TV series you used to love and now hate

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who is getting there thanks to full-on virtue signaling, post-modernist, identity politics replacing drama and good storytelling more often than not. The last two parter was solid if not for that I would say definitely yes about the past two or three seasons. I am not extremely hopeful for the new season and the casting decision itself is not the problem though if the direction of the series is a clue they will mine it in the worst ways possible as a wink to its increasingly left-of-center, teen & adult audience. I think I watch it more as a completist - though from time to time it can surprise. My daughter is interested because of the casting decision though I really hope what they offer is an example of television appropriate for a 11 year old kid and not like spinoffs like Class or Torchwood which lose some of the fun of the original series adventurous nature with the characters relationships and story arcs as an allegory of some larger social issue rather than the plots moving to the fore.

Spinoffs are like this and the Fear the Walking Dead show quickly lost its appeal and I did not even bother with the most recent season.

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who is getting there thanks to full-on virtue signaling, post-modernist, identity politics replacing drama and good storytelling more often than not. The last two parter was solid if not for that I would say definitely yes about the past two or three seasons. I am not extremely hopeful for the new season and the casting decision itself is not the problem though if the direction of the series is a clue they will mine it in the worst ways possible as a wink to its increasingly left-of-center, teen & adult audience. I think I watch it more as a completist - though from time to time it can surprise. My daughter is interested because of the casting decision though I really hope what they offer is an example of television appropriate for a 11 year old kid and not like spinoffs like Class or Torchwood which lose some of the fun of the original series adventurous nature with the characters relationships and story arcs as an allegory of some larger social issue rather than the plots moving to the fore.

Spinoffs are like this and the Fear the Walking Dead show quickly lost its appeal and I did not even bother with the most recent season.

Yeah, I am also worried about Doctor Who as well. I will definitely give it a shot, but I am nervous that it will no longer be the same, or will try so hard to prove that a woman doctor is just the same/as good as a male doctor that it comes across poorly. If it works, I will be the first to come here and admit I was wrong. But I really am worried that Doctor Who will not be the same show I have really come to love these past number of years.

I am a classic series fan who likes the new series. I like Capaldi in the role of the Doctor and even Bill but did not like the story arc overall of the past two seasons apart from the penultimate setup stories that closed each season. Too much of a cop out and the politics got really heavy and uninteresting for a non-partisan such as myself. I am not a socialist but I really liked the Malcolm Hulke stories Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Ambassadors of Death - sort of anti-military, anti-bureaucracy view coming on strong in both of these stories with sympathetic people swayed by a cause they did not see the full intentions of. It fit very much into the civil libertarian, anti-authoritarian aspect of the show. The Sunmakers is a parody story and the single company world is a caricature from the start and is both a comment on capitalism/corporatism and the state/tax system. Thus it succeeds in keeping both the left and right wing in the story rather than leading them to shut down and dismiss the story as partisan political claptrap nonsense.

I don't see this cleverness in stories like Oxygen or Thin Ice which are slim on laughs and plot. If you can't have a great plot then at least be like Closing Time and bring some smiles. This is where I felt that Michelle Gomez in spite of the potentially hazardous plot concept of Missy/Master was good thanks to the actor's great rapport with the rest of the cast and her own natural sense of drama/humor. So I am not against change if the results come off good.

Unfortunately so many of the stories are heavy on allegory and symbolism for the new post-modern world: the Ice Warriors meet colonial British troops and have a female queen now - and the British capitulate to the female outsider rather than face destruction. The Zygons and humans are indistinguishable - you could be killing an alien invader or a local.

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who.

Do you still like the classic series? There are a number of classic series only fans out there.
Or people like me that like both but prefer the classic series....

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who.

What was the initial appeal of the show to you and where / how did it lose its way?

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who.

What was the initial appeal of the show to you and where / how did it lose its way?

I liked the formulaic looseness initially. But it wore out its welcome after a while. Also, the cheap effects don't hold up so well.

Obviously holding episodes from the 70's by today's standards is a tough one though certain stories suffer for them - some have other things to like from them like Invasion of the Dinosaurs with its crappy looking dinosaurs has a pretty solid conspiracy story with betrayal behind it while others like Underworld which has cartoonish masked villains and a general lack drama are severely lacking. Doctor Who from that era was immensely popular in the UK and of course for those in America from the 70's and 80's who predominantly started out with Tom Baker.

A major criticism of the John Nathan Turner era was the brightly lit sets that did little to hide the budget limitations of the show. I stopped watching as a child in Season 22 (the first Colin Baker - 6th Doctor era) and to my knowledge the local PBS did not air the remaining seasons' stories. Thus I have absolutely no nostalgic fondness for the later years of the original series run from 1986-89 that helped me overlook the gaps in production values for the 80's stories when Buck Rogers & Battlestar Galactica had already shown what TV sci fi could do with a decent budget.

There are some examples - notably in the Russell T Davies era (Doctor 9 & 10) of already dated CG too - The Lazarus Effect, Idiot's Lantern, The Satan Pit, School Reunion, The Unicorn and the Wasp, and a few others come to mind in terms of having CG that does not look very good now. Obviously others are quite good - like Human Nature, The Girl in the Fireplace, and Blink - and these seem to rely a bit less on large CG heavy scenes in general.

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who.

What was the initial appeal of the show to you and where / how did it lose its way?

I liked the formulaic looseness initially. But it wore out its welcome after a while. Also, the cheap effects don't hold up so well.

Obviously holding episodes from the 70's by today's standards is a tough one though certain stories suffer for them - some have other things to like from them like Invasion of the Dinosaurs with its crappy looking dinosaurs has a pretty solid conspiracy story with betrayal behind it while others like Underworld which has cartoonish masked villains and a general lack drama are severely lacking. Doctor Who from that era was immensely popular in the UK and of course for those in America from the 70's and 80's who predominantly started out with Tom Baker.

A major criticism of the John Nathan Turner era was the brightly lit sets that did little to hide the budget limitations of the show. I stopped watching as a child in Season 22 (the first Colin Baker - 6th Doctor era) and to my knowledge the local PBS did not air the remaining seasons' stories. Thus I have absolutely no nostalgic fondness for the later years of the original series run from 1986-89 that helped me overlook the gaps in production values for the 80's stories when Buck Rogers & Battlestar Galactica had already shown what TV sci fi could do with a decent budget.

There are some examples - notably in the Russell T Davies era (Doctor 9 & 10) of already dated CG too - The Lazarus Effect, Idiot's Lantern, The Satan Pit, School Reunion, The Unicorn and the Wasp, and a few others come to mind in terms of having CG that does not look very good now. Obviously others are quite good - like Human Nature, The Girl in the Fireplace, and Blink - and these seem to rely a bit less on large CG heavy scenes in general.

I've seen nothing before Eccleston's run as the Doctor. Made somewhere into David Tennant before I gave up.

Ah, a new series-only long lapsed fan - Tennant was last on the show in 2010 during the special episodes. It's been a while!

You never tried to watch any of the Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi stories out of curiosity? What filled the gap for you then after - anything sci-fi / fantasy genre?

[vanguard96]

@Vanguard: I went back to animation, Avatar: The Last Airbender returned with a sequel series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels ended being the best thing Star Wars, Gravity Falls happened too, and I could go on and on.

I figured if I'm gonna have mostly cartoony antics, at least let the world be visually stunning, have the characters do tthing Live Action can't do and cut back on the melodrama.


Back on topic, Supergirl is also a show I burned out on after 2nd season, though I've heard it pulled an Arrow, or as of late, Flash,so  I may look into it once my plate clears.

I see.
I don't watch many cartoons by choice though my daughter sometimes does - she's 11 but she's watched Avatar and Gravity Falls. Now that we have TV Japan she watches that channel's shows a lot with my wife - I will graze but not pay too much attention - maybe I am washing dishes listening to a podcast and Arashi's game show - which is pretty fun visually as a live action show with the obstacle courses and various physical challenges is on. The same channel has Chibi Maruko-chan and we may sometimes have that on during dinner - sort of carrying on a tradition my wife had of having the tv on during dinner when she was back at home in Japan.

[vanguard96]

Doctor Who is getting there thanks to full-on virtue signaling, post-modernist, identity politics replacing drama and good storytelling more often than not. The last two parter was solid if not for that I would say definitely yes about the past two or three seasons. I am not extremely hopeful for the new season and the casting decision itself is not the problem though if the direction of the series is a clue they will mine it in the worst ways possible as a wink to its increasingly left-of-center, teen & adult audience. I think I watch it more as a completist - though from time to time it can surprise. My daughter is interested because of the casting decision though I really hope what they offer is an example of television appropriate for a 11 year old kid and not like spinoffs like Class or Torchwood which lose some of the fun of the original series adventurous nature with the characters relationships and story arcs as an allegory of some larger social issue rather than the plots moving to the fore.

I'm still holding out hope for season 11. Somewhere inside of me hopes to believe that they chose Whittaker just because of her acting skills, and this is definitely a possibility, as she wasn't too bad in her run in Broadchurch.

There's an outside chance it could be really good. I've not entirely given up hope - though I obviously don't love the current state of the show relative to the classic series. Next month's Christmas Special will be the first teaser look. Last year's was pretty decent. However they are a bit atypical in tone and will have side characters sometimes and be overtly Christmas-y hence limiting the kinds of story lines. It will be quite a while for a standard episode.