The Russell T Davies era of Dr Who ended on New Year's Day with the "death" of David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor and Davies's retirement from the show. What Davies has done with the franchise has been universally praised by fanboys and critics alike and the ratings for the new Who have been huge. Late Review critic Mark Lawson compared Dr Who to Hamlet and even fearless monkey killer and TV reviewing bad boy AA Gill dared not lift a pen against the last Dr. Who. But I haven't loved the new series, in fact for much of the time I haven't even liked it. I've been ransacking my brain to figure out why I'm out of step with the rest of humanity. Here are some possible reasons: ...
1. Its the special effects: Dr Who is a cheap little show with cheesy special effects and dreary location shoots in and around Cardiff. Its hard to suspend ones disbelief when everything looks so rickety and Cardiffy.
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2. Its the camp: I've never liked high camp and the new Who is very campy. The English have a higher toleration for camp than any other people on the planet and certainly more than the Irish. Done well its fine (Kenneth Williams) done badly its just silly.
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3. Its the magic feathers: Almost every story ends with a deus ex machina or magic feather. There's usually a big build up and then a rushed technobabble or hand of God ending. This kind of scripting annoys me.
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4 Its the corridors: Even in the Star Trek universe having people run down corridors as filler went out of favour sometime during the third season of Next Generation.
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5. Its the fantasy. The old Who was a sci-fi show, this one is essentially a fantasy show with the rules of physics frequently violated. (Oh matron!) Science fiction is harder to do and needs an understanding of, er, science. Davies went for the easy option instead.
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6. Its the kids: Unlike say Battlestar Galactica, Dr Who is essentially a children's TV programme (there were no fart jokes on Galactica) which is not really meant to be watched by adults. True, a lot of adults do watch and like Who, but I feel that they are the same people who liked Avatar.
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7. Its the acting: Actually I think the acting's been rather good. (Except, obviously, for Billie Piper.)
44 comments:
being in self imposed exile, I've only seen a handfull since Dr Who returned- I liked Eccleston. I really liked the one with the last Dalek.
I like camp- Russel is as camp as xmas and there's not a lot you or he can do about that.
Tennant is bit Frank Spencer and I do expect him to come out with the odd 'Oooh, Betty!' I'd probably like that, too.
I'm a Tom Baker man, of course, with a side order of Pertwee but I think they did a good job, based on the few I've seen.
The Irish don't do camp, eh? Now where IS that Gavin Fiday CD...
"a lot of adults do watch and like Who, but I feel that they are the same people who liked Avatar. "
:))
True, a lot of adults do watch and like Who, but I feel that they are the same people who liked Avatar.
As always, The Onion nails it.
I thought the only people who liked Avatar were the sort of people who recycle and cried when they read The Road!
Funny, I'm not a big fan of camp either, but never put it down to my Irish roots before.
I've seen Doctor Who on and off forever, but never generated enough interest in it to really get involved in the larger story. For one thing I have a hard time with stories where you've bought into the whole situation and then have to forget all that and invest the same meaning in a completely new situation, as happens every time Dr. Who becomes a different actor. (And yes, I'm having a bit of a hard time with Cloud Atlas for that very reason, but am still game.)
I could say more--much, much more--but must get back to the recycling.
The Irish INVENTED Camp. See Oscar Wilde.
Of course some of them are dour, humourless Presbyterian types.
Now where IS that Gavin Fiday CD...
Gavin Friday is a good friend of Bono, isn't he? This probably means he's in the lower circles of Hell as far as Adrian is concerned.
Bye. Like Seana, I've still a lot of recycling to do. (But the tears I've shed reading the Road were tears of laughter. The roasted baby and the uplifting happy ending after 200 pages of unrelenting bleakness are particularly hilarious .)
Paul
I thought you were going to say well what about Graham Norton then? - the campest man in the world.
Not a big fan of GN, but he is Irish and he was brilliant in that episode of Father Ted when they went on holiday.
Ferenc
I take it you're on board with dissing Who and Avatar.
John
That is hilarious!
Dont you think the male news readers is modelled after that creepy douchebag on Fox and Friends? I dont know his name but he's got blonde hair and wears so much pancake that it looks like he lost a race on pancake Tuesday.
Seana
I'm sorry to hear you're not liking Cloud Atlas - if you sneak a look at the second half of the book you'll see that the stories and characters all come back again.
Paul
The Road was a good audiobook. You should read Child of God or The Outer Dark if you want grim all the way to the last page.
Marco
No. Wit and camp are different things entirely. And high camp grew out of music halls and pantomime. The English love panto. I dont get it. Sure its for the kids but how grown ups can sit there is beyond me.
My verdict is still out on Cloud Atlas. I like the individual tales, but I'm not a big fan of linked stories as novels unless there really is a point of them all being told together. So far, I'd say he's a very gifted ventriloquest and obviously a lot more knowledgeable than I am. But that last is not so unusual that it gets extra credit points.
Seana
So no Italo Calvino for you either then?
Yeah, not so much. I did like On a winter's Night at the time, but I'm less interested in literary gimmicks now thanI was. But I'm reading that new Zadie Smith collectoion of essays, and she's got some intersting things to say about where the leading edge of the novel is today, not that I've come to any big statement about it yet.I'm afraid thatI am a bit retrograde, though.
It's not the corridors so much as that it's knowingly written for people who'll appreciate the corridors and therefore doesn't always feel that it needs to try any harder.
I'm a HUGE Dr Who fan and I can see all of your points (especially the corridors) although I would say its a bit of fluff and not to be taken too seriously.
Are you prepared for the avalanche hatred from the internet?
Seana
I was nervous about Cloud Atlas too but I really got into after the first two or three stories (and actually after I started cheating (reading the conclusion of each story before going onto the next one)).
Hampshire
The Mars one had an excellent Ray Bradburyesque premise (October Country not The Martian Chronicles) but then just a lot of corridor running and big shed running.
Rob
Oh yeah there's a lot more to get worked up about in the world than Dr Who, but still the consensus does have a bit of a lets-move-to-the-jungle-and-drink-arsenic-laced-Kool-Aid about it all. You'd think from the reviews Dr Who was the greatest TV since The Singing Detective or something. It isnt.
Cheating? I don't think Marco is going to approve.
No, I cheated enough to see what the structure is, so it might still work for me. I just don't want it to be a an excellent short story collection masquerading as something else.
My idea of a good and not campy British sci-fi show, complete with, uh, minimalist sets is Red Dwarf.
My idea of camp is The Sound of Music being turned into a Rocky Horror Picture show kind of cult experience. I know people have fun --I just don't want to be there with them.
"fearless monkey killer"?
Anon
Didnt think the monkey killer remark needed explaining.
Seana
It is decidely NOT a collection of short stories disguised as a novel. Stick with it.
Avatar Depression
We're doomed. Really.
And dont worry I already emailed Rhonda telling her Avatar is a moon not a planet.
Paul
BTW nice Frank Spencer ref.
The doctors do keep getting younger dont they? How about getting really radical and bringing Tom Baker back?
Norton was great in Ted, wasn't he? I'd forgotten about him. I've only seen his chat show a few times but it wasn't very good, I think. I don't think he's camp, though.
There's all sorts of camp, of course. I always thought that Bruce Springfield was as camp as a row of tents. It's the shoulders, I think.
I quite liked The Road. One of the lads at Do Some Damage said it was like a horror book with the edges shaved off, which pretty much summed it up. The Omega Man is much more fun but I think it's quite a good book though I'd have sold the kid in the first then minutes.
I once saw a gay panto which seemed a tad redundant ... I chuckled a lot, though. But I'm a shallow man.
I like this, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Rm_Yu4Bns
I'm not a big SCi Fi fan- still never seen Star Wars- but I liked the old Star Trek, back in the day. it was the first programme i saw on our colour telly!Never seeen many of the others but the ones with that bald bloke from Yorkshire seeemed good.
What lots of my friends have said about Dr Who is that they can watch it as a family, which seems a bit middle class but is probably a good thing.
However, I do think Billy Piper deserves a bit of sympathy- she had to shag Chris Evans!
I've never seen Dr Who. But I've been considering it with my netflix account, and the face that I'm running out of things to watch.
Paul
You've never seen Star Wars? You're in Poland right? Not Antarctica? Should be easy to fix that. Lets say you hate it: make an interesting article at the very least. BTW this is going to sound confusing but start the series with Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Go on. I dont like opera but I sat through Cosi Fan Tutti just so I could attempt to understand what opera buffs were going on about. Where's your Columbus spirit? Ewan McGregor's uncle is in it.
Sheiler
Dont do it. Watch something else instead. Have you seen Moon or The Hurt Locker?
BTW
I just got an email from Rhonda, that lady at the Atlanta Journal Constitution who wrote the Avatar Depression article and she said she is going to fix it and change Pandora's status from planet to moon. See, this is the kind of small difference we all can make.
I wonder if President Obama will invite me to the State of the Union address?
Maybe that critic compared Dr. Who to Hamlet because David Tennant was supposed to play Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Did someone suggest that the show's hosts in the kiddie-book segment were supposed to be parodies? They were dead-accurate portrayals, I thought. ==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
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It seems that you've got traction everywhere but the New York Times, Adrian.
I'd just wait till Obama messes up on some point of fact and then write him a letter. Oh, I know--you could point out that whole mess around the lunar rover--that's just down the street and his kids might be given the wrong impression about it and he'd never even know. Without you, that is.
Ey up,
Should mention that I saw EMPIRE strikes back at the flicks when it came out and did like it. Star Wars is one of them things that passed me by as a teen but I'm sure it's good.
I saw this the other night, BLT, and It's very nice. Think some of yez will like it.(not scifi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnH4ovseOh0
Paul
I'm all for a good romance. I just saw Bright Star. It is not a good romance.
Peter
He was a good Hamlet by all accounts. Who should never be Hamlet, he should be King Lear.
Seana
Well Rhonda was nice.
Why is Who Lear rather than Hamlet? He doesn't even have kids, does he, let alone thankless daughters. Please expound.
Seana
The first Who had a grand-daughter. But really what I mean is that he should be much older, a mad old King drunk with power and impotence, raging against the elements. The BBC should be making him older and more interesting not younger and sillier.
Actually, I think you're right on that. Although I don't know the series well enough to know what he remembers of previous experiences.
What I was realizing though, is that British television has solved one of the perennial problems of a long running series with this one--aging stars.
What's wrong with Billie Piper? She's done surprisingly well in her acting. I mean, after that cooking incident on Blue Peter when she had a new and fascinating way of making some sort of fruit pie. I forget the details of the recipe. But she was only 16.
Now she's done a good Rose with the Doctor, and a very decent Sally Lockhart.
Miss Witch
Perhaps you're in a better place to judge than I am, whenever she's on screen I usually hit the MUTE button so I cant really tell if she's good or not. I did watch one curious episode which she shpent talking like thith.
Adrian,
No haven't seen either of those but I will add it to my list.
We're viewing right now the BBC tv series MI-5 thanks to Netflix. Quite good but frustrating that the MI-5 peeps don't carry guns. I feel so American whenever I watch an episode (Where's his backup? She doesn't have a gun! - lots of yelling at the tv. ).
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