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**Damien** · 29-06-2021, 15:51

It might be more obvious now which is probably down to them covering newer, different, issues as society changes and the writing not being as good. I think a lot of British television writing fails the 'show, don't tell' rule of storytelling in that they don't trust the audience to pick up on the subtext of their work and instead mainline to you via excessive exposition.

Whereas a (good) American drama might naturally hope you pick up a theme through the actions of the characters and the beats of a story a British one will pause everything so that one of the characters can tell you the theme in a little speech. I am not a writer but my theory for this is a lot of British writers come from theatre and don't fully appreciate all the additional devices film gives them over the theatre.

Doctor Who probably has an additional disadvantage here in that whilst other science fiction settings force the writers to tackle an issue via allegory they can just jump to a real-world example where the audience already brings their own knowledge/opinions/preconceptions to it. So if Star Trek wanted to do an episode on Slavery they would use a fictional example and can change that as they see fit, the audience would be new to it. Doctor Who would just go back to the American Civil War to have a chinwag with Lincoln and fight off against Confedrate Daleks.

29-06-2021, 15:51	#598
Damien Remoaner Cable Forum Team Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 32,850	Re: Doctor Who It might be more obvious now which is probably down to them covering newer, different, issues as society changes and the writing not being as good. I think a lot of British television writing fails the 'show, don't tell' rule of storytelling in that they don't trust the audience to pick up on the subtext of their work and instead mainline to you via excessive exposition. Whereas a (good) American drama might naturally hope you pick up a theme through the actions of the characters and the beats of a story a British one will pause everything so that one of the characters can tell you the theme in a little speech. I am not a writer but my theory for this is a lot of British writers come from theatre and don't fully appreciate all the additional devices film gives them over the theatre. Doctor Who probably has an additional disadvantage here in that whilst other science fiction settings force the writers to tackle an issue via allegory they can just jump to a real-world example where the audience already brings their own knowledge/opinions/preconceptions to it. So if Star Trek wanted to do an episode on Slavery they would use a fictional example and can change that as they see fit, the audience would be new to it. Doctor Who would just go back to the American Civil War to have a chinwag with Lincoln and fight off against Confedrate Daleks.