Is Dr Who suitable for tea time family viewing

Greg Barker

Is Dr. Who suitable for tea time family viewing?

NOTE FOR PARENTS: This is one of the scariest episodes of Doctor Who yet. The whole family agree that it is simply brilliant, and all four Fear Forecasters really enjoyed being so frightened while watching it together with mum and dad. The parents suggest that, if you're concerned, then tape the episode, and watch it with children during the daytime, or, at least, a long time before bedtime.

This warning was displayed on the official Doctor Who website. This episode, Blink, was also given a fear factor rating of 5.5. This was the highest ever rating for an episode of Doctor Who ever. The only other episode to come near that was Impossible Planet, which received a rating of 5.Dr Who is a family TV show based around a time travelling man. It originally started in 1963 before being cancelled in 1989 due to low viewing figures. Dr Who was revived in 2005 by Russell T. Davies.When he revived it, he promised to stick with the same, good guys never die, attitude. In Dr Who, none of the main characters actually killed off, usually they leave the Doctor or go missing, they never actually die onscreen. In this episode none of the main characters are actually seen to be killed but they do die from natural caused as an indirect effect of the bad guys.In the episode, a girl called Sally Sparrow goes to an old house. At that house she discovers writing on a wall talking about her that was written some 30 years earlier. It talks about the weeping angels, which are aliens, that when someone looks at them, turn into stone statues. They cannot look at each other.They transport people back in time and feed off their potential energy. Her friend gets transported back to the early 1900s. Sally later discovers the Doctor is trapped in the 70s and he needs her help to get back. She encounters and escapes from the angels many times in the episode with help of another friend, this time a man. The episode builds up to a climax in the house in which they are trapped by the angels. The doctor tricks the angels into looking at each other, saving Sally.This episode preys on childrens fears. It makes great use of fears such as, haunted houses, fear of death, fear of the dark, fear of not being able to see whats happening.The enemies cannot be killed making them even scarier. The episode makes good use of camera angles and SFX. They are used a lot to help portray the feelings of fear and helplessness. During the climax in the old house the music features a lot of screeching violin sounds to help build up tension and during the climax it is very fast with lots of dissonant intervals. The cameras, lighting and set are also used a lot. The camera helps to show the power of the statues by showing the main characters from their points of view, with the statues looking down on the good guys, making them look inferior and powerless. It then also cuts to the main characters view of the statues, looking up at them and seeing the very scary looks on their faces. The production crew also make use of fast camera cuts to build up a frantic sense of terror and helplessness during the climax, showing panic, no escape, no hope in a situation which would seem impossible to escape. The set is also designed to the same effect, with the main scene being an old, dusty mansion full of cobwebs and broken wndows. In the penultimate scene when they go down into the cellar, the bare, flickering light also adds to the fear.The original Dr Who was designed to be scary to young children and that has been a major part of it since it began, by removing fear from it you would be removing one of the basic pillars of Dr Who. Some people may say that this particular episode takes the fear too far by praying on the childrens fears to such an extent, but how much is too far? I certainly dont think this much is too far for the following reasons:

We should ask ourselves what rating this would be given if shown in a cinema. If it was me deciding I would give it a U, or at maximum a PG as it does not have any violence, language, nudity, drug abuse etc. This would make it acceptable, by TV standards, to be shown at the time it was shown, as many films of PG rating are shown during the day and evening. If it wasnt it would also probably eliminate a large number of its target audience from watching it. The moderators who decided on the showing would have thought exactly like this and probably come to the same conclusion as me. By exposing children to fear like this, one that has nothing too traumatising, it helps them to learn that life is never perfect, and you can never tell what will happen next. It is much better to show them this non-violent, non-graphic show with a happy ending than to show them something gruesome and gory with an ending in which all the characters die a slow, painful and gruesome death.

All in all, I think it is good that the show was broadcast at this time, as it exposes them to something they should be exposed to. A harmless, healthy fear.