Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Dr.... who?

Why didn't I watch this earlier?!  A shout-out to Maggie for her advice on approaching the show.  I'm glad you started me off with Matt Smith because that gave me a chance to fall in love with him before I met David Tennant.  I introduced my friend to "Dr. Who" and we're both hooked!  We just might spend our entire four-day on that!  It was interesting, however, that you introduced me to David Tennant through the "Blink" episode – not that I regret it – great episode.  But he hardly has a part in that episode.  Love him in it, all the same.  I just wondered if you had any particular reason for that.

My big conundrum is whether or not I should take it home to my family.  My youngest sister is twelve years old.  Being the youngest, she's been introduced to some strange things at perhaps an unprecedented age.  "Emergency!", "Adam 12", "Star Trek", "Star Wars", "Lord of the Rings", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", and on goes the list.  These shows and movies aren't that bad, really, but she got to watch them much younger than I did.  It's not jealousy I'm feeling – it's anxiety.  When I called home, I told my family that I had a new obsession that I wanted to surprise them with when I got home, but now I can't help but wonder if I should bring it home with me at all.  Most of the episodes don't contain a lick of anything "inappropriate" (btw, I've come to hate that word), but they're action packed and someone dies in every episode.  Sometimes the people who die are insignificant, but that's not the point.  The very word "insignificant" is terrible, and that's what I'm worried about.  I'm not worried that my sister will be bothered by what she sees, I'm worried that she won't be.  I'm concerned that she might be rather desensitized to some things that she shouldn't be.

The Doctor is generally a very moral character, for those of you who don't know him.  He values life beyond all else, often even risking his own life and convenience to give the villain a second chance.  Death is rarely something used disgustingly.  There's a lot of "Theology of the Body", as some I know would say.  Lots of people sacrifice themselves for others – sometimes to the death, sometimes not.  That's kind of the whole premise of the show, bravery in the face of treachery.

So I'm not concerned on moral grounds about sharing it with people.  I don't care if death bothers my sister.  It should.  It bothers me.  My friend and I both cringed through the first whole episode we watched together (which had an unusual number of deaths).  If the show bothers my sister, she probably just won't watch it, and that's perfectly fine.  The way I understand my sister, she's at a point where she won't watch stuff that bothers her – which is a perfectly good state of mind, and hopefully we all go through it at some point.  So what scares me about the possibility of bringing my new interest home with me is that she will watch it with me, and that death won't bother her; or if it does, it won't for long.

There's also the need for my family to like it, of course.  Whenever you introduce people you like to something you like, you hope and pray they get along; and it's a little sad when the people you like don't get as enthusiastic as you.  So far, all our recent "family obsessions" have been stuff that my parents were already familiar with.  Look over the list above – all stuff that came around during their youth (or before) and early adult years (for the most part).  But this is something new, something modern, something of my generation that I have to convince my parents to like.

Consider "The Princess Bride".  We would never, ever, ever, ever watch that movie if it came out today (not to mention that it'd probably be a whole lot more immoral, but forgetting that for the moment...).  But because the movie came out when my parents were kids, and it's funny, and it's somewhat infamous among a certain crowd of their generation, my siblings and I were allowed to watch it.  Find a comparable "modern" movie and no one in my family would even think to watch it.  We probably wouldn't even think to watch the "this generation" equivalent of "Back to the Future".  Things gain a certain amount of forgiveness with age.  It's immoral consequences are somewhat irrelevant because it's damage was done and now it's just there, as sort of a museum piece.

But that's just a long rampage.  I'm sure most of my family will like "Dr. Who".  There's just the uncertainty of human unpredictability which always exists.  ...Not sure that's an English sentence.  Is it possible to get across my meaning without the double negative?  Is it a double negative?  ...Well, you know what I mean.


~Meggy

For those who do know the Doctor, here's just a fun video that, if you haven't already seen, you have to see!
 
(Must watch in full screen!)

4 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, Doctor Who is one of my new favorite shows! Have you seen any epsidoes with Matt Smith? I really like David Tennant but...Matt Smith was the one I was introduced to first so I suppose he has the dearest place in my heart.

    I know exactly what you're talking about with younger siblings, that's been my difficulty too. I mean, gracious, I didn't see Lord of the Rings till after I had read the books when I was quite a bit older than my next brother (who of course wanted to see it as soon as I had described how much I loved it)

    I tend to pick out which episodes I'm going to share with my younger siblings carefully. I wouldn't let any of them see the ones with say the weeping angels (eek) but I don't mind them seeing the ones with say the daleks. Well, specific ones with the daleks.

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    1. Oh, yes, I love Matt Smith! But I personally feel that David Tennant is cuter. XD

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  2. David Tennant is the epitome of adorableness. The end.

    Anyway, I just wanted to say that for some reason, most Whovians agree that Blink is the first episode to be shown to non-Whovians. I'm not sure exactly why...I think it has something to do with its being not so bizarre as some of the other ones. It's sort of a gentle introduction to the quirkiness and confusingness of some of the other ones. I dunno.

    I think a lot of the episodes do have some questionable moral situations (won't say more for fear of spoilers), but the thing is, the show is not realistic. It's about aliens and a box that's bigger on the inside and flies through space and time, for heaven's sake. It's not something you apply to real life, though I must say that the Doctor made me try to be more creative in solving problems. :p

    Welcome to the fandom. You'll never get out. ;)

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    1. Oh, I have no intention of getting out of the fandom!

      I'm usually impressed with the way moral situations are handled though! (Usually) And it's not really the morals I'm concerned about. It's more like –
      The latest family obsession was Star Trek (original series). As we watched more and more of it, it occurred to me that there was some content in there that I don't want in there – and we're showing it to my twelve-year-old sister! But it's kind of too late to turn back now because it's not fair to stop us older kids from watching it, but it's not fair to prohibit her. I just don't want Dr. Who to become another show I regret. My sister is growing up in a good, strong home, but that doesn't mean she should be able to watch just anything. There are some things in Star Trek I don't ever want to see again and yet she's seeing it! Dr. Who actually isn't that bad, but it IS over the average twelve-year-old moral capacity. And I'm concerned that death and moral dilemmas won't perplex her as much as they do me because we let her watch this stuff at such an early age. That sort of thing isn't normal to me so it makes me think and contemplate. I'm concerned – maybe unreasonably – that because she's not growing up with the same formation, that she'll be lacking in key respects. Maybe I'm paranoid and reverting back to "when I was a little girl, we walked to school – uphill! both ways!" But it's still a reasonable concern I think.

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