Criticism and Doctor Who
Mark McCullough on criticising our favorite show.
The return of a new series to our screens mean a lot of things: new material to digest, new plot threads to speculate upon, and most importantly new episodes to enjoy. As fans of Doctor Who, this is generally one of the best times of the year for us, an early Christmas if you like, but which that spans an eleven week period. As fans the only certainty is that we all love Doctor Who, if you disagree with that statement I really do have to question why you are even reading this article. Our fandom is known for its passion to the show, but its more than that, there is a sense of unity too. We share a bond based on our favourite show.
Unfortunately there will be circumstances where members of our fandom are not as impressed with episodes as others seem to be. Is this a problem? Of course it’s not, it a stone cold fact with television, there will be episodes that you love, and there will be episodes which don’t quite sit with you as well as they perhaps could have. Then there’s the horrible situation where you just absolutely hate an episode: I’ve been there before, and I can tell that it is a truly horrible place to be. I can particularly emphasise with people who have this problem with series openers as it comes as an extra kick in the teeth following the long wait for new materials.
I think that it is our duty as fellow fans to be accepting towards someone who has had a less than satisfactory experience with an episode. What I say next isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, just a collection of personal anecdotes from a time where I actually struggled to enjoy the show that I loved. It is important to realise that when I don’t like an episode, there’s nothing you’re going to be able to tell me that will make me like it, especially in the period immediately after the episode where emotions run high. Occasionally you also see comments exclaiming how great the episode is and how the commenter cannot fathom how other cannot like the episode. I understand you adored the episode, but there are people who didn’t, and seeing a comment like that can be very alienating and make you question what you’ve missed out on. By far though the worst type of comments are the ones that tell you to stop being such a moan and to just enjoy the episode: What’s to gain from this type of comment? It’s demeaning and dismissive!
I guess what this all boils down to, is opinion, and the variability within. Different people sit down to watch an episode with Doctor Who with different expectations in mind. I do think that appreciation of this fact might be an area in which the fans of the show can improve. We all love Doctor Who, that’s an undisputable fact. Just because we love the show doesn’t mean that we are guaranteed to love every episode. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on every episode that airs, and that means that they do have a right to criticise the episode. Of course I understand as much as anyone that none of us like to see something we loved getting criticised, of course the shields are going to be raised. But what we all need to understand is that these opinions are not an attack for an attacks sake, it comes from a genuine place, from someone who wanted the episode to succeed every bit as much as you.
Unfortunately this became apparent last week on Clint’s review on this site for The Magician’s Apprentice. Personally I think Clint is an excellent reviewer and I love his analytical style often pointing out things that I hadn’t noticed. This in itself emphasises my point earlier about how people watch episodes differently, some of the things which bothered Clint (while perfectly valid points, many of which I agreed with) didn’t impact my enjoyment of the episode. Yet for some reason people thought that because Clint had criticised the episode, this entitled them to attack him for not sharing their view of the episode. To put it bluntly, if you have come looking for some gushing over how great the episode was, you’re best off sticking with the comments on rate and discuss. If you can’t handle criticism of an episode, reading a review of it might not be the best thing to do. Of course there’s the other issue of people not even bothering to read the review before launching an attack at the author which is even more disrespectful, but that’s another issue.
I would say in general, but that is unfair to the commenters who are very good about this sort of thing, there is a view that criticism of an episode is a bad thing. I really don’t think it is! I don’t think it’s good enough to watch an episode and decide that it was great, that’s a casual viewers approach. Someone who loves the show will question why it was great, what made this episode stand out from the others. Likewise it’s not enough to just accept that an episode was not as good as its potential might have been, so therefore finding criticisms is essential. For me Kill the Moon is an exceptional example of this process, I’ve switched opinions so many times and have essentially analysed it death before finally deciding it was better than I gave it credit for initially.
To conclude, I think we need to expel the notion that there are members of the community who want the show to fail so they can laugh about it in reviews/comments. We all want the show to be the best it can be, but sometimes we have to face the fact that it isn’t. Criticism of episode provides a vital role in bettering the show, and actually affirming the opinions of others. This has turned out a bit more of a lecture than I intended it, but it is an important topic that I feel needed to be addressed before the next set of reviews/comments this weekend. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of the fact that people have opinions, and as fellow fans (and human being) we have a duty to respect these and encourage them. We should also be careful of how our comments may be read by someone who didn’t share are views on the episode. Feel free to criticise anything thing in this article below, but I would hope you all agree with the content. I’ll leave you on this quote which fits the theme perfectly:
“To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one’s own.” – Henry James
