Planet of the Dead

[glory_jean]

Well, I watched Planet of the Dead. And I liked it- stuff at the end, I'm pretending that I didn't hear, aside.

I might as well face it: I'm RTD's bitch. Use me, abuse me and I come back for more. It remains to be seen whether the Moff will have that effect on me.

I still hate the comic book story arch. I still hate the idea that it's desirable - or even acceptable - to take your hero, wreck him with survivor's guilt, fix him and then proceed to deconstruct his life bit by bit. That's clearly sadism and I feel a little dirty even watching.

Comic book writers say that kids don't want their heroes happy and settled. (Sound familiar?). But I don't see that being true. They may not want to see adults kissing, but that doesn't mean they want them miserable.

My son was only seven when he saw DD and his only comment at the time was "If Rose wanted to stay with the Doctor she should have held on tighter." But I noticed, where before he would bounce off the walls when he heard a new ep was coming, chattering non-stop during the ep and for twenty minutes after, as S3 progressed, he was more and more blase about it. By S4, he watched almost as an afterthought. He would consent to be in the room with us and glance at the screen from time to time. We haven't bought S4 (more due to money trouble than anything else) but we do have S3. Whenever I can manage to coax my son into a DW watching, he always asks for an S2 or S1 ep. He never wants to see S3. And this isn't a kid who's lost interest. We have a permanent TARDIS in the living room. He spent an hour shopping in the dealer room at Outpost Gallifrey. He pined for an R/C Dalek that we couldn't afford. (And bought anyway on the sly. Happy Easter!)

So when they say this is what the kids want - you couldn't prove it by me.



ETA: I just asked my son if he wanted to watch POTD and he responded "no, thank you." So, I asked why and got the shrug. But when I asked if he thought that the show was too sad now, he answered with a sad little, "yeah." Put that in your pipe and smoke it, RTD.


ETA x2: Well the little one watched and enjoyed for the most part. Then when the end turned dark, I could see the dismay in his eyes. The only saving grace was that it was brief and the previews were sufficiently distracting.

Comments

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

Have to say, if they're planning on giving the Teen Angst a miss, the way they've presented Matt Smith so far doesn't bode well. He looks very Twilight to me.

The one group I can't see DW ever appealing to is teens, as it happens. As the parent of two myself I know from experience that there is only one thing worse than liking what your parents watch, and that's liking what 10 year olds watch. DW is both. My son won't touch it with a bargepole.

[glory_jean]

Eleven as "that guy from Twilght" (you see how little I know of this fandom ;-) ) is very disturbing to me. I'm not sure how this constitutes RTD's pledge to be true to the DW history.

My son won't touch it with a bargepole.

Ah teens. They are such an enigma to marketers coveting that market share. I wonder if BBC's giving it a try. Of course they will lose the younger kids, though. My son's passion for Harry Potter wilted once the teen angst appeared in Goblet of Fire.