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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | 1
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DOCTOR WHO has not been "for kids" since the reboot.
It is, and has ever been, a family show. Doctor Who enjoys a very sizable, and growing, audience of children. And they don't grow out of it. They can continue watching the same show into adulthood and it enjoy it with their kids.
What separates a kiddie-fare from all-ages fair is good writing. If your audience is only made up of 10 year olds, you can get away with doing formulaic paint-by-numbers adventures without a trace of wit or originality. But they're going to drift away when they realize that.
But if you want to be All-Ages, then you better step up your game to entertain the adults in your audience. George Lucas did it with Star Wars and Raiders, Stan Lee did with Silver Age Marvel, Pixar is doing it, Doctor Who has been doing it since the 60s.
If you go back to my original post in this exchange, my suggestion is to make sure you have enough stuff going on that your story doesn't depend upon a Big Reveal.
If the story doesn't work if people figure out beforehand that Doctor Doom is behind it all, then the story doesn't work... because a sizable chunk of your audience is going to figure it out no matter how clever you're being. If you're boring them, you're failing. They need to be carried along by the narrative just like everyone who didn't figure it out.
The reveal of a twist should be part of a good one-two punch. Even if they see the twist coming, they should be caught off-guard by the follow-up. Or you could reverse it such as the climatic scene in Empire which drives Luke to a low-point then uses the Reveal to drive him over the edge.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | 2
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I think new WHO has been tailored more for women since the reboot
Not tailored to them. It's taking what they've always done and expanding the audience to include women.
It's certainly hasn't excluded children.
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Brian Skelley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 February 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 231
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | 3
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Stephen Robinson wrote:
| I think new WHO has been tailored more for women since the reboot..<snip>maybe it's a longshot but perhaps their popularity could be increased if the books were made more "female friendly." After all, if 20 yrs ago, you told me that DOCTOR WHO would be a show girls would be blogging about or setting dates to watch with their boyfriends.. |
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I think it's more a case where women are a lot more accepting of Science Fiction and Fantasy stories then they ever have been before. Where it was considered a boys thing, it's not acceptable for everyone (women, jocks, whoever) to enjoy them. Dr. Who is one of the few shows in the genre that is not only good but light and fun. Most shows attempt to be dark and gritty (BSG style) or a bad show set in the background of Science Fiction. Dr. Who jumps full into it's own absurdity and has fun with it.
I've developed a peeve with people talking about comics by attempting to force them to be all things to all people. With comics not selling anywhere as much as it did in it's heyday a lot of people attempt to fix the problem by saying they need to be more accessible to "XYZ people". I've read articles and tons of forum posts where I'm told that comics would be selling out if they only had more women/African American/Latino/cat leads in them. Personally I don't think the characters are the issues with sales, it's the entire structure of how the comics get to people in the first place. Which isn't to say there isn't an issue with the people making them who believe they're the next Frank Miller.
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Brian Rhodes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3334
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | 4
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Seeing stars in real life is both weird and vaguely disappointing for me. There's just something about lighting, make-up, and actually being "framed" by a TV or movie screen that turns a person into a kind of larger than life god who lives in a separate reality.
Depends. I met KISS backstage before a show, and they were definitely "larger than life." Of course, they have 8-inch platform shoes on and the make-up, so they defintely weren't looking "every day" and it wasn't disappointing. Now, if Paul Stanley was at the local burger joint in jeans, t-shirt, sneaks, sunglasses and a ball cap, maybe I sit one table over and don't even notice. To that point, one of the few times I got to see a celebrity "not framed", I guess, was when Walter Cronkite dined at a restaurant at which I bussed tables. If he hadn't been pointed out to me, I doubt I would have known who it was. I mean, I knew who Cronkite was...this was still at a time when everyone in America did. But...out of the context I was used to, he could have walked right by...
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | 5
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DOCTOR WHO ceased to be "kid friendly" the moment Rose's Mum, upon hearing the Doctor has two hearts, asks "Does he have two of anything else?" Can you imagine that in an episode starring any of the previous Doctors? And even that's being generous, since it came in a Tennant episode. Since the return, the level of horror, violence and "sexual tension" has been stepped up beyond anything I would consider suitable for the age level the show was aimed at for its first forty years or so.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | 6
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DOCTOR WHO ceased to be "kid friendly" the moment Rose's Mum, upon hearing the Doctor has two hearts, asks "Does he have two of anything else?"
Lots of kids watch the show with their parents and I don't think there's been an outcry from parents over anything in the show.
A quick google of "is Doctor Who okay for kids" leads me to this site. The biggest concerns revolve around some episodes being too scary for young kids.
This isn't like comics where the parents are completely clueless as to the content. They regularly watch the show with their kids and don't mind a bit of mild sexual innuendo as it's so vague it goes flying over their children's heads. I can't even find a wacko Christian group accusing the show of poisoning children's minds with its homosexual agenda.
This is about as kid friendly as television gets in the 21st Century. Eureka and Warehouse 13 are hardcore pornography next to Nu Who.
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Rob Ocelot
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 December 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 1231
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | 7
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Rob O: "I think this storyline could have played out better with a more gradual change in Peter with the readers getting more accustomed to Peter talking and acting like Otto and then pulling the rug out with the reveal in #698. Leave everyone wondering how long Otto's been in there and when the switch occurred."
****
I think this would have been a mistake - this is exactly the long, multi-issue arc that annoys me about modern comic books. I like that this really starts with issue #698, and with SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #1, the story is on its fourth issue. That's much better story economy and easier for me to wrap my head around than something like AVENGERS VS. X-MEN, in which there are multiple titles bumping into each other.
I like that it starts with #698 but I think they could have waited and savoured the brief moment (months in comic book publication time!) where readers are left wondering the how/why/when. #698 is so slickly written that someone with only the barest knowledge of Spider-man would 'get' it yet long time readers would derive enjoyment from it as well. In contrast, #699 pulls the curtain away and answers the how/why/when right away and basically undermines the impact of the previous issue. A little backwards mystery along with the main story moving forwards wouldn't be a bad thing, would it? The trick is making the backwards mystery not necessary for the main story but if a reader chooses to ponder and pursue the mystery then they get something extra.
It could have been the modern equivalent to Who Is The Hobgoblin? from the Roger Stern's era** -- and there really hasn't been anything like that in the Spider-man books since that story other than the Jean DeWolfe arc.
** Ironic,because it's almost impossible to tell a story like Who Is The Hobgoblin? today because (as The Chief points out) with a million monkeys on the internet guessing that every possible character in the story is the villain/murderer/MacGuffin someone's going to nail it within an hour of the story synopsis being published
Edited by Rob Ocelot on 14 January 2013 at 9:58pm
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Stephen Churay
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 8369
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | 8
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A quick google of "is Doctor Who okay for kids" leads me to this site.
The biggest concerns revolve around some episodes being too scary
for young kids.
=====
I certainly wouldn't let them watch BLINK. A kid's best defense for a
dark scary room is to close there eyes. Can you imagine taking that
away from them. Great episode for grown ups though.
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Rob Ocelot
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 December 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 1231
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | 9
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DOCTOR WHO ceased to be "kid friendly" the moment Rose's Mum, upon hearing the Doctor has two hearts, asks "Does he have two of anything else?"
That is exactly the type of thing a sexually repressed fan fiction author would write.
(BTW, I could cite numerous examples of when classic DOCTOR WHO ceased to be "kid friendly" -- Colin Baker watching two guards die in an acid bath; Peter Davison pulling a gun on Davros; Tom Baker having his head held under water; the first time a Dalek killed someone on screen; William Hartnell attempting to crush a caveman's head with a rock in the first story arc. However all of this is violence and not sex, so maybe it's not a valid comparison)
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Greg Woronchak
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 September 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 1631
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| Posted: 15 January 2013 at 8:27am | IP Logged | 10
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their popularity could be increased if the books were made more "female friendly
Interesting comment; what do women readers look for in comics?
I have a feeling (naive, perhaps) that well-written, well-drawn, thoughtful material can appeal to any group! Just not sure that the Big Two are releasing anything along these lines; it seems they're targeting very specific demographics with formulaic fare.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
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| Posted: 15 January 2013 at 8:44am | IP Logged | 11
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There was the attempted rape of Barbara in The Keys of Marinus and I quite certain I know why Nero was chasing Barbara around the room, as did his wife in the episode. That stuff probably raised as much of an eyebrow back then as the blowjob joke in "Love & Monsters" does today, which probably wasn't much at all.
Doctor Who tends to run afoul of critics because of the violence. Even today, there's always the concern that it's "too scary" for kids, but there doesn't seem to be any organized effort against as was the case in the 70s and 80s.
I'm trying to figure out a non-kiddie sci-fi show of the last 25 years which didn't feature a bit of borderline objectionable content.
"Are you fully functional?" -- TNG couldn't even get through the first season. DS9 had Quark regularly renting out the holo-suites for heavily implied pornographic purposes. Enterprise stripped down its characters at every opportunity.
The original Battlestar Galactica had a prostitute as a major cast member before remembering there were kids in the audience and made her a nurse.
Eureka had a body switching episode where the manscaping jokes were probably the one thing which did go over the kid's heads.
Warehouse 13 had a plot which centered around the two leads waking up naked in bed together.
In the 70s and 80s, the comics started pushing the boundaries in much the same ways with characters in bed together, hopping off-panel for some lovin', Claremont's obsession with dressing everyone in fetish gear, former girlfriends coming back as heroin addicted porn actresses, mind controlled women doing suspect videos. And then things went completely off the rails in the 90s.
Doctor Who has the odd bit of kissing and the occasional naughty joke designed to go sailing over the heads of the wee ones. The later bit being a bit of British tradition.
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David Miller
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 15 January 2013 at 8:51am | IP Logged | 12
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Having just spent the weekend with my nephews (ages 7, 5 & 5, and not allowed to watch WHO), I bet they would think she meant two buttholes. Or possible two noses if there wasn't an adult in the room to offend.
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Topic Closed)
