There is a line in an article (and I think it's Liz Sandifer, but I can't find it) where it's pointed out that 'Rose' [I think ] 'aggressively dates itself'. It stamps its currentness all over everything. And if you're going to use tv shows in a tv show, you may as well lean into it?
However, Sandifer does have interesting things to say about Bad Wolf & TV:
But it’s actually even stranger than it seems. It’s not just Doctor Who being a big deal - it’s the particular nature of what the deal was. “Bad Wolf,” after all, is as culty as cult can be - a bit of television designed only for obsessives. And not obsessives of the sort at whom Boom Town was aimed, but ones who are going to obsessively analyze episodes for fleeting lines and visuals. “Bad Wolf” was bait for cult television fans, and its emergence in the mainstream culture was in some ways a more definitive confirmation of Doctor Who’s arrival in that mainstream than the ratings themselves.
But a large part of this has been the way in which Doctor Who has found space in the mainstream. Doctor Who’s challenge, from day one, was to establish itself as something with more than a niche, cult appeal. And so every single episode has made sure to include something that feels unexpected within Doctor Who, but that is utterly normal by the standards of British television in 2005. Doctor Who reverted to what it began as - a show about strangeness lurking on the edges of mainstream culture. But even by those standards Bad Wolf and its profusion of reality TV and game shows is absolutely bizarre. It was possible to imagine Doctor Who as a successful television show - it had been before, after all. A stretch, perhaps, but possible. Imagining Davina McCall contributing to Doctor Who? Completely and utterly impossible.
And yet here we are. Much of this can be explained straightforwardly: Russell T Davies. Bad Wolf is, more than anything else in the entirety of his time on the series, seemingly a depiction of what the interior of Russell T Davies’s brain must look like. Davies is an absolutely voracious consumer of television. Just listen to him on the commentary track of this, as he enthuses passionately about the brilliance of The Weakest Link and its structure, and how hard it is to write good game show dialogue. Davies eats and breathes television, obsessing over its structure and rhythm like nobody else save, perhaps, for Julie Gardner. For him, Doctor Who has always existed in the context of everything else on television.
But that statement is more compelling than it sounds, and it’s what this episode exists to prove. Doctor Who is, after all, the only show on television where you could do a far future version of What Not To Wear with added dismemberment. All television exists in the context of other shows. Doctor Who is unique in existing in the context of the entirety of television. It’s the one show that can comment on absolutely anything else. That’s its power, and it’s a power that’s been steadily accumulated over the entirety of this season.
no subject
However, Sandifer does have interesting things to say about Bad Wolf & TV:
But it’s actually even stranger than it seems. It’s not just Doctor Who being a big deal - it’s the particular nature of what the deal was. “Bad Wolf,” after all, is as culty as cult can be - a bit of television designed only for obsessives. And not obsessives of the sort at whom Boom Town was aimed, but ones who are going to obsessively analyze episodes for fleeting lines and visuals. “Bad Wolf” was bait for cult television fans, and its emergence in the mainstream culture was in some ways a more definitive confirmation of Doctor Who’s arrival in that mainstream than the ratings themselves.
But a large part of this has been the way in which Doctor Who has found space in the mainstream. Doctor Who’s challenge, from day one, was to establish itself as something with more than a niche, cult appeal. And so every single episode has made sure to include something that feels unexpected within Doctor Who, but that is utterly normal by the standards of British television in 2005. Doctor Who reverted to what it began as - a show about strangeness lurking on the edges of mainstream culture. But even by those standards Bad Wolf and its profusion of reality TV and game shows is absolutely bizarre. It was possible to imagine Doctor Who as a successful television show - it had been before, after all. A stretch, perhaps, but possible. Imagining Davina McCall contributing to Doctor Who? Completely and utterly impossible.
And yet here we are. Much of this can be explained straightforwardly: Russell T Davies. Bad Wolf is, more than anything else in the entirety of his time on the series, seemingly a depiction of what the interior of Russell T Davies’s brain must look like. Davies is an absolutely voracious consumer of television. Just listen to him on the commentary track of this, as he enthuses passionately about the brilliance of The Weakest Link and its structure, and how hard it is to write good game show dialogue. Davies eats and breathes television, obsessing over its structure and rhythm like nobody else save, perhaps, for Julie Gardner. For him, Doctor Who has always existed in the context of everything else on television.
But that statement is more compelling than it sounds, and it’s what this episode exists to prove. Doctor Who is, after all, the only show on television where you could do a far future version of What Not To Wear with added dismemberment. All television exists in the context of other shows. Doctor Who is unique in existing in the context of the entirety of television. It’s the one show that can comment on absolutely anything else. That’s its power, and it’s a power that’s been steadily accumulated over the entirety of this season.