December Talking Meme, Day 6: Doctor Who
Dec. 6th, 2014 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingDecember 6: thoughts about Doctor Who in general (for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hungrytiger11) [Tumblr crosspost]
The main problem I have with Doctor Who is the same problem I have with any television show: I find it hard to sustain consumption of audiovisual media for more than a few episodes, no matter how interested I am in the story, characters, or world-building. I have poked at that for many years, and my current theory is that the key problem is the lack of control. With printed media (whether words, pictures, or a combination) I control the pace at which I consume the story. You cannot do that with audiovisual media. (Can't do it with purely audio media either, though in that particular case my issues with attention distribution outweigh my issues with control of pacing.) I have to sit down and mark out a set piece of time for anything I want to watch, and while I'm watching I can't do anything else. Also, audiovisual media pull the weird trick of being simultaneously more and less immersive for me -- more because the visuals are concrete, and the addition of vocal cues, body language, and background music adds layers upon layers of emotional meaning and manipulation... and less, because I'm not trying to do all that work myself and am thus less present in the story; I'm just watching rather than actively participating by building a writer's blueprints in my own mind.
Which is a long way of leading up to saying that I haven't watched much Doctor Who, though I adore the concept and a lot of the characters. I saw the first three seasons of the revived series, plus a handful of serials from the old series... and then ran out of oomph before season four was available on DVD. It takes a very high level of investment for me to be able to watch audiovisual media on a sustained basis, and it's next to impossible to get that white-hot fandom limerence back after it fades. I have never once managed to watch an entire television series, even when said series was finished and entirely available for binge-watching.
So you should take anything I say about Doctor Who with a large grain of salt, because I only know the majority of canon secondhand.
That said, I do like the pieces I've managed to watch. I mean, it's a series about people who travel in time and space and see the entire universe while saving worlds along the way. How can that possibly fail to be an attractive concept? Obviously the execution is incredibly variable -- with a concept that broad, variability is unavoidable -- but that's a virtue of a long-running show, I think. There will always be eras that aren't to one person's taste, but wait a few years and things will change as the staff and cast inevitably come and go.
I like the slower pace of the old serials compared to the more hyperkinetic feel of the revival. There's less pressure to compress material into a set 45-ish minute run time, or extend it to 90 minutes, when 60 or 75 might be the ideal length to explore a certain idea without either cutting or padding. On the other hand, I do very much like the focus on Companions' lives outside the TARDIS that Russell T. Davies added when he resurrected the show; that helps make everything seem more emotionally realistic. And the special effects are less, um, endearingly terrible these days. I sometimes wish that the science behind various plots were a bit more solid, but good character arcs, snappy dialogue, and scary monsters go a long way to making me suspend disbelief despite the occasionally ludicrous amounts of handwaving necessary to swallow certain lines and scenes. And the TARDIS is functionally a magic box anyway, so I'm not sure why I was looking for hard science in the first place. *wry*
In fandom, I generally like the Doctor best when he's not romantically involved with his Companions -- or if he is, if it's a polyamorous relationship and there's no "One True Love of his lives!!!!1111eleventy!!" being shoved at me. Obviously the true loves of the Doctor's life are the TARDIS, exploration/discovery, and Earth/humanity at large, and his one true frenemy is the Master. Beyond that, everything is transient, as it should be.
Also, speaking as an American, it's very nice to see a futuristic universe that doesn't revolve around my own country. I would be even more pleased if the Doctor's universe didn't revolve around Britain instead -- there's a whole planet here, you know! variety is the spice of life! -- but it's a British show, so hey. I'll take what I can get. New York and Los Angeles deserve a break from alien invasions now and then. *grin*
-----
December Talking Meme: All Days
(As a reminder, I do still have several days open and unclaimed. If there is anything you want me to talk about, just drop me a comment at the index post linked on the line above.)
hungrytiger11) [Tumblr crosspost]The main problem I have with Doctor Who is the same problem I have with any television show: I find it hard to sustain consumption of audiovisual media for more than a few episodes, no matter how interested I am in the story, characters, or world-building. I have poked at that for many years, and my current theory is that the key problem is the lack of control. With printed media (whether words, pictures, or a combination) I control the pace at which I consume the story. You cannot do that with audiovisual media. (Can't do it with purely audio media either, though in that particular case my issues with attention distribution outweigh my issues with control of pacing.) I have to sit down and mark out a set piece of time for anything I want to watch, and while I'm watching I can't do anything else. Also, audiovisual media pull the weird trick of being simultaneously more and less immersive for me -- more because the visuals are concrete, and the addition of vocal cues, body language, and background music adds layers upon layers of emotional meaning and manipulation... and less, because I'm not trying to do all that work myself and am thus less present in the story; I'm just watching rather than actively participating by building a writer's blueprints in my own mind.
Which is a long way of leading up to saying that I haven't watched much Doctor Who, though I adore the concept and a lot of the characters. I saw the first three seasons of the revived series, plus a handful of serials from the old series... and then ran out of oomph before season four was available on DVD. It takes a very high level of investment for me to be able to watch audiovisual media on a sustained basis, and it's next to impossible to get that white-hot fandom limerence back after it fades. I have never once managed to watch an entire television series, even when said series was finished and entirely available for binge-watching.
So you should take anything I say about Doctor Who with a large grain of salt, because I only know the majority of canon secondhand.
That said, I do like the pieces I've managed to watch. I mean, it's a series about people who travel in time and space and see the entire universe while saving worlds along the way. How can that possibly fail to be an attractive concept? Obviously the execution is incredibly variable -- with a concept that broad, variability is unavoidable -- but that's a virtue of a long-running show, I think. There will always be eras that aren't to one person's taste, but wait a few years and things will change as the staff and cast inevitably come and go.
I like the slower pace of the old serials compared to the more hyperkinetic feel of the revival. There's less pressure to compress material into a set 45-ish minute run time, or extend it to 90 minutes, when 60 or 75 might be the ideal length to explore a certain idea without either cutting or padding. On the other hand, I do very much like the focus on Companions' lives outside the TARDIS that Russell T. Davies added when he resurrected the show; that helps make everything seem more emotionally realistic. And the special effects are less, um, endearingly terrible these days. I sometimes wish that the science behind various plots were a bit more solid, but good character arcs, snappy dialogue, and scary monsters go a long way to making me suspend disbelief despite the occasionally ludicrous amounts of handwaving necessary to swallow certain lines and scenes. And the TARDIS is functionally a magic box anyway, so I'm not sure why I was looking for hard science in the first place. *wry*
In fandom, I generally like the Doctor best when he's not romantically involved with his Companions -- or if he is, if it's a polyamorous relationship and there's no "One True Love of his lives!!!!1111eleventy!!" being shoved at me. Obviously the true loves of the Doctor's life are the TARDIS, exploration/discovery, and Earth/humanity at large, and his one true frenemy is the Master. Beyond that, everything is transient, as it should be.
Also, speaking as an American, it's very nice to see a futuristic universe that doesn't revolve around my own country. I would be even more pleased if the Doctor's universe didn't revolve around Britain instead -- there's a whole planet here, you know! variety is the spice of life! -- but it's a British show, so hey. I'll take what I can get. New York and Los Angeles deserve a break from alien invasions now and then. *grin*
-----
December Talking Meme: All Days
(As a reminder, I do still have several days open and unclaimed. If there is anything you want me to talk about, just drop me a comment at the index post linked on the line above.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-06 11:54 pm (UTC)I am a Dr. Who dilettante: I sporadically watched some of the old series, mainly the Tom Baker episodes, the first season of the revival (9th Doctor) and a few episodes of the second season (10th Doctor), at which point I lost interest. One of the main reasons I never liked the revival of the series is that I'm fundamentally opposed to the idea of the Doctor being in any way romantically involved with his Companions. As far as I know, there was never a whiff of that in the old series, and it certainly didn't have the central place that it tends to have in the revival. It just seems wrong to me, and I am not generally opposed to romance!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-07 07:52 pm (UTC)Ha! :-D
I've seen at least one serial each for Two, Three, Four, and Five, but none for One, Six, and Seven, nor Eight's (apparently terrible?) movie. And I think there were always hints that some of the Companions would not have been averse to hooking up with the Doctor, but it was all very subtextual and not remotely the point of their interactions. There WAS textual flirting between Four and the second Romana, but they were both Time Lords so that's a little different.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-07 04:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-12-07 07:45 pm (UTC)I am dead certain I'd watch a lot more TV if I didn't live alone. I tended to mirror my family's viewing habits when I was growing up, and was bad at regularly remembering to watch the couple shows I didn't share with them. (Namely, Buffy and Angel.) Having someone else say, "Hey, let's watch Thing X," overcomes my own inertia and reluctance to hand over a chunk of my time, and also just being in someone else's company mitigates the worst edge of my sympathetic embarrassment squick.