doing kung fu on a dozen 2 meter tall stunt guys wearing
Halloween make up).

Now really, was all that necessary? You KNOW he's a Buffy fan and has
intimated more than once that his drwho would look like something Whedon
would do.

>> 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."

Ask any anthropologist, sociologist... when fewer ppl. are listening, you
dumb down the programming to make it appeal to the greatest number. My own
guess is that this is because you don't want to invest a lot when there
isn't going to be a great return. Haven't you ever wondered why commercials
are insipid? Is it because they're trying to turn you off? Of course not!
Capitalism is based on a single principle: Fools and their money are soon
parted. Read about Clotaire Rapaille. There's a reason ppl. in tv
commercials seem to be talking to us as if we we're retarded children.
There's a reason 95% of programming is contrived to manipulate us
emotionally. Incidentally, I just watched an episode of, "American Dad" last
night that poked fun at bbc programming; I don't know if you saw it... You
are either pretending that this reputation doesn't exist or you just didn't
know. I'm not saying, "you suck and we rule". That would be silly.

>> (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.

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

Yes, the same can be said here (thanks to NPR). But radio programming
(commercial channels), compared to tv programming, is more dumbed down, on
average, because it has a smaller audience. Agian, walk into any sociology
university department and pick out a professor at random and ask them.
Honestly, haven't you ever noticed this? Don't you wonder why commercials on
the radio are even more insipid than tv commercials?

But the interesting thing is that a smaller market also means weaker
corporate restrictions. At no time in American television history could
there have been something as wonky as drwho; but something like drwho could,
indeed, happen in Britain in the 60's and 70's. It was a kind of fluke, you
might say, that I think can't happen these days. Britain, like so many other
places, is transforming itself to resemble the industrial aspects of
American culture with every hour that passes, it seems.



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