Re: The Wisdom of Mrs Blueshirt

Blueshirt brought us his wife’s brilliance:

 
Mrs Blueshirt: "Doctor Who has always been silly."
 
<picks up the cups and plates then walks out of the room.>
 

She’s right, of course. Doctor Who has always been silly, but in a good way
and that’s why we love it.

The trouble is, DW’s no longer doing it in a good way.

It’s hard to explain, so let’s park that and come at it from a
different angle.

Why was the original Airplane movie so much better than the
dozens of imitations it inspired? It wasn’t just all the silly jokes
but the way there was a real story hiding behind them. (Literally
a real story, taken from an old film called Zero Hour.) Without that
the jokes would’ve just seemed pointless.

Similarly, my favourite episodes of The Goes Wrong Show, and
the specials it spun-off from, are all based on real stories (Peter
Pan, A Christmas Carol, the Nativity) with a real plot and a
real emotional core.

Even the most popular episodes of The Goon Show are the
ones like Napoleon’s Piano and The Dreaded Batter Pudding
Hurdler, with a sort of plot to them, unlike episodes such as
Tiddlywinks which are just silliness for its own sake.

DW doesn’t need to ditch the silliness. It just needs to have
solid foundation of good storytelling for it to stand on.

--
solar penguin

PS. Yes, Holy Grail is better than Life of Brian, but that’s just
the exception that proves the rule.