Mike says that, believe it or not, it does get better! The episode is fun, and pretty well done as an intro to Sarah Smith and her Life, but It must have been a later episode that really got me excited about the show. Now, in truth, when I started this series I had just finished watching the last of Doctor Who, and was in withdrawal pains something fierce. And this seemed to ease the pain.
All in all, simple and cute. It's interesting to me that Maria was definitely the focus of the special, especially over the name sake of the show. But the "outsider" is always a great way to bring the audience into a new situation, learning along with the character. I think Maria is also a great audience surrogate, since Sarah Jane is an adult, and Luke is a newborn.
I also like that the show has a little bit of bite: The creatures are just scary enough to offer real danger (at least to a kid; we "Who" fans have seen far too much to be phased by a crawling eyeball, no matter how big it is), and the evil plot just crazy enough to be believed.
The show does get stronger as it rolls along- A friend for Luke helps matters a lot, and Maria and Sarah Jane form a great big sister/kid sister type relationship. Overall, I like the show quite a bit, and think I'll eventually pick it up so my son has his own "Doctor Who" show he can watch on his own. The show is really wholesome--but not TOO wholesome. I'm a firm believer that it's okay to be a little scared sometimes.
Kate says Invasion of the Bane totally reminded me of early Saturday Morning kids' show from my childhood. This is not to put it down at all! It's very cute, but if you watch it thinking Dr. Who or Torchwood, don't be surprised when you get "Saturday Morning kids' show."
It is very clever. In some ways, it is an homage to the older Dr. Who, which I think is quite fitting. The camera work reminds me of 60's shows like classic Trek and The Avengers.
The special introduces some of the main characters. I like Alan and hope he continues. I'm a big fan of Samantha Bond and was very pleased to see her (as Mrs. Wormwood). I was disappointed, on checking IMDB, to find that Maria only shows up for 15 episodes. She is far and away the strongest character out of the bunch. In fact, I hate to say it, but I think Luke Smith is a fairly weak character. Maria is far more interesting. I noted that an older actor, Daniel Anthony, shows up pretty soon. Hopefully, he provides a good mirror to Elisabeth Sladen. It seems kind of a waste to only give her kids to react against—besides, I'm not sure pre-teens really go for shows that are completely devoid of adults. If I remember correctly, as a pre-teen, I was always partial to shows that involved OLD actors—you know, ones in their 20's!
I LOVE the sonic lipstick.
All in all, it's a watchable, cute show—though I'm not sure if is being marketed to pre-teens or to adults suffering nostalgia.
Friday, July 23, 2010
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3 comments:
I think kids do like to be scared! I didn't so much as a kid (Grimm fairy tales terrified me; so did the Wizard of Oz). Even now, I can only watch stuff like Aliens in broad daylight.
But there's a definite genre out there for kids: the Lemony Snicket books, anything by Christopher Pike, Alvin Schwartz's collected folk tales Scary Stories. It's like one day, the publishing industry woke up and said, "Oh, kids don't really like cute tales about how good Johnny is at his homework--let's freak 'em out instead!"
And even though I don't like being scared, I prefer the scary stuff to Johnny & his homework.
This is one of the few science fiction shows specifically designed to appeal to kids and by the far the best (at least of those in my memories.) Conceptually, it's brilliant. Objectively, the actually intended audience is hopelessly unclear since kids sophisticated enough to get genuine sci fi, are sophisticated enough to get Dr. Who.
(I think this is why some adults are shocked by YA literature--a lot of it isn't as juvenile as they think. And without all the pretentiousness of adult fiction, it may come across as pretty raw. But that's what teenagers like.)
As for the removal of maria, I almost wonder if the "girl power" factor was just a little too high- with the main protagonist and the audience surrogate both female, I can almost imagine the network being worried about the show not appealing to boys, which they might consider their main audience.
We've touched on this topic before, and I think we've established that there are female hard core sci-fi fans out there. But I'm not sure the networks know that.
Even Warner Brothers is feeling the vibe on that, recently putting a moratorium on movies with female leads because they weren't marketable- thus the demise of the wonder-woman movie!
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