Why you should be watching Doctor Who
After my entry on Castle yesterday, I realized that for all my ramblings about Doctor Who on this journal, I never actually made a post, with no spoilers, for the non-Whovians here (if there are any left!) on why I love it so much and why everyone should watch it.
Doctor Who is the longest-running science fiction TV series in history, airing ( Read more... )
Doctor Who is the longest-running science fiction TV series in history, airing ( Read more... )
I've actually managed to do a lot of successful Who conversions among friends and family here in the US. I think perhaps the secret to my success is that I don't mention anything about backstory or canon or who or what the Doctor is or anything like that. It's all explained in the first series of the new show anyway.
I don't know how it is in Italy, but here in the US I think the main barrier to people accepting Who is the genre--and I don't mean it being sci fi (because let's be honest, it's really not--it's really way more fantasy). I mean that it's a family show. I think I'd disagree with you that it's for adults (and I'd also disagree with anyone who says it's for kids). It's for everyone. Young, old, men, women, rich, poor....the new series is quite specifically made to have an incredibly broad appeal. And I think it does that by being on of the most blatantly humanist shows on TV. It's not about how great it is to be a boy or a girl or young or old or alien or human--it's about how great it is to be alive, to love, to have friends, to find meaning in even small things. And everyone can relate to that.
Anyway, here in the US we don't have family programming. It's such a huge country that in order to be successful, shows (and entire networks) can aim themselves at a really specific, small demographic (say, boys aged 12-16). No one ever tries to make a show that would appeal to young kids and their parents at the same time. So I find Americans are thrown off by the fact that there are clearly things in the show that are there to draw kids in. Most American adults wouldn't be caught dead watching a show with a farting Slitheen. So I find I have to explain the whole thing about how this is NOT Battlestar Galactica, it doesn't take itself too seriously--until it does--it can be campy and silly but also serious and adult and dark. It's all across the map. Once I get that out of the way, I don't bother with Time Lords or TARDISes or stuff like that, I just hand them the series 1 DVDs.
WOOOOOOW TL;DR RESPONSE! WOAH!
Get me talking about Doctor Who, you see what happens?
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YES! That's exactly what I mean. I wish I was as eloquent as you... do you mind if I ETA the post to include this quote by you?
I guess in Italy we have all the same problems that you do, plus the language (everything has to be dubbed!) and the nonsensical tv-programming. Doctor Who was bought by a channel on Sky, and it doesn't air on primetime tv. Plus, for some reason they transmitted S1 in 2007, and then S3 in 2008! Whatever happened to S2?? So if anyone was following (and there are a few followers) they became veeery confused. A friend of mine keeps the website http://www.doctor-who.it, where they offer fanmade italian subtitles, because apparently the dubbing of what little they aired is shit. The only people I've managed to convert are university classmates who speak English well enough to watch the original version. It's a bit of a lost cause... and the worst thing is, everyone on the media keeps complaining that there are no good programs for children anymore. I don't know how they could overlook Doctor Who. They aired MERLIN, FFS! On primetv, Saturday nights! *shakes head*
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