Doctor Who. A prism into the US media giants

[ChairmanAgnostic]

Doctor Who is a BBC production, with great acting, set in a science fiction story. Good dialogue, creative writing, OK to just fair special effects but the stories carry the show, not the glitz.

If some US media company bought this, Tom Cruise would be a preening, idiot doctor, with lots of T&A, idiot dialogues, and pathetic plotting.

Doctor Who is but an example, but a telling one. The difference between US-based entertainment (American Idle?!?!?!? and worse!) and quality programming tells us about the state of our society.
What is worse is that our pols understand us better than we do ourselves. They promote idiocy and make sure that most of America considers that the norm.
For example, NASCAR and the southern contempt for education and literacy. There are a sizeable group of people who scorn higher degrees, who hate those who read, and who fear and loathe those who think. Let's call them neocons and the ultra-religious rightists to start with. unfortunately, they are not a small group, and combined with their hunger for power, they have been an evil and destructive force for the past five years.
For them, Doctor Who would be too cerebral. Then again, so are the sunday comics.

[The Traveler]

1. I'm Southern

love NASCAR, am a motorhead, read a lot, drink beer, and have been a Dr Who fan for decades. For precisely the reasons you cite.

As for the remainder of your post, suh ... (**removes glove, delivers slap**) ... I must demand satisfaction. :evilgrin:

[RoyGBiv]

4. I'll be your second ...

Dr. Who was rather popular among the redneck crowd I used to run with back in the day. So was NASCAR.

[The Traveler]

7. You honor me, suh

Have a beer and pass me that 9/16, will ya?

:toast:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. And you shall receive it.

I do like the reading and beer bit, tho.
:)

[Ilsa]

2. I keep forgetting to watch Dr. Who. Probably because

I'm listening to Malloy at 9pm.

I'm a Texas girl, born and raised. I don't watch NASCAR, but I know some people who watch because they are engineers, as are most of the people on those teams.

I have to agree, though, that most American TV is crap, even the "news". I think a few shows like House are pretty good. But programs like Deal or No Deal are an embarrassment, like Jaywalking on The Tonight Show.

[supernova]

3. Another southerner who loves Dr Who

checking in. :hi:

edit: I'll add that I've been a fan since the 70s when my local PBS station showed it.

[The Traveler]

6. Tom Baker

I always wanted to grow up to be that cool.

But at least I have the scarf ...

[madrchsod]

8. you have the scarf !!!!

now that`s so fuck`n cool. i always wanted a scarf but never could afford one on the pbs dr who fund raisers....but i did name my daughter nissa.she`s 20 now and has never given me crap about naming her nissa..well her friends used to call her "nissan"

[MissB]

5. American Idol, although Idle may be more appropriate.

I find very little on the TV to be interesting or intelligent.

I love Dr. Who. I also loved Firefly when it was on SciFi. Intelligent dialogue is sooooo lacking these days.

[mwooldri]

12. About American Idol... it's actually of British origin!

Pop Idol was the original concept and the Brits exported it over here. I guess Fox is starting to flog it to death, the same way ABC killed off Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Some things go across well. NBC was brave with The Weakest Link - even having Anne Robinson (the UK host) hosting the US version. Right now, the US media is looking for new stuff from overseas and it really does tell. It used to be that everyone from overseas was getting the US shows. Now it just seems to be the other way around - for the 'new' stuff anyway. Heck, a lot of kids shows are coming from Blighty these days.

Mark.

[TechBear_Seattle]

9. The difference between British and American television

British: Great stories and acting, cardboard sets.
American: Great sets, cardboard stories and acting.

[mwooldri]

11. You know why I want to get the BBC domestic channels over here then.

BBC can stand for many things (including the Blair Broadcasting Corporation, which the Tories have accused the BBC of being at times)

But it just stands for bloody good TV (in the most part).

Heck, even ITV puts the US commercial networks to shame.

Mark.

[Deja Q]

16. Quite. Even the newly made series is preferable to 95% of American shows.

:(

Still, the producers of the new UK show have borrowed from American shows (most notably Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Speaks volumes too... though not intentional ones...

[mucifer]

10. wow brings back memories of high school and my big crush on Tom Baker

You are forgetting that there are some very well written American TV shows. I don't watch as much as I used to but "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" silly as the title is, was a very clever. I'd say much more so than Dr. Who. Because of the subtext the writers got to be very creative on "Buffy".

Also, lets not forget "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" very intellegent TV. (ok they do throw in some potty humor and penis jokes here and there.)

[skids]

13. No need for the hypothetical...

...there indeed was an American-influenced attempt to make a single-made-for-tv Dr. Who "movie" a
decade or so back. Most of the people working on it were British but it was done in a cooperative
arrangement with FOX and most of the actors were American (other than the Doctor himself.)

It was awful, IMO, and though it has its defenders much of the fanbase agrees, though they
accept the movie as "canonical" in that it counts as a part of the whole series (and hence,
a wasted regeneration, again IMO)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_%281996%29#Controversy

[Kailassa]

14. US media was covered in "Satellite Five"

The TARDIS arrives in the far future on Satellite Five, an orbital broadcasting platform orbiting Earth in the year 200,000, so that the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) can show Rose (Billie Piper) and his new assistant Adam (Bruno Langley) the wonders of the planet at the height of the fourth Earth Empire. The Doctor, however, realises that something is terribly wrong with the technology of this time period, with which he is very familiar, and so he sets out to question the first two people he finds, two journalists named Cathica (Christine Adams) and Suki (Anna Maxwell-Martin). Using his psychic paper as his credentials, the Doctor is mistaken as a management employee testing the two, who tell him that Satellite Five controls all of the news broadcasts to the human race. ...

The Doctor and Rose are captured by the Editor and his undead henchmen, which now includes a brain-dead Suki, and are confronted with the truth: Satellite Five is the home of the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe, a massive alien creature that sits in the space above the Editor's control room, guiding Earth along its predetermined path through the manipulation of broadcast media.

http://www.gallifreyone.com/episode.php?id=2005-07

[Deja Q]

15. Are we talking the 26-year classic series, or the newly made one?

The latter has lots of T&A, an idiot Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), and pathetic plotting. No wonder it's so popular in Britian's mainstream viewing masses.

(David Tennant's era, from what I've seen, is rather better... but half of Eccleston's series is actually quite decent...)

[mr blur]

17. Wrong!

"The latter has lots of T&A, an idiot Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), and pathetic plotting. No wonder it's so popular in Britian's mainstream viewing masses."

Actually, you couldn't be kmore wrong. Have you actually seen any of these? David Tennant is an irritating little git but Eccleston was class. The scripts were literate, witty and not too kind to Blair and certainly not to America - perhaps that's your problem? Or maybe you've seen so much US television that you have problems watching something that wasn't designed around commercial breaks or paying lip service to god and country. Whatever.