But while I'm posting, one more point:
Doctor Who is not "just a kids' show" and it
does matter that the storylines make at least rough sense.
And, no, I'm not saying that because I'm an anally retentive geek.
It's been such a long time absent from our TV screens that maybe people have forgotten that there is such thing as a "family show".
A show that's appropriate and fun for the kids but is just as entertaining and logical for the adults
at the same time.
There is no contradiction there.
But maybe it's been so long since we've seen any decent examples of this on British TV (although, on American TV, there's a perfect example: "The Simpsons"), that people have forgotten that it can be done and that there is no contradiction in making a show that the kids can watch but which is no less interesting for adults to watch too.
That was what Doctor Who (and, more generally, Saturday night TV) was all about. A bunch of shows where the whole family could all sit down and everyone was equally entertained by it, regardless of age or gender.
That's why the "empty child" was one of the best episodes in the last series because it had the wartime setting for granny, it had psychological horror for the adults (how spine-chilling was that "mummy!" cry? Fuck your age, that's fucking spooky stuff), "hiding under the table" visual horror for the kids, Jack had his tractor beams and ray guns and cloaking devices yet the wartime background was equally interesting in its own right (the idea of a bunch of orphans running around stealing food when the Blitz was on is a whole drama series in its own right).
Heck, RTD even threw in that Jack was bisexual to tip the hat (pink hat with a feather and matching handbag, of course) to even the gay audience that they aren't entirely being forgotten here, evne if not traditionally "family" in the usual way.
That episode was excellent and worked brilliantly, exactly because it balanced and pitched the whole thing correclty:
FAMILY, not just "kids' show".
This Moffat episode also got it right but in a slightly different way. I suppose this one was more of a "for the ladies" bodice-ripper thing but then had the made-to-measure "monster under the bed" for the kids. It had the futuristic spaceship and Rose and Mickey running around looking like troopers from "Aliens" (Mickey even did a pretty nifty little "I'm a commando" roll along the floor).
It even threw in a socialist political comment, when the Doctor made a somewhat post-revolutionary comment in pre-revolutionary France about how "titles are meaningless" (to which our flirteous little mistress of the King mocks the Doctor by pointing out that "Doctor" is, of course, a title).
Doctor Who never was a "kids' show".
Going right back to the start, it was commissioned as a drama serial.
Again, the problem is, perhaps, that TV has changed to always being about "targetting programming" that the idea of a show that's actually not supposed to be "for kids", "for teenagers", "for adult men", "for adult women" is something people seem to have forgotten is possible.
This is the one thing I'd criticise about the new series:
There are too many single "monster of the week" episodes.
There should be more two / three / four parters - which the original series used to have all the time - so that each story can be given enough time to develop.
The SJS episode is the perfect example. It was good except that to cram everything into a single episode, something had to suffer and it was the storyline.
That was the other thing about "the empty child" episodes: That was a two-parter and allowed the story to be paced properly. It also allows there to be a more complex plot and a few twists and turns (e.g. multiple "chase" scenes, confronting the "evil monster" a few times instead of only really bothering to meet them at the end to kill them off).
Two-parters can also allow a "Empire Strikes Back moment" that things are going badly for the Doctor for a cliff-hanger at the end of episode 1 but then he comes back and wins in episode 2.
No, Doctor Who isn't Star Trek and it doesn't - and shouldn't be - obsessed with all the pedantic fine details.
But, in the same vein, that also means it should be about the
drama first and foremost.
The thing that made the original series work - even with such terrible special effects and low budgets - is that it was a good
drama show for all the family. The sci-fi bit was just the excuse to have a new drama - a new angle, a new problem, a new monster - every week.
Drama should be self-consistent and it should make sense and the story should never take a back seat to anything.
Longer episodes would, I think, help to cure the minor flaws in the new series and for someone to sit RTD and the other writers down to just remind them: "Not kids' sci-fi show, but family drama show with sci-fi setting".
That's what was different about Doctor Who to make it stand out from the crowd and make it popular around the world and make everyone vote to have it brought back:
Because it's not Star Trek sci-fi geekiness. Nor is it "kids' stuff". Nor is it "adult". Nor is it "period drama". Nor is it "cop show". Nor is it any of these things.
It is
ALL of these things simultaneously.
That is the whole point and the strength of the series.
It can be about a school one week and then it's a "period costume drama bodice-ripper with a flirteous hint of romance". Then it can be "evil cyborgs" next week.
That was always the real reason for the TARDIS: It was an excuse for a family drama show to change itself to something new every week.
Tonight's episode has received good reviews here exactly because this episode hit that particular nail on the head.
As was mentioned on the "Confidential", the scene where she could walk - in full French period costume - onto a futuristic spaceship was: "now,
that is so very Doctor Who".
The show is, at its best, as eccentric as its hero.
Doctor Who is not "for kids". It's for the family, which includes the kids.
It's not "sci-fi", it's a
drama serial that has sci-fi elements (though, if you look real closely, the sci-fi is never the point of any episode: It's just the excuse to have that episode happen. The sci-fi is more magical than technical. It's just the excuse to make all these mad situations happen every week).
It doesn't matter if the sci-fi is bullshit but it
DOES matter if the logic of the story is bullshit.
Good Doctor Who should simply be plain old-fashioned good story-telling.
Put it this way, Doctor Who should be modern Jules Verne or H.G.Wells. That is the vibe it started with and should be aiming for.
And, no, Jules Verne and H.G.Wells were not scientifically accurate most of the time but that didn't matter because the stories were good and self-consistent.
Just plain old-fashioned good story-telling. That's it.
There should be no more "formula" to it than that. It shouldn't be "aimed" at anyone - kids, adults - but aimed at everyone.
The new series has been good because they have roughly got that right but it has fallen down here and there where the odd writer has kind of lost the plot on that basic idea.
Before writing an episode, they should read some Jules Verne and H.G.Wells and watch the Quatermass Experiment or "the Day the Earth stood still". Then just modernise that and there you are: Doctor Who.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
