shadowkat | If only I could do a poll...

From:

2. Just watched another beautifully crafted episode of Better Call Saul.

The story to this point:

After a brief attempt to sustain a respectable law practice, Jimmy McGill had his license suspended, and has finally taken on the Saul Goodman persona for some questionable side projects to pay his bills.

He now seems poised to plunge into the gutter and destroy everyone he loves.

Two episodes left in the season.

From:

cactuswatcher

1. I've only seen the first episodes from the very first season in a marathon and it was very definitely a kid's show then. (Honestly, that much of it was awful; really bad, but not quite bad enough to be amusing. I haven't had the desire to see more.) But I get the impression from listening to others that it's developed well over time.

From:

shadowkat

By very first season, do you mean the season that aired in the 1960s? Because, if so, I think you are right. It was definitely in the 70s as well. Although my memories of it are vague.

From:

cactuswatcher

Yes. I'm sure I saw it in the late 70s, but the marathon was advertised as the very first Dr. Who episodes, as opposed to what they were normally showing on the weekend. I thought it would be a good place to start watching. Turned out it was not. ;o)

Edited Date: 2017-06-06 03:38 pm (UTC)

From:

shadowkat

No, I'd start with the reboot - which was 2004 or thereabouts. That's what I did. I didn't bother with the earlier versions.

From:

rogin

Sense 8 is deffinitely a great thing to watch, even though the cancellation is horrible. The show has such wonderful characters and constellations and is beautifully shot. Probably has the very best sex scenes in main stream tv lately, too.
It's such a pity they cancelled it. It was the best show on netflix.

American Gods has not finished yet.

If you are prepared for being confused, the new Twin Peaks is very intriguing.

From:

shadowkat

I'm on the fence about Twin Peaks...I saw the original version and I think the movie. The original two-three season series was excellent, although it got a bit convoluted and unintelligible at the end. And the movie... (which had no plot, but hey, David Lynch, it was basically all surreal metaphor or a nightmarish satiric abstract painting on film, similar to the third season).

So, my question is - is this season more like the first two seasons of the original series, or more like the movie and third season?

From:

rogin

Deffinitely more on the surreal side of things. More than Lynch's later movies than the original tv show. It does have the original characters though and the Twin Peaks feel is deffinitely there.

I wish there were more weird townies and less completely abstract stuff but it still is excellent.

From:

shadowkat

Hmm...thanks. Question is how much do you have to remember the original to be able to follow it?

From:

rogin

Well, I did a rewatch pretty recently and I am not sure if I can claim to be able to follow it.

I guess it doesn't make much of a difference. You have to remember how things ended for Agent Cooper and that's where it moves on from in a very weird and surreal way.

From:

shadowkat

I don't completely remember...I think he ended up in the red room, and his double or the monster ended up taking his form and being unleashed.

From:

kerkevik_2014

The original show was a kids show; meant to intersperse historical stories with science fiction. The new show has been seen as the same show; though it is far from the same, and thus marketed as a kids show. It feels like a very adult show for me. but then many people would have said the same about the original, especially as it moved into the Tom Baker era and beyond. I'm not sure it's felt like a kids show since Tom Baker; many of the problems that killed the original were because it was caught up in the moral hand-wringing of the eighties and couldn't find a place to fit. That's one thing this new version has seemed to have successfully navigated, though it seems tp have lost the magic I enjoyed as a kid, enjoying a show that didn't really seem to be regular kids fare.

From:

elisi

I'd call Doctor Who a family show overall - it's shown on BBC1 rather than a children's channel.

When it came back in 2005 I made sure to watch it with the children as I knew it was a British institution and wanted them to be part of it.

It's a touchstone of British culture, basically. You'll not find a British person who isn't aware of it, and TARDIS, Daleks and Cybermen are concepts everyone knows. (TARDIS is the basic term for something that is bigger on the inside f.ex.)

From:

cjlasky7

I think the American experience of Doctor Who is slightly different from the UK's.

Remember, U.S. audiences didn't see anything of Doctor Who until the Tom Baker era, so the original, more kid-friendly material had already faded into the background. The Fourth Doctor episodes were broadcast on U.S. public television (yes, the home of Sesame Street); but as a kid, I never got the impression that it was a kids' show. It was just that "weird British show on PBS."

American TV didn't broadcast Doctors Five through Seven, so we never saw Ace (who would have been big with American kids) or Adric (we dodged a bullet). The next Who on American screens was the 1996 movie, which wasn't kid stuff. (I think Eric Roberts' scenery-chewing would have permanently scarred a young child...)

When Russell T. Davies reimagined DW in 2005, he used Buffy as a template, and it really wasn't your father's Doctor Who anymore.

But the original kid-friendly DW occasionally peeks through. Moffat seems to be a big fan of fairy tales, and eps like "The Snowmen" and "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" are perfect family fare. And I think even RTD got nostalgic for the family-friendly show from his childhood; the Sarah Jane Adventures hit the same sweet spot. That show--and its heroine--are greatly missed.

Edited Date: 2017-06-06 01:25 pm (UTC)

From:

shadowkat

I think the American experience of Doctor Who is slightly different from the UK's.

I think you are right, since all the Americans and non-Brits that responded don't see it as a kids show, and only the Brits who responded do.

The Fourth Doctor episodes were broadcast on U.S. public television (yes, the home of Sesame Street); but as a kid, I never got the impression that it was a kids' show. It was just that "weird British show on PBS."

Yeah, that was the one that I saw as a kid, and it seemed a lot like well, Dark Shadows, Outer Limits, and other shows that seemed more adult. As opposed to the Saturday morning sci-fi shows we had. I think we had more kid-centric series than the Brits had due to the Children's Television Act.

From:

ex_peasant441

Definitely a kid's show. It is shown early evening on a Saturday, which is a kid's slot. Or rather a family slot, so it is assumed kids will be watching but that might be with their parents.

Ideas like the farting Slitheen, dinosaurs, Daleks v. Cybermen, the Titanic crashing into the Tardis, and most recently the elephant on the ice, are very much pitched at kids.

The youth of the overwhelming majority of the companions is to help kids have a pair of young (and generally rather uninformed) eyes to see the Doctor through and ask the questions they would ask.

The amount of running around (slightly reduced since Capaldi took over because of his age) is aimed at kids.

The fact the Doctor never uses guns and scorns those who do is a message aimed at kids.

Can't think of any more for the moment, but overall it is talked about as a kids' show and assumed that every child will start watching it once they are old enough. My nephew is nearly 9 and he has just started.

From:

shadowkat

This is interesting. Read some of the comments above yours. Specifically cjlasky.

The American experience of the series is very different. We haven't seen it as a kid's show, since maybe the very first season, which most Americans never had access to. We got the series in the 1970s with the Fourth Doctor, and it was the weird British show on PBS.

I also think we may have more definitive children's programming than the you do, do to the Children's Television Act, which required it during the 60s-90s. I mean we had kid's sci-fi shows on Saturday mornings, but they were far more kid-centric than Doctor Who, more like the Sarah Jane Adventures, with kids in the cast and leads.

Interesting cultural difference/perspective.

From:

ex_peasant441

One relevant factor is how few channels we have compared to you. Until about 2000 there were only four channels, apart from Sky, which is a subscription-only satellite broadcaster. Then they launched the Freeview digital channels, which included a couple of dedicated channels for children's programmes. So when the new Doctor Who launched in 2005 the idea of children's programmes being on a separate channel was only in its infancy and 'normal' children's TV was still on the four main channels, only differentiated by time slot.

It was therefore natural to give Doctor Who the coveted 'Saturday teatime' slot on BBC1 (BBC1 is channel #1 on all British sets). That slot means not just children but also family viewing and bored older people without children who have happen to have nothing to do on an early Saturday evening. Add in the adults who tuned in because they have happy memories of the show from their own childhood and you actually get a very mixed audience.

But, as I think said somewhere else, it isn't culturally acceptable for an adult to admit they watch sci-fi so it is always described as a kid's show. However, it remains the only home-grown sci-fi or fantasy show that normal adults do sometimes watch without the cover of watching it with children, although most of them will be very, very shy about admitting it. The only other shows to break through that barrier are Game of Thrones and Lost, both of which are clearly adult shows to the British mind.

If Doctor Who was a new programme today, it would probably be relegated to the kids' channels and no adult would even know it existed. And then it would be more obviously for children.

From:

shadowkat

Wow, the cultural differences in your post abound...

But, as I think said somewhere else, it isn't culturally acceptable for an adult to admit they watch sci-fi so it is always described as a kid's show.

Here, it's been culturally acceptable since the 1950s. My grandfather loved Sci-Fi. We also have the Hugos. And sci-fi has won awards and been a huge industry. Just look at Star Wars -- which was directed towards kids, and in some respects is more kid oriented than Doctor Who, not as convoluted.

This blows my mind, because an online friend's husband is going to the UK for a Ph'd in Science Fiction Studies at the Center for Sci-Fi Studies in Cambridge. We don't have that here. So...

From:

ex_peasant441

Well, I think I had better qualify my statement before other Brits come charging in and contradict me.

Firstly, it isn't acceptable in my class and social circle. It is possible there are other classes and social sub-groups out there where it is more acceptable. But in my social group I only admit I am a fan to my very closest friends and they treat me with tolerant scorn as a lovable eccentric.

Secondly, it is in fact a little more socially acceptable than it used to be say ten years ago. For example the other day there was a photo in the paper which was just captioned 'fans dressed in costume at the London Comic Convention'. It was admittedly in the position they usually reserve for pictures of exotic wildlife or bizarre weather phenomena, but that is still progress. Because a few years ago the only mention of fans would have been an article with a title like 'The Sub-Culture In The Basement' which would basically have been an intrepid reporter filing an anthropological report such as a Victorian explorer might have sent back about a newly discovered Amazonian tribe. About the same level of sexual prurience as well. And ten years before that nobody outside said basements knew fandom existed.

So I grew up in a respectable rural place and had no idea comics or fanfic or conventions or any of the rest of it existed. My obsessing was done entirely solo.

going to the UK for a Ph'd in Science Fiction Studies at the Center for Sci-Fi Studies in Cambridge
That is cool. Academia is different of course, they can study anything they like. Also Cambridge is part of a different country comprising London, Cambridge, Bristol and a small patch of Brighton - they have very little in common with the rest of us.

From:

cjlasky7

It blows my mind that there is a reluctance to "out" yourself as a grownup sci-fi fan in certain segments of British society, when I have spent most of my adult life as a huge fan of BRITISH sci-fi.

Along with Doctor Who and its various spinoffs, I've devoured Red Dwarf, Blake's 7, the Quatermass trilogy, Douglas Adams, the novels of John Wyndham (The Midwich Cuckoos & Day of the Triffids), the movies based on those novels--not to mention Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's salute to Wyndham in World's End....

England is where you find the COOL SciFi!

Edited Date: 2017-06-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

From:

ex_peasant441

Maybe the fact it isn't really socially acceptable plays into how we write it? Certainly things like the Doctor Who episode Love and Monsters come out of it. And part of why Red Dwarf is funny is that it is poking fun at space opera tropes because everyone watching knows that sci-fi is really about a bunch of messy inadequates without proper friends who end up trapped with one another by default. Red Dwarf is basically the audience looking at itself.

From:

shadowkat

Red Dwarf = Big Bang Theory.

It's a stereotype though. In reality, most sci-fi fans I've met are pretty much like everyone else.

From:

ex_peasant441

I like Big Bang Theory! But I watch it through the lens of having a father who is a scientist and fits pretty much all the clichés except the ones about being fannish. I guess that might be a generational thing.

most sci-fi fans I've met are pretty much like everyone else
Whereas for me they are very much a different tribe to my RL friends. Their outlook on pretty much everything is just different. This is part of why I don't always feel I fit in fandom.

From:

shadowkat

I've been fortunate in that I've mixed with a wide variety of people and lived in various places throughout my lifetime. So, I've known people who don't like sci-fi or fantasy. My grandmother didn't. And various people I've met here and there. One friend only liked literary, and would enjoy the occasional film. And one book club I was in -- didn't like it at all, and tended to see everything from a religious perspective. There was another book club that I was in for a while that loved genre, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.

While an undergrad -- I was doing my thesis on Ulysses and Sound & the Fury, while the guy next to me was doing his on Dark Knight Returns, and various graphic novels and action comics, regarding the death of the superhero in the modern age. And one of my courses in college - - was contemporary science fiction, we read William Gibson's Neuromancer. It was a small private College in a small town in Colorado. Where I met people from small towns that loved comics and sci-fi.

But there were also people who preferred 19th Century literature and wouldn't read anything published after 1950.

I had to go online to discuss Buffy, because no one I knew watched or liked it. Most people prefer to discuss sports teams to television shows...it's easier, I think?

From:

shadowkat

Oh, forgot....the guy who was doing his thesis on Dark Knight returns (batman), The Watchmen, and the death of the superhero in comics, looked like Spike. He had a black leather jacket, black boots, an earring in his ear, white blond curly hair...and a California accent. It was the 1980s, the Billy Idol look was in back then.

And my Aunt's boyfriend when I was a little kid, also looked like Spike, blond hair, earring, leather jacket...it was the 1970s, also in back then.

From:

ex_peasant441

looked like Spike. He had a black leather jacket, black boots, an earring in his ear, white blond curly hair...and a California accent.

Ha ha.

Looking back it is easy to forget how different Spike was. I know there were a few precedents for modern vampires in things like The Lost Boys, but the basic default idea of a vampire was still velvet and long hair. So I find I am slightly disappointed to discover his look was a generic one. ;)

From:

shadowkat

Whereas for me they are very much a different tribe to my RL friends. Their outlook on pretty much everything is just different. This is part of why I don't always feel I fit in fandom.

Feel much that way myself at times, for all I stated above, I admittedly know few people outside of the DW friends or online that are interested in this stuff.

And I live in NYC.

It's why I went online -- to find people who were like-minded that enjoyed the same off-beat stuff I did. But I've never gone to a con, or really participated in fandom to the degree most have. Wrote very little fanfic for example -- mostly meta.

From:

ex_peasant441

But I've never gone to a con, or really participated in fandom to the degree most have. Wrote very little fanfic for example -- mostly meta.

The only cons I've been to were some of the very small UK ones. Never more than 20-30 people, most of whom I already knew online. They were fun, but after a few times the RL differences between us were too strident so I doubt I'll go back again.

From:

shadowkat

I just despise crowds and that's what conventions pretty much are -- crowds of people.

From:

cjlasky7

"Love and Monsters" was definitely about DW fandom, but I think that's a very specific case. I classify Red Dwarf in the same category as the Hitchhiker novels, i.e., cosmic-level absurdism.

Dave Lister isn't so much a nerd as a layabout, drifting without motivation or purpose. So whether he's hanging out in a pub with the rest of humanity's layabouts, or hanging out with Kryten, Cat and HoloRimmer 3 million years in the future, it's all pretty much the same: what's the point of it all? What do I do next?

At their best, the Grant/Naylor team shared Douglas Adams' rare gift of rendering the terrifying randomness and absurdity of the universe in a way that almost brightens your spirits as you slowly work your way toward the void. You Brits are good at that...

From:

ex_peasant441

I classify Red Dwarf in the same category as the Hitchhiker novels, i.e., cosmic-level absurdism.
Ha ha, yes.

At their best, the Grant/Naylor team shared Douglas Adams' rare gift of rendering the terrifying randomness and absurdity of the universe in a way that almost brightens your spirits as you slowly work your way toward the void. You Brits are good at that...
It's because all the people who found the randomness and absurdity frustrating emigrated centuries ago. The modern native Brit is descended from a long line of people who didn't get up and go, either because they were doing very nicely or because they didn't give a toss.

From:

jesuswasbatman

I suspect that Red Dwarf got made because BBC executives thought of it as a parody of how stupid and pathetic SF works and fans were, as opposed to Grant Naylor. This was the generation of BBC leadership that cancelled Doctor Who and hardly made any more SF or fantasy (apart from the odd technothriller or work of magic realism where the fantasy elements could easily be written off as imagination, coincidence, or delusion) until the 21st century, largely because they despised the genre.

From:

cjlasky7

But the series' respect for classic SF (in the service of comedy, of course) is exactly why Red Dwarf worked, and why it's still going. (BBC America isn't showing the new eps over here. Are they any good?)

Finding the right mix of fantastical and funny while staying true to the characters is extremely difficult. Americans have tried to do sci-fi comedies for generations; Futurama and Galaxy Quest are probably the only watchable output.

Edited Date: 2017-06-08 01:46 pm (UTC)

From:

jesuswasbatman

I watched the first few seasons of Red Dwarf but haven't seen the most recent ones.

From:

shadowkat

Apparently, we're trying again, with Orvill by Seth McFarland, which is also a satire, homage to Star Trek.

We have managed it with novels, John Scalzi comes to mind.

From:

cjlasky7

Don't know Scalzi. Gonna have to check him out.

Can't believe I forgot Rick and Morty! Very funny, but plunges deeper into existential terror than almost anything else in the subgenre.

Trailers for The Orville look promising, but Seth is notoriously hit or miss. We'll see.

Edited Date: 2017-06-08 06:00 pm (UTC)

From:

shadowkat

I liked Scalzi's RedShirts and Vonnegurt's Slaughter-House Five better than Addams.

Read one right after the other this year.

From:

shadowkat

Oh, Cultural snobbery exists in the US as well.

Mainstream (by the way the correct terminology is not normal, but mainstream) folks don't get certain things that are off the beaten track.

Edited Date: 2017-06-06 11:05 pm (UTC)

From:

ex_peasant441

by the way the correct terminology is not normal, but mainstream

Ha ha. I will consider myself duly corrected :D

From:

yourlibrarian

So, Sense8 does end on a big cliffhanger plot-wise, in that both seasons have been building up to a certain event which finally occurs. And I actually found large segments of S1 too slow. However, it's unlike most other stuff on TV in a number of ways; other people have clearly not found it as uneven as I have; and I did enjoy S2 and found it a distinct improvement and am sorry to hear about the cancellation. So my recommendation is that it's worth checking out regardless. If it turns out it really grabs you then despite the ending you'll probably feel it was worth watching.

From:

shadowkat

Thanks! I may try a five episodes, that's usually what I try to do. Although if it doesn't hold my interest after 20 minutes, I've been known to skip it.

From:

jesuswasbatman

As other people have said, Doctor Who is thought of as an all-ages show in Britain, although I think the current series is too frightening for very small children. I think Moffat himself has said that it's for everyone from slightly older children up.

One interesting thing to me is that during the original 1960s-1980s era there were very regular controversies about Doctor Who being too violent or too frightening for children, especially during the show's more grimdark eras under Hinchcliff and Holmes in the mid-70s or Eric Saward in the mid-80s. There's been nothing of the kind this century even after some quite horrific episodes.

From:

shadowkat

Thank you. I asked the same question on FB, and a couple of people with young kids or who have worked a lot with young children, came back and said that they felt it was inappropriate for children under the age of 14.

during the original 1960s-1980s era there were very regular controversies about Doctor Who being too violent or too frightening for children, especially during the show's more grimdark eras under Hinchcliff and Holmes in the mid-70s or Eric Saward in the mid-80s. There's been nothing of the kind this century even after some quite horrific episodes.There's been nothing of the kind this century even after some quite horrific episodes.

Interesting. That's true here as well. There's a lot of insanely violent kids television series on, but people only get upset over "sexual" content, and/or "anti-religious" content.

Also the Children's Television Act, as cactuswatcher noted has basically gone by the wayside, so you can only really get good children's programming in the US on PBS, and cable channels.

from a curious soul

If only I could do a poll...

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