{"id":191,"date":"2012-01-27T14:09:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T19:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/?p=191"},"modified":"2012-01-27T14:09:44","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T19:09:44","slug":"my-first-british-tv-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/?p=191","title":{"rendered":"My first British TV experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been closely following television since I was a freshman in high school, and have heard time and time again how good Doctor Wh<\/em>o is. I don’t know what kept me from checking it out, but I never actually saw an episode until earlier this year. Like Audrey, I took Professor Holland’s Shakespeare and Film class, so we watched the full episode of “The Shakespeare Code”. At the time, I remember thinking the show was good, but it\u00a0 didn’t quite live up to all the hype. However, after watching both “Blink” and “Vincent and the Doctor” I may have been a bit quick to dismiss it. I found “Blink” to be a legitimately creepy hour of television, and I thought “Vincent and the Doctor” was an example of a historical episode done right.<\/p>\n

One thing I found particularly impressive in both episodes was the creators’ ability to get me to care about a one-off character who realistically isn’t going to show up again. Both Sally Sparrow and Vincent van Gogh were the real stars of the episodes, and I felt just as much of a connection to them as I did to the Doctor and his companion. Obviously Sally was the star of her episode, but the combination of acting and writing for van Gogh’s character allowed him to really steal the show. The fact that I cared about his character made the ending all the more poignant and tragic.<\/p>\n

Like Maija, I’ve been trying to wrestle with why Doctor Who<\/em> wouldn’t appeal to an American audience (other than American audience’s natural ambivalence towards foreign entertainment). Even if the show were remade for an American audience, I don’t think the show would succeed, and that all comes down to its tone. Like it or not, Americans expect “quality” shows to be dark and depressing. All of the critical favorites, like Mad Men, Breaking Bad <\/em>or Homeland<\/em> deal with pretty dark stuff on a regular basis. The closest American equivalent I can think of for Doctor Who <\/em>is Parks and Recreation<\/em>, a show that is at its core very hopeful and fun, but\u00a0 the audience still has an emotional connection with the characters. Maybe I’m overthinking it; maybe all it boils down to Americans not being able to accept a sci-fi show that doesn’t take itself completely seriously. Either way, I look forward to catching up on the show on Netflix to see if\u00a0 I can figure it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been closely following television since I was a freshman in high school, and have heard time and time again how good Doctor Who is. I don’t know what kept me from checking it out, but I never actually saw … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/yankswatchingtelly\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}