I said in class on Wednesday that I don’t think Doctor Who would fly on American TV, especially American network TV. I had a hard time putting a finger on exactly why I thought that was, but I think an important element of it is the tone of the show.
The tone of Doctor Who is hard to put a nail on precisely as it tends to be quite mercurial from episode to episode. However, I think the show does an excellent job of mixing camp, grit and sentimentality to create a compelling story, well-developed characters and a vast range of narrative options. “Blink” and “Vincent and the Doctor” may not be the best examples of it, but any show that centers its action on fighting aliens and other extraterrestrial creatures has a serious element of camp to it. This is likely greatly rooted in the series’ history as a children’s or family TV show, but even now in its more sophisticated form, a viewer must buy in completely to the conceit that these bizarre aliens exist and that the Doctor must always defeat them, without ever killing them.
In America, that would work fine on a show strictly designed to entertain children. But add in the great and, one could argue, horror of an episode like “Blink” or the truly moving emotional arc of “Vincent and the Doctor” and suddenly, Doctor Who isn’t just playing for one target audience anymore.
I think it was Prof. Becker who said that American TV is much more niched than a show like Doctor Who is.
But even more than breaking the niche, I think most American audiences would have a hard time connecting with the camp of Doctor Who. When we have campy shows aimed at adults, we Archer, Arrested Development or maybe even It’s Always Sunny – campy but always cynical.
Doctor Who, on the other hand, asks the viewer to accept camp in order to be about something really good, be it the goodness of humanity or a heartfelt message about the uselessness of violence.
I think part of the reason I really like Doctor Who is because of just that – it’s a really compelling, well-made TV series that remains endlessly positive and makes one appreciate humanity rather than rolling eyes at it. And there really isn’t anything like that on American TV right now.
I think you make a really good point at the end about the positive outlook that the show maintains. Although darker subject matter is becoming more and more the norm in both film and television, I think that there will always be a place for the feel-good shows. I also see that there is definitely a bit of a gap right now that a show like Doctor Who could fill if given the chance. Doctor Who really does seem to embrace the human spirit, even in very sad cases (as seen in the Van Gogh episode), and then subsequently also causes the audience to explore the problems presented in each episode from that positive perspective.
Maija, I really agree with what you had to say about Dr. Who. I think when American’s watch TV, they do it for a clear-cut reason–they want serious drama (Breaking Bad,) feel-good comedy (Modern Family,) sassy scandals (True Blood.) Even when shows are genre-bending, such as True Blood, they still establish a tone between maybe two genres–True Blood is comedic in the sense it is cynical, while also being a fantasy-drama. Dr. Who, on the other hand, is EVERYTHING. It is campy, comedic, dramatic, science-ey, fantastical, historical, colorful. While this may fly in Britain, I think Americans want to compartmentalize their entertainment. Music? You watch Glee. Action? You would have watched 24. With all of the channel selections, American TV has become more and more specialized. Only in Britain can you find a mainstay classic like Dr. Who which does so much, yet appeals to so many.
Since the rest of our class wasn’t privy to our extremely energetic debate about how Who would fit in on American television, I feel okay basically saying the same thing on here.
Basically, we were talking about why there hadn’t been a Who adaptation in America, and decided one of the main factors is that it is so quintessentially British. It’s tied to the fabric and history of British television as well as the country itself. Recently there were a couple of episodes of Who set in America, and while it was the British actors and the British sensibility in the States and not an Americanized version, the episodes felt disjointed. I feel like Who is able to unite its British audience much easier than it would be able to an American audience – we’re about 87 times larger than the UK and have many more people who are all for niche TV – and I believe that’s one of the reasons the show is so classic and so enduring.
For anyone who is interested where our argument at home ended up… we decided that if Who were to be remade in the US, it would end up on Saturday morning kids TV or on Syfy, which is not the next AMC by any means, it’s EXTREMELY niche and the remake of the UK Being Human isn’t doing spectacularly. I don’t think either of those places would do Who justice.