Monday, 16 November 2009

Dr. Who? No.. really? Who?

I'm a fan of Dr. Who, let me just put that in writing so that I may be mocked like any time that I put DJ Hero on when my wife is around.
The Waters Of Mars, the latest yarn provided for our enjoyment, turned out to be, in my opinion, as wet as the villains. Now if you've already read any of my ramblings, then you know I'm an idiot, so feel free to disagree with me... but remember, if you disagree with me now, I'll remember... and when you need me to agree with you when you need it most, I may just have to disagree to spite you.
The premise is simple, The Doctor decides to goto Mars. Why? Because he's lost everyone he ever cared about and is fed up of the porn the Tardis picks up I guess. So he happens to be on the planet the same day that the first human colony on mars blows up.
Two of the colonists are in the botony part of the colony, growing vegetables, when one of them decides to eat a carrot. So the BBC have just undone countless years of parents work to promote vegetables as being good for you... instead children who watched that last night, will believe eating carrots can cause you to become ludicrous water based parasitic zombie things. Thanks Russel T Davies... thanks a lot.
When The Doctor meets the colonists, what follows is the laziest plot device ever. He learns the name of one character, then we see a shot of a BBC webpage with the character's profile on it... which then zooms in to a deep DOO sound three times. This happens for each character, and there are about six people in the room. It was comically bad, and each time I expected the DOO to go into the Eastenders theme tune... infact it was the exact sound they use at the end of an episode in Eastenders.
Plus there was a guy who operated a robot, so why did the Captain call the robot by a name as oppose to by the name of the guy who is operating it? Surely if a robot is being piloted, you'd speak to the operator, not the computer. That'd be like me going up to someone at work and talking to their computer, and waiting for their computer to e-mail me with the answer.
So the villains were laughable, and the direction terrible, however the Doctor had a dark turn at the end which was an interesting devlopement for the character as Tennant's Doctor has danced across the lines of good and bad.
My main problem with this who at the moment is that it doesn't know WHO it's trying to appease. It tries hard to make itself credible with large story arcs and drives home messages or plays with emotions so that the adults will be impressed, but then goes the other way and downplays the horror or drama so that the kiddies wont get scared.
Dr. Who has always been a program designed for young adults in my opinion, I used to be scared of the baddies in it, and I'm sure it does have the effect on the kids today, but I feel that because it's trying to appease both adults and children it's not capitalizing on what is a great character and an amazing franchise!
Ah well, if the BBC didn't have a restraining order on me, I'd tell them to their faces, instead of writing it here.

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