Yawn

I think there’s a sense in the production that David Tennant isn’t as “heavyweight” as Christopher Eccleston, and so consequently nothing written for Tennant really has the weight or shadow of the first-season stuff. Tennant’s Doctor is, however, becoming ever more eccentric, if not just outright batshit

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Pure children’s television. Lili liked it.

It’s already fallen into rote, of course — the new... “Doctor Who girl”... has her own Wacky Family who will doubtless bore our tits off over the next two years like the last one did, and this year’s Famous Historical Personality episode is up next. But, you know, it’s a kid’s show, and kids like repetition.

-- Warren Ellis on Doctor Who Season 3.01

He's right, of course... and upon seeing Torchwood, I'm kind of glad they did keep it a children's show. Shame that Eccleston didn't stick around to let them grow the shadowy edges of the Doctor -- just look at his performance on Heroes and imagine what they could've done. The Doctor is alien and he should have an underlying menace -- we should see how far he's prepared to go, and not just see him threaten to go that far...

Then again, I'd cast Clive Owen as the Doctor and have him fist fight Daleks.

UPDATE

Despite being the token historical character episode, I rather enjoyed the playfulness of the second episode. They're still doing a bit of URST between the Doctor and his womanly friend. TYet this time round, it feels more sexual and, to be honest, more believable than the whole Rose-Doctor relationship of the first two seasons.

But nobody really wants to pay for it

The difference between creating something that people will actually leave their homes and travel to enjoy, and creating something that people have to make no effort at all to enjoy is vast and deep. Even television programs, which seem free, need to be good enough to sustain enough interest that you’re willing to sit through commercials.

YouTube has millions of users and millions of videos. But really…honestly…couldn’t you live without…all of it?

I would gladly agree to incinerate all of the content on YouTube in exchange for one more season of The Sopranos.

-- Craig Mazin on Why You Won't Get Paid Cause You Suck

Which is why government subsidised shit is still shit. Personally, I kind of like this conspiracy theory proposed on the comments within Craig's post:

strange how in a time when our government shows us that we have zilch power at all, and our voice in form of opinion polls means crap (last night’s presidential address, anybody?) a renowned mass publication tells us “we’re de man!”. on second thought, not strange at all… this is mass manipulation on a grand scale. the home of the brave is transforming into a brave new world, right before our eyes. that’s what I call entertaining.

In other words, its sleight of hands. Empowering us with "youTube" and "mySpace" is all about distracting us from bothering to do anything about what really matters. I don't think the people are powerless at all. They're careless.

Creators as Branding

We've already seen situations where a network's continued a doomed show up through 13 episodes so that the box set will recoup some expenses for the studio. Whedon's Angel very much died because the WB realized they were just advertising for 20th Century Fox's box sets. Although the network in theory has final say on what shows they pick up, there are stories in recent years about one network where the network execs weren't even allowed in the room while the studio suits did the fall schedule.

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Remember, television as it exists is the tail end of government-leased invisible space. Network television is executive welfare.

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The natural aggregation points will be branded creative entities, individual creators or otherwise, who engender personal loyalty. We may well see "schools" of like-minded entertainers evolving in television, the way we had in art, or even in film in the 60's and 70's. Different (and probably unpredictable) models will evolve, but those will be the seeds.

-- John Rogers on Nobody Getting Rich But Everyone Getting Paid

Its funny. I've been thinking about this a lot recently - though I'm not sure I realised it until I read this.

Australia is in a peculiar position. We don't have the population density to support an indigenous film industry economically; nor we do we have a "language barrier" to encourage (or at least ring fence) audiences into seeing Australian films. We may be the world's greatest pirates of TV per capita but we're leeches - we tap into the swarms grown from the generous folk in the UK and the US. Have you ever tried to BitTorrent an Australian TV show? (Cough Love My Way Cough*) Painfully slow. Swarms being swarms crushes the insignificant (e.g. Australian Media) into invisibility.

The local Australian TV Networks will growing increasingly flummoxed as their asynchronous US imports rate alarmingly less than they should -- because everyone who cares has seen the episodes already. (e.g. Heroes). This will force them to pick up shows whose target audiences aren't into watching cutting edge TV -- basically turning all commerical free to air into into Channel 9. The channels certainly won't fail any time soon but shows like Battlestar Galactica or Heroes** or even Lost will only work economically in Australia on DVD. This trend will only get worse as TV-piracy grows more and more mainstream (my parents bought a Divx capable player last year... and they're both in their 60s)

Meanwhile, local content will have less budgets and be less "interesting" as the networks become more risk averse in this hostile environment. For a local content creator, especially one trying to get a foot in the door, this isn't a healthy environment to get a show up or even just get paid.

While I'm still trying to work out what would be a solution, I'd suggest [in no particular order (a) make it cheap; (b) approach a national broadcaster whose economics/politics of creative choice are rather different; and (c) create an online following... build momentum around you and get people interested in seeing it... THEN work out how to make money from them.

Anyway, my random thoughts...

* Season 2 is now on DVD... and my (now ex) flatmate bought it. Frankly, I'm not going to subscribe to Foxtel just to get a TV show when I can buy the same show on DVD for $40.
** I'm really curious to see how this goes in Australia. I've already seen the first 10 episodes and so have a lot of people I know... including my rather non-technical familly.