Who’s Watching TV with Americans
This year’s run of new Doctor Who episodes started last Saturday with ‘The Bells of Saint John’. G wanted to watch it with me not because she was particularly interested but because she wanted an early night and British voices make her sleepy. I expected questions to come thick and fast about the mystery identity of The Doctor’s new companion, Clara, and had prepared numerous explanations. But the first question G asked me would remain unanswered:
G: Why is he called Doctor Who?
T: Exactly. Nobody knows who he is.
G: That’s smart. You guys are smart like that.
‘I’ve just come from The Great British Menu Comic Relief banquet’
In fact, all G’s questions struck at the heart of the show. They also reminded me how much the idea of the programme has been perverted since the 2005 re-launch. After seeing The Doctor ride an anti-gravitational bike up a skyscraper, she quite reasonably asked:
G: So is Doctor Who like Superman? Do people on earth know who he is?
T: He’s supposed to be a stranger to everyone he meets. But in the last few years they’ve made him a legend so now everybody’s heard of him.
Once the flirting between The Doctor and Clara was in full swing, she asked me:
G: Isn’t The Doctor supposed to be asexual?
T: He used to be but when the show came back he was in love with his first companion and now there’s always a chance they’re more than friends.
The greatest show on the Gogglebox!
G was impressed with the TARDIS, or more accurately the fantasy of never having to wait for breakfast again. And it didn’t take her long to figure out the shortcomings of Steven Moffat as a writer:
G: So they just press ‘System Restore’ and it all goes back to normal? Why didn’t he hit them with an online virus? It took about 10 hours to get going and then in 5 seconds it’s all over.
Saving the world by turning it off and on again.
Once it was over:
G: That was…good.
T: I thought it was dull.
G: Good I agree. It should be more like the sea serpent one.
T: The what?
G: The one we watched with the sea serpents…in Venice.
So G already knows Steven Moffat is a hack and ‘Vampires of Venice’ is a great episode. Where did I go right?
Watching TV with Americans 
April 3, 2013 at 17:16
I enjoyed it – but there were some massive plot holes. I felt like a third of it had been removed towards the end. There was one line in particular that referred to a scene that had been cut – or it seemed that way. And as J said: for such a secretive company, why did they let their employees use Facebook?! I felt like this episode was aimed much more at my eight year old nephew than a family /all ages audience. He would love that flying motorbike and the robot people without question.