More Doctor Who

[petronia]

Halfway through Season 2. The fun thing about this show is that it is clearly designed by a fan, one with opinions similar to mine re: what canons ought to accomplish for fans.* I've never watched the old series, though, so it's like reconstructing a phone conversation from the half you overhear. The Doctor Who Confidential making-ofs provide helpful historical context**, all the while referring to the target audience as "eight year olds". You'd think at this late date I'd be unsurprised at what denizens of the British Isles consider suitable fare for eight year olds. Then again, I would've hated this series when I was eight. XD;; As a child I had low tolerance for monster makeup, robots, spine-tingling suspense, or excessive jauntiness in leading men.

Anyway. I have a couple of questions: 1) I suppose we'll end up watching Torchwood too, so prefer to do it in order. How to get hold of that? 2) Those dance remixes I remember linking at one point, what happened to those. XD;;

EDIT -- Billie Piper's UK #1s! a (like Robyn the first time around, or S.E.S.) | b (Max Martin-tastic)


* For instance, if they gave me a hallowed media property to play with, I would totally Slayers Next the season finale too.

** Apparently dude from Withnail and I also played Doctor Who, which was kind of hilarious as it was apparent within a 10-second clip that the Mega Uke Vibes remained intact throughout.

Comments

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Oh, so the New Who target audience is still eight years old?

I recall reading some post where someone was talking about how Britain has this tradition of live action genre shows for the preteen set that N.A. doesn't, and that makes it hard for Americans to get what kind of demographic stuff like Merlin is aimed for.

[schattenstern]

The chronological order for New Who/Torchwood would be seasons 1+2 of Who, then season 1 of Torchwood, season 3 of Who (TW1 and Who3 run parallel for a while but don't influence each other until the last few seconds of the TW1 finale, which comes right before the Who3 finale...), TW2 and then Who4. :)

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

They also talk about it being a show for the whole fam, don't they? I mean, the entire UK watches it, not just the 8-year-olds, and the BBC knows that perfectly well. More of a Harry Potter sort of demographic.

I'm trying to remember exactly what I liked about it when I was nine. Might've been the big words and the accents. XD;

Can't help you with Torchwood provisioning, sorry. Haven't watched it as I...dislike Jack fairly deeply ahaha. The dance mixes otoh I do have, somewhere. Can up tomorrow if I locate.

[cis.livejournal.com]

You are supposed to watch Doctor Who when you are eight and be horribly traumatised by it! It is Part Of Growing Up.

also Richard E Grant only was The Doctor for about ten seconds!

re yr edit: you missed out 'girlfriend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r7dHAAzAlQ)'!
do you have a girlfriend?
you're looking real cool
can i have your number?

...okay it is sort of, uh, bobbins.

[koganbot]

Have never seen Dr. Who in any incarnation, but I LOVE the original theme music: a couple of British scientists in 1963 somehow are inventing what Lee Perry and Augustus Pablo are going to do in Jamaica in the late '60s and early and mid '70s. Dub here we come.

[helvetius.livejournal.com]

Yes, miniature dalek figurines are frickin' adorable. XD

[flyby311.livejournal.com]

o___o I used to listen to Day and Night! I did not realize it was sung by Billie Piper! ...This is so weird for me. Huh.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

The UK's idea of what 8 year olds should see will never fail to astound me..

[eternalblue.livejournal.com]

I think it's more that "eight year olds" are the target audience for all the Doctor Who action figures and toys than anything else. Doctor Who seems to me to aimed as a family show more than anything, that everyone can watch together.

Here's the breakdown from some ratings/viewership charts I found for season 2, since that's what you're watching now.
Gender split: (This makes me happy, so I included it)
F: 50%
M: 50%

Age split:
4+: 9%
10+: 9%
16+: 7%
25+: 12%
35+: 20%
45+: 16%
55+: 12%
65+: 14%

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Eight and above, as others have mentioned, although my point was really that kids below age 12 would probably be traumatized. (And thus, that Brits are into upsetting their children, like the Japanese but unlike Americans. XD;)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thanks! You wouldn't happen to know the coordinates of a download comm, would you? XD;

[schattenstern]

There's torchwood_eps, but that's about the extend of my knowledge. ^^; (I got my episodes from a friend, so I didn't have to go comm-hunting.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah all UK ppl I have seen talking about Doctor Who do so as if it were Sesame Street. Sesame Street with GOOD PEOPLE SUFFERING MORAL DILEMMAS AND DYING AT THE HANDS OF PITILESS ALIENS. I am sure this says something profound about National Character although hard pressed to define what.

Was "Girlfriend" also #1? I misread wiki last night then. XD Actually I downloaded her best-of, it's very enjoyable by virtue of (I'm sure, late 90s being the Golden Age of Pop Filler) eliminating all the rubbish tracks.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh well, clearly there's a lot in the script the kiddies aren't meant to get, but there's a lot in the scripts they're confronted with willy-nilly if they're watching? (Although the Beeb seems to have nixed blood 'n' guts.) Scary shit happens, good people die, hard choices are made, on top of it all the plots are really densely written and convoluted. Then again you would have gone far to find an eight year old wussier than I was, so maybe I'm not the best judge. I couldn't even deal with muppets when I was a kid, so the bulk of my Sesame Street watching was done between ages 10-14. XD;;

My sister and I were kind of weirded out by the Confidentials' music; it felt like watching making-of videos while leaving one's iPod on shuffle. Nor has my FSTing exercise exited my Nano's confines thus far. XD;

Thanks for the upload!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just kind of think it's inappropriate for that bottom 9% by virtue of being traumatizing. XD; Tweens and above, I would've said. I'm told trauma is the intent, though, and whatever doesn't kill several generations of British to date makes them stronger (or something).

That is a pretty impressive demographic spread, I have to say.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The robotics are so very retro! Although half the time the Doctor hisself responds to them with aesthetic transports inappropriate to the situation at hand, which makes me feel better. XD;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oscillators and painstaking tape edits, sez wiki... People have taken the original and run with it, I'm listening to the Orbital remix now. XD Delia Derbyshire is rated as an electronica pioneer these days, isn't she?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ha, I'm trying to figure out if I've heard any of her songs or if they just sound familiar by virtue of the style. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I no rite, and I was basically raised on British children's lit.

[koganbot]

This is the poptimists thread where they schooled ignorant me on the Dr. Who Theme. (Initially when we heard the tracks we didn't know whom they were by, which explains why we're referring to track numbers at the start rather than artists and titles.) And here's Robin Carmody on Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.