Minor thought on Saturday’s Doctor Who

[nineveh_uk]

Bit of a bummer if it turns out that the Silent were responsible for inventing all the good stuff.

Also, I think I need to do a post about the BBC’s editorial guidelines and how they relate to children’s programming, general programming, and the watershed, for doctorwho.

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

It won't help. Trying to say 'I think you may be misunderstanding this, because the situation differs' in that kind of place always comes over as 'I AM GEORGE III AND I HAVE COME TO TAX YOU WITHOUT REPRESENTANTION'. But I wish you luck and entertaining fireworks.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think I shall try and phrase it as "This may be interesting information" rather than UR RONG, but of course I mean the latter and it will be read as such.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. What are they complaining about this time?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Not so much complaining as saying "It was too complicated for a family show, my infant was baffled. Also it was dark and scary". As if the DW "brand" hasn't been that it makes kids hide beside the sofa since before TV brands were a concept.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

What still???

The BBC has Ceebeebies and CBBC for things that won't frighten the horses. That is not where they put Doctor Who. And even with programmes on specifically children's channels, as a parent, you are alert to the peculiar phobias of your own offspring and keep half an eye (or ear) on it and judiciously grab the remote control at signs of skulls on Horrible Histories or children with their faces painted on Our Planet before the screaming starts. That is your job. It is not the BBC's.

And yes, Doctor Who was dark and scary when I was 12. It's how it works. We Know This. Good luck.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That is your job. It is not the BBC's.

I think you may have put your thumb on the nub of the issue. (I don't blame the non-UK posters for not knowing about OfCom and the watershed, but I do blame them for making assumptions about how another country's TV scheduling/regulation works.)

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

"It was too complicated for a family show"

Oh what rubbish!
It's a *family* show, there must be some stimulus for the parents. Plus, kids are smarter than we tend to givem credit for.
And anyway, if the kids don't get it all the first time round (or indeed, the adults - I need to rewatch some of this!), understanding more second time round (or third, or fourth) makes having the DVDs all the more enjoyable...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Bright cheery simple plots hopping along is what the children's programming is for. And then it turns out your sister is scared by cheery bright blocks and you are not allowed to speak the name of "Chockablock", let alone watch it.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

CHOCABLOCK! I had completely forgotten that show. Wikipedia informs me there were only ever thirteen episodes.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

O tempora! O mores! Dr Who and the Green Death gave me such hideous nightmares that I still remember them vividly mumble years later, but it never occurred to anyone to write in to the BBC and complain. Made me what I am today.*


*A complete wuss about nasty films

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Is Green Death the one I've heard of that involves bubble wrap?

It's mostly suspense that I can't stand, though I can cope with it in Doctor Who because I know that it is unlikely to be followed with the audience actually seeing something very horrible in close up.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

No, the Green Death involves luminous green paint (natch). I don't know what the one involving bubble wrap was because the Green Death traumatised me so completely that I didn't watch Dr Who again until several doctors later, by which time it wasn't scary at all.

I believe the revelation of the source of the Green Death involved giant maggots, which probably weren't scary at all, but I didn't get any further than the minder descending deep into a pit in a metal cage and realising that he has got a smear of the Green Death on his hand, and screaming an trying to rub it, off, knowing that it he can't escape, he's doomed to become a luminous green corpse. (It's my Magical If for playing Macduff - oh horror horror horror! Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee! It's definitely the Green Death he's thinking of there).

[snorkackcatcher]

Green Death was about the first one I watched, at my cousins. The giant fly was pretty icky too. Although the one that especially creeped me out to the point of not watching for about a series and a half was "Death to the Daleks" -- at least it did as a kid watching on a black & white TV in my room. It would probably look fairly ordinary now.

I believe the bubble wrap one was "Ark in Space", although with a lot of these I haven't actually seen them, just read the novelisations later.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Youtube has kindly come up with bubble wrap - it is surprisingly not as bad as I was expecting!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Someone on the Guardian comments today was scared by both:

"Dr Who was pretty scary when I was a kid - the giant maggots for example, and one I remember set on a space station with invading green slimy things that turn you into a green slimy thing if they touch you (in my case grey slimy things, because we only had a B&W TV). It didn't do me any harm... apart from the PTSD..."

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am never, ever, ever watching that.

Magical If? I see what you're saying in this context, but in general? Explain, please!

[azdak.livejournal.com]

It's Stanislavsky's word for the thing you imagine that suddenly makes a situation real to you (he's talking about actors, but it applies just as much to writers, really). I have a hard time seeing "Horror horror horror etc" as an appropriate reaction to seeing a dead bloke, especially when the person doing the seeing is an experienced soldier, but when I imagine he's just realised he's got a splodge of Green Death on his arm that's already starting to spread, then I know exactly how he says those lines.

You once gave me a Magical If for Bunter in BH, when you pointed out that he must be worried about losing his job now that Harriet was Lady Peter, and that he must also feel that all these things going wrong on the honeymoon would be seen as evidence that he wasn't doing his job properly. I'd always thought of his overreaction to the bottles of port as one of DLS's poke-fun-at-Bunter (of which there are several in 5RH), but as soon as I saw his lines in the light of a man afraid of dismissal, it didn't seem like an overreaction at all. Everything fell into place and it made perfect emotional sense.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I know I've said before I need read (the abridged version) of Stanislavky, but every time you mention him it applies even more. I really must do it.

So it's not a "what does this line actually mean/ah, yes, it refers to X" moment, but an "I know what this line means, but I need to believe it (or at least convey to the audience that I believe it) - the Magical If is what makes me believe (it enough to convey) it".

Poor Bunter. He must be desperate for a holiday by the end of the book. I hope he took advantage of lots of free time in Rome.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

So it's not a "what does this line actually mean/ah, yes, it refers to X" moment, but an "I know what this line means, but I need to believe it (or at least convey to the audience that I believe it) - the Magical If is what makes me believe (it enough to convey) it".

Exactly! An awful lot of Stanislavsky's techniques are really just (just!) ways of stimulating the imagination so that the situation becomes real and concrete instead of staying generic and superficial.

It's suprising how little the meaning of a line (in the semantic sense of "meaning")has to do with how it gets said. This is partly because, as in real life, what you say is not necessarily what you mean, but also because there's no need for the actor to act the meaning - the line conveys that information itself anyway.

[mobile-alh.livejournal.com]

Sigh. And once again I am embarrassed by/for my countrymen/women.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Don't worry - it's my countrypeople too, and they really ought to know better.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Bit of a bummer if it turns out that the Silent were responsible for inventing all the good stuff.

Also, why is every possibly evil alien from the Dawn of Time all that keen on influencing the development of the human race? We had the Silence and the Fendahl and the Beast and the Jagaroth, and perhaps more in episodes I haven't seen. Are they really, really bored?