I've tagged this against Dr Who but, in truth, it could be applied to any programme.

Does anyone else think that we sometimes over-analyse TV ?

In my mind, all I want is to be entertained. I know if I look hard enough I will spot continuity errors etc but it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the programme I'm watching.

I've read mention of English style sockets in a Manhatten theatre, dodgy accents, CCTV cameras in 1973 (LOM) but, really - honestly speaking - you don't notice them unless you go looking for them.

Am I too easily pleased ?

This is not meant as a knock to anyone who does pick up these things, I am honestly interested in why it should affect enjoyment (or otherwise) of a program. As far as I'm concerned, the more you look for a fault, the more it distracts from the story itself.

The joke was some people complaining about the lack of American accents in "Gridlock".

It was 5 billion years in the future on a different planet. You'd be lucky if they were still speaking English never mind with the same accent as 2007.

I don't think people go looking for faults as they want to enjoy it as much as the next person otherwise what would be the point in watching. If they pick up on something and it grates on them surely they should air that in the same way you could if something got on your nerves.

Whole heartedly agree that all should air their grievances but that is not what I'm going on about. God forbid that anyone deny that right.

However, I do think that there are folk who will studiously look for errors, you only have to a look at the eye of horus site and their 'continuity errors' section on their episode pages to see that.

But, again, each to their own, it's just something that would distract from my enjoyment if I were to do it.

Sadly, there will always be people like that, just to prove a point to no-one. Mary Whitehouse is one such example...

not that that matters. I remember a CLASSIC episode "The Gunfighters" which was set at the OK Corral in AZ USA.

They are still had British accents. And so what if they do. Whethere it was back then or now. Who cares really.

Unless RTD was going to set a story in another contry. say the Mid-east. I could se how not using native langage (in the background anyway) would make certain people miffed.

But as to UK_US_AUS. most of it sound the same. Not counting the individual slag useage for each country and individual region in the diferent Countries.

Just a note about the accents on Saturday ...

My Wife is American and, after she watched the episode, she was really taken aback when I told her that the majority of the cast were NOT American.

Her comment was that us Brits can do a better American accent than Americans do Brit !

YES

i think that a lot of people are over analytical and expect too much from doctor who, most of them are members of this forum.
what these people fail to remember is that doctor who in particular is pure escapism it's not meant to be taken seriously it's just for entertainment purposes only.
it is after all a kids show which happens to work on different levels, so that the adults watching with the kids can get something out of it aswell.
doctor who is not a documentry, it's not a soap trying to portray real life, in a nut shell it's about a 900+ year old alien travelling around time and space in a blue box saving the universe! if you want to still pick it apart and find faults then i would suggest getting out more. if you actually watched the show for what it is rather than what YOU want it to be, you might actually enjoy it. what makes me laugh is the people on here who build the show up each week, and how they can't wait to watch it and then when it's on they're busy posting all the way through it, then complain the episode was crap! when in actual fact they couldn't tell you what happened 'cause they weren't watching it.
t.v. programmes are chosen by the viewer i.e. if you want something factual try the discovery channel, so if it's science fiction adventure you want watch bbc 1 13 weeks a year on a saturday evening. the key word there folks is FICTION!
so lets just keep that in mind when discussing doctor who?

the best thing to do (being an older doc fan from jon pertwee days )is ...... i find is this :

i watch on saturday with my young son,
get a mega load of questions on whats going on in the show ,of which i have no idea ....record it at the same time,
then like now,
watch the tape ALONE ,
and i rather enjoy it

david tennant is quite a good doc, somewhere between p davisons and pat troughtons docs.

the storys are corny BUT .... they always were !

so what that the slaves are pig/human slaves ?

it just doesnt matter,
its sci -fi ............. and it mostly works

Exactly the same as myself ! I'm 46 and my first real Dr was Jon Pertwee.

I watch it now with my 2 young boys (5 and 6) and once they're in bed, I crack open my beer(s) and watch it alone.

I think we are the fortunate ones in being able to experience it in this way. Kids aren't concerned about accents, plot holes or errors and, once in a while, it is nice to be able to do the same yourself.

In answer to the original question, undoubtedly YES.

Sometimes when I've been watching a TV show with my family and I've noticed a continuity error or something like that and I've raised it out loud, the only response I get from family members is "It's only a TV Show...so what?!"

And there's a lot of truth in that. It IS only a TV show,..a mere 45 minute distraction from our normal boring lives.
For a small part of one day a week we get to imagine that yes, the world is magical and wonderful, that there are aliens around every corner and a dashing hero out to right wrongs, then it's back to the mundane real world where usually wrongs win out, evil triumphs and it's largely dull and boring!!

Some of the things debated on here really make me laugh sometimes.....huge debates about tiny plot irregularities or continuity errors. Then depending on which "side" you are on (pro new series or against) theories are created, mantras are laid down and the whole thing becomes a whole new level of obsession....

It's a distraction from real life, it's not a way of life

So yeah, WE (and I include myself in this) are being too analytical, and we're only in the minority of the shows 9 million or so viewers.....a tiny minority...

But hey, that's forum life, 'tis fun isn't it?

yup


something like dr who will get analysised and analysised etc and it will all get crossed over.

so yeah!

Are some FMs here over critical of the new Who? undoubtedly so. Like a previous poster said some of the things that are raised are laughable, the cries of a 'gay agenda' being the most risible. But the main sorry point is that it takes over nearly if not all Who threads.

Look at the latest Who thread for Daleks in Manhattan for example 70% of voters though that episode was very good-excellent, why don't they post there? why is it nearly all negative? The regular who 'bashers', to use the phrase have bored the daylights out of original posters who like the show, just read through the thread and remember 70% of voters thought it a very good to excellent episode.

Who cares if they were half pigs?? Who care if the Dr used his sonic to open a manhole?? these things are just so easy to pick up on that they become laughable that someone actually does pick up on it. And just how did the Dr and Martha get from the Statue of Liberty to Central Park?

Genesis of the Daleks is considered THE greatest of the old Who. It is just as easy to sit down and tear it to shreds, within the first 10 minutes for example, defusing a landmine someone is standing on by putting stones under it, has any one informed the people that live in countries with landmines that this is how to do it, just make sure to carry some stones around with you see it's not hard to point something out, it didn't make me look any more intelligent by doing so though did it, or made me appear to have a razor sharp wit because I noticed something glaringly obvious, infact it had to opposite effect . It can be done with ALL sci-fi yet because Dr Who is aimed at a family audience and has proved popular this does seems to have irked some sci-fi fans.
Last edited by CAMERA OBSCURA : 25-04-2007 at 09:30

People have always done this - we just did it in person before the internet. I remember twenty years ago, picking every minute detail of Star Wars out and discussing it with my friends. It's just all done on a global digital scale, now. Same with Who and other shows. Frankly, it's all a part of the passion of fandom - Whovian or otherwise - and always has been.
Last edited by Histeria : 25-04-2007 at 09:21

Completely agree, but it does seem rife in the Who threads compared to other sci-fi show threads. I don't see any 'yet another forest, yet another man in a robe being passed of as an alien in any Stargate threads.

you clearly do not as you have only posted 9 times in your 9-10 months as a member! sorri just had to say that

i think for most of us were just bored and killing time lol

God, yes.

A lot of it is down to the "willing suspension of disbelief", i.e. how long you can watch something without going "That would never happen in real life!" If you keep doing that, then you're going to be very very disappointed.

Each week, when I read this forum after the latest Doctor Who episode I do find that most of the criticisms pertaining to plot-holes, continuity errors, etc, are nearly always completely wrong. There's usually a simple explanation either within the episode itself or can be inferred if you just apply a little imagination.

Most of the time it seems to be people misunderstanding a key plot point, or missing an explanatory line of dialogue, or just picking something totally irrelevant like the one about "how did they get across the water from the Statue of Liberty to Manhattan?" and calling it a 'mistake' because we weren't shown on camera.

You might as well say "The Doc was wearing his brown suit in one episode and his blue one the next. We didn't see him change so therefore it's a continuity error!"

Yes some do but most of us just want to be entertained. With Doctor Who I can take most things but I need a good story and beleivable characters/monsters. Take the old series you sometimes got wobbly sets and dodgy acting but in many cases great plots. The storyline is the key.

couldn't agree with you more and with the odd exceptions very few stories from the reboot have managed that.

True but we've had a few gems and while most of season 2 was below par I loved Girl in the Fireplace. Fantastic The story again is the key Impossible Planet/Satan Pit being the other stand out (although heavily borrowed) storyline from that season. Compare those to the other stories in the season and it's like chalk and cheese.

I don't know, I think I've enjoyed most of the stories from the new series. For me though, I do like buzzwords or phrases like "Shakespeare" or "2012 Olympics" or "the end of the world" or whatever. A bit simple, I know, but they all have a fairly good story going on.