Is nuWho too complicated for newbies?

[RoJoHen]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Well. I'll admit getting a bit lost in all the crack/silence/River/astronaut/eyepatch/etc/etc stuff and I'm not sure how much of it has really been fully answered and addressed.

That stuff made a whole lot more sense to me the second time around. The story still isn't over, though.

[Guy Gardener]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Well. I'll admit getting a bit lost in all the crack/silence/River/astronaut/eyepatch/etc/etc stuff and I'm not sure how much of it has really been fully answered and addressed.

Cracks = The TARDIS blew up just right to "shatter" the universe throughout all time and space. effect preceded and acceded cause.

Astronauts = the Silents forced a series of events (the space program) so that mankind would invent a scuba suit for them. This is what man came up with.

Eyepatch = Eyedrive. A lens that acts as external storage for your brain which retains information about the Silents for as long as you wearing it.

Etc = Fish taco

Etc = the Silence = religious order vs. The Silents = memory proof aliens. (BAH!) The Silents are members of the Silence.

[Cutter John]

I've gotten lost a time or two, for example during the Silence storyline, but I eventually figured out the basics after some thought, and perhaps a second or third viewing. Though I'm still a bit lost when it comes to River's timeline.

In the end though, I agree with what someone said earlier. I'll take a show that I have to think about over one that handholds me through the plot any day.

[Methos]

found it all pretty simple honestly...

So far we've had storylines stretching at most, 13 episodes or so... while that might be long or complicated for a modern audience, i've had no problems following it or understanding any of the storylines...

people complaining about Doctor Who story arcs being too long... pft... remember the 70's and 80's episodes? One story was between 4 to 6 episodes long... and an arc... Well, The Key to Time arc covered:

The Ribos Operation - 4 Episodes for one story
The Pirate Planet - 4 Episodes for one story
The Stones of Blood - 4 Episodes for one story
The Androids of Tara - 4 Episodes for one story
The Power of Kroll - 4 Episodes for one story
The Armageddon Factor - 6 Episodes for one story

And that was just one story arc... 26 episodes, so 2 new seasons worth of episodes, all continuing on from each other in one storyline... that was enjoyable and well written Who

M

[DWF]

The Key To Time was a good storyline but then nobody liked the idea of a season long stor arc at least they had the benefit of two those stories being written by Robert Holmes. But on the new show River's story arc was stretched out over four years, she'd be a hard character for a newbie to understand at least to me.

[Sindatur]

DWF wrote:

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The Key To Time was a good storyline but then nobody liked the idea of a season long stor arc at least they had the benefit of two those stories being written by Robert Holmes. But on the new show River's story arc was stretched out over four years, she'd be a hard character for a newbie to understand at least to me.

Eh, how do you explain The Master, who has a much, much longer Arc? Or Time Lords and Gallifrey? Or the Evolution of the Daleks. There's a rich history throughout, that could be summed up in a sentence or two, or could be discussed for an hour

[DWF]

Sindatur wrote:

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Eh, how do you explain The Master, who has a much, much longer Arc? Or Time Lords and Gallifrey? Or the Evolution of the Daleks. There's a rich history throughout, that could be summed up in a sentence or two, or could be discussed for an hour

Outside of the Master trilogy I'd hardly call any of those storyarcs. But with River it was known that she'd gone to prison for murder and it wasn't til the end of the last season that we learned the how and why. But with River since we didn't know much about her ourselves she was hard to understand while they were filling out her storyline to try and explain it to somebody else.

[wamdue]

Cant speak for the majority, but I was in the office on Monday, and a couple of the women I work with said they stopped watching "Asylum of the Daleks" as they found it confusing.

FFS the episode was not a confusing watch, I saved my review and comments for the people in the office who did watch the whole thing.

[MacLeod]

Sindatur wrote:

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Eh, how do you explain The Master, who has a much, much longer Arc? Or Time Lords and Gallifrey? Or the Evolution of the Daleks. There's a rich history throughout, that could be summed up in a sentence or two, or could be discussed for an hour

Agreed.

DWF wrote:

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The Key To Time was a good storyline but then nobody liked the idea of a season long stor arc at least they had the benefit of two those stories being written by Robert Holmes. But on the new show River's story arc was stretched out over four years, she'd be a hard character for a newbie to understand at least to me.

With regards to character arcs, to draw an anology. It's not the writers fault if you start reading a book in the middle and not at the start of the book.

It's not like DW isn't on near constant re-runs on either BBC Three and/or Watch. So

[DWF]

If a newbie finds the show too complicated I can't see them watching the repeats. One of the nice things about the old show's format was that they started a new story every few weeks and you didn't need to keep up an entire season.

[Sindatur]

DWF wrote:

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Outside of the Master trilogy I'd hardly call any of those storyarcs. But with River it was known that she'd gone to prison for murder and it wasn't til the end of the last season that we learned the how and why. But with River since we didn't know much about her ourselves she was hard to understand while they were filling out her storyline to try and explain it to somebody else.

There's callbacks all the time, the entirety of the Master's History is an arc, likewise with The Timelords, and the Time War with The Daleks, Rassilon....

My first Classic Who story was Tom Baker Robot, where he's Regenerating, then the next one was Logopolis, where he's Regenerating again, something with this much history, if you jump in, in the middle, you won't get every joke, but, you can ride along following it as best you can, and eventually become acclimated

[Guy Gardener]

In the final confidential last year, they flipped it, and told the story of River from River's linear perspective.

Which was odd.

[DWF]

Yeah my PBS station did something similar in that my first story was Robot and my second one was The Invasion Of Time, the beginning and the end of Time-Life's original package. But people are turing off the show bacause in their eyes it's too complicated, the webisodes aren't helping matters either.

[Sindatur]

DWF wrote:

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But people are turing off the show bacause in their eyes it's too complicated, the webisodes aren't helping matters either.

People keep saying that (We had this conversation last Series with both halves of it), but, the percentage of viewers isn't going down, in fact, BBCA viewers continue to increase. I think the Average American viewer is much more likely to think something is too complicated and be driven away then the average Brit.

Yes, Live viewership is down, for everything, because the face of Television is continuing to change to time-shifted viewing, but, the percentage of available audience isn't dropping, and ratings with time shifting included are not decreasing

[DWF]

Sindatur wrote:

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People keep saying that (We had this conversation last Series with both halves of it), but, the percentage of viewers isn't going down, in fact, BBCA viewers continue to increase. I think the Average American viewer is much more likely to think something is too complicated and be driven away then the average Brit.

Yes, Live viewership is down, for everything, because the face of Television is continuing to change to time-shifted viewing, but, the percentage of available audience isn't dropping, and ratings with time shifting included are not decreasing

Well we talking about newbies here I thought and I do think you're right about American audiences versus the British one. And I think it's hard for us to judge the effect of the recent series and it's character backstories on the newbies because we have no trouble understanding things now.