Is the sonic still harmless?

[greenpear]

For decades it's been said that the sonic screwdriver is harmless. And for decades, that was the case. But it appears that could be changing. Sure, it's been used to threaten people in the past, but it's always been an indirect threat. The Fourth Doctor,for instances, threaten to detonate the explosives he had placed on Davros' travel machine.

Comments

[betawho]

Unfortunately, I agree with this. You've made many of the same points, starting at the same place, that I have on other websites. There does, recently, seem to be this tendency to make the Doctor a more generic sort of "hero" by making him one who "gets the girls" and "shoots the bad guys" and who has faceoff "power contests" (also called testosterone contests) with bad guys to show "he's the baddest." (In the form of "If you're looking for a higher authority, there isn't one" or "Basically, run," etc.)

All of which, to me, is exactly the opposite of the Doctor. It's a matter of "style over substance" where "looking cool" is more important than "being effective."

The Doctor rarely ever used to need a gun, or a big speech, or to prove that he was the "baddest man in the room" or the "sexiest" one. Because he was too busy out clevering everyone behind their backs.

But, nowadays, it apparently is just easier to let the sonic screwdriver to everything. From reprogramming computers to shooting Silents.

Here! Here!

[ed_rex]

To both of you.

(Sorry, I hate me-tooing, but sometimes it needs to be done.)

[greenpear]

Please, me-too all you like. I enjoy hearing from people whether it's pro or con...

[greenpear]

Much of what my research is revealing is the BBC's need to market the show outside of Britain. And that entailed tweaking it a bit to appeal to a wider audience and, unfortunately, having it swing more toward a Hollywood style. Not entirely but enough to be noticed.

And the Doctor's speeches in classic were still there, just not as grandiose.

And as the sonic screwdriver dataset continues to get tweaked, it's becoming apparent that the sonic is not a little overused, it abundantly overused. I don't want it to go away but it does need to be corralled a bit.

[greenpear]

I've saved that cartoon in the archives. Thanks...

[kittenmommy]

This is a thing of beauty! :D

[jackdavfan692]

Interesting. I'm an American, same as you, but I don't think the show's Britishness has been reduced at all. I say this having now seen one serial each from each of the Classic Doctor eras (all of which I liked, BTW, though it's only Docs 2 through 7 I want to watch more of at some point.) That's not much, though, I admit, so maybe I'm off base a bit here. *Shrugs* Either way, despite the addition of romance (though I imagine there was some of that in Classic Who, the Doctor just wasn't one of the parties involved in it, is all) and an increase in the amount of action-y stuff included in episodes, the show still seems uniquely British to me. It certainly is compared to the TV Movie, as great a Doctor as Paul McGann was. That film is what I imagine an Americanized/Hollywood-ified version of the show would look like, not the form it's in now. But each to their own, as the saying goes :]. *Shrugs*

[ravena_kade]

Actually the Doctor (the first Doctor) had a bit of romance in The Aztecs. =)

[jackdavfan692]

I do remember that (the serials I mentioned were shown as part of BBC America's celebration of the show's 50th Anniversary, and "The Aztecs" was the one they chose to air for the First Doctor), *nods*, but was there anymore than that (minus what we saw between Eight and Grace in the TV Movie, of course)?

[greenpear]

The love and sexuality was never a large part of Who. I chalk it up more to what was standard for family TV than anything more sinister.

And I try not to think of the bad parts of the McGann movie, just what potential was there that they squandered away...