Visit the official Doctor Who website

Visit the official Doctor Who website
Look to the future

Asylum seekers...

Asylum seekers...
Refuge of the Daleks

Doctor Who picture resource

Doctor Who picture resource
Roam the space lanes!

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website
Step back in time

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood
Armed and extremely dangerous

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures
Fearless in the face of adversity

Call on Dani’s House

Call on Dani’s House
Harmer’s a charmer

Intercept the UFO fabsite

Intercept the UFO fabsite
Defending the Earth against alien invaders!

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse
Programmable agent Echo exposed!

Hell’s belles

Hell’s belles
Naughty but nice

Love Exposure

Love Exposure
Flash photography!

Primeval portal

Primeval portal
Dressed to kill or damsels in distress?

Charmed, to be sure!

Charmed, to be sure!
The witches of San Francisco

Take on t.A.T.u.

Take on t.A.T.u.
All the way from Moscow

Proceed to the Luther website

Proceed to the Luther website
John and Jenny discuss their next move

DCI Banks is on the case

DCI Banks is on the case
You can bet on it!

On The Grid with Spooks

On The Grid with Spooks
Secret agents of Section D

Bridge to Hustle

Bridge to Hustle
Shady characters

Life on Ashes To Ashes

Life on Ashes To Ashes
Coppers with a chequered past

Claire’s no Exile

Claire’s no Exile
Goose steps

Vexed is back on the beat!

Vexed is back on the beat!
Mismatched DI Armstrong and bright fast-tracker Georgina Dixon

Medium, both super and natural

Medium, both super and natural
Open the door to your dreams

Who’s that girl? (350-picture Slideshow)

Monday, 12 March 2007

When Nancy Upset Bill!



Everybody who saw her, everywhere, remembers Nicola Bryant’s opening episode, as American botany student Peri Brown, in “Doctor Who”! And quite right, too!! It’s recently come to light that an “inappropriate” underwater scene involving Freema Agyeman stripping down to her underwear has been cut from the new series. It might have been better, and more professional unless trying to elicit a little extra publicity, had David Tennant not mentioned it in the first place, then fans would’ve been none the wiser. As it is, many feel we’ll be missing out on something or other! Removing one’s clothes to go in the water sounds perfectly reasonable to me!! It does rather smack of double standards, though, when you consider there have been innumerable occasions, in the last couple of years, when inappropriate dialogue has been broadcast in the programme. God forbid “Doctor Who” should ever resort to the language of all-time greatest TV drama “The Sopranos”! So, is seeing a pretty girl in a bikini or in her underwear really so upsetting? Is visual really more offensive than verbal?

I’d like to spotlight three different instances of such inapposite discourse, in the first season alone, and unfortunately in its three best stories, which I would’ve script-edited out to make the show more suitable for a family audience. The three offending examples are 1) Rose accusing undertaker Gabriel Sneed of groping her while presumed unconscious, in “The Unquiet Dead”, 2) Henry van Statten’s supposedly throwaway line suggesting Adam and Rose indulge in a spot of spooning, in “Dalek”, and 3) Nancy’s threats of blackmail to family-man-and-homeowner Mr Lloyd over homosexual adultery (with the butcher!) in order that he might acquire black market produce during a time of war-induced austerity, in “The Doctor Dances”. Imagine the confusing messages the latter, quite complex, example gives to young children, always assuming said children are paying attention - which you have to assume they are.

Supposedly ace-writer Steven Moffat wrote the third example, unless Russell T Davies added it at a later stage, and it’s by far the worst example in season one. I don’t think Steven intended Nancy to come across as a nasty piece of work but here she is just as amoral as Lloyd, he not because of his homosexuality (although, being illegal at this time in history, it would’ve generally been regarded as such) but because of his infidelity, trading sex for culinary favours, of all things! It’s almost as though Moffat is deliberately trying to provoke and shock a conservative audience by compounding the deceit when all he achieves is to leave a bad taste in the mouth and spoil an otherwise interesting story. All three offending examples are about the personal and thus totally parochial and pedestrian. Classic “Doctor Who” was about universals, and better for it. Much better. None of these three illustrations bother me, as such. Moffat’s would certainly not be out of place in an adult drama such as “Queer as Folk”, or something similar. I just feel sympathetic to any parent trying to explain any, or all, of these ideas to their eight-year olds!!!

“Doctor Who” is lauded as a family show. The BBC keep banging on about how “Doctor Who” has revived family viewing, early evening, on Saturdays. It’s easy to rewrite the aforementioned examples out of a final script before production even begins. Why did the writers even think of including them in the first place? As the scribes that create our favourite show weren’t able to think of anything more suitable, all it displays is a severe lack of imagination. I recently read a letter describing new “Doctor Who” as smug and I thought the writer had a point. To be frank, if it’s perceived as OK to repeatedly include adult sexual inferences and connotations in oh-so-with-it and trendily-modern “Doctor Who”, then why are its producers so frightened about putting the fear factor back into the programme too? Instead of concerning ourselves with domestic issues, which every other show already does amply well, let’s escape from the “real” world for forty-five minutes a week and inappropriately “scare the kids shitless” just like Robert Holmes used to do!

5 comments:

david santos said...

Hello, Timewarden!
Rhis work is very, very nice, thank you
have nice wkend

Steve said...

Having a young son who is an avid fan of new Doctor Who I have to say that in terms of dialogue based innuendo and sexual allusions, all of it goes completely over his head. Like most kids he's primarily visually driven. Despite that I don't particularly think he'd be harmed by seeing someone in a bikini on TV. He's more interested in the monsters, aliens and the action sequences. Unless the actress was displaying a camel toe (excuse the phrase) I can't see what grounds the Beeb have got for removing the scene on the grounds of it being "inappropriate".

Definitely with you with regards the fear factor... let's big it up and make the ride a lot scarier. My boy would love it, for one.

TimeWarden said...

Hi, David. Thank you for the compliment and good wishes.

Steve, I suppose it probably depends on the child’s age. I have a ten-year old nephew who likes to “keep up” with “Big Brother”, and loves new “Who” too, but his conversation suggests he is already aware of concepts generally regarded as adult in nature!

The “Doctor Who” story which scares my nephew, because of its depiction of Satan, the Devil, Hell etc., are the only two episodes I feel are reasonably true to the original spirit of the programme. He says he won’t watch them again whereas they’re just about the only ones which retain my complete attention on repeated viewing!

Andrew Glazebrook said...

It's a sham of a sham !! They'll be cutting the scene of Ace's stocking top out of Curse of Fenric next !! They better not try and recall my DVD though ! :)
I used to be scared to hell of Doctor Who when I was a kid, I remember waking up with a nightmare in 1973 and thought I had the green death !!

TimeWarden said...

“The Curse of Fenric” is “Doctor Who” at its absolute best, my favourite McCoy story, and I, too, would be disappointed to lose access to Sophie’s stocking top, as she clambers down the outside of the church! “We play the contest again… Time Lord!”