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What I mean is, if Michael Grade was true to his position that the problem with mid-80's Doctor Who was that it had gotten too violent and nasty, then what other British TV at the time did you feel was equally if not more nasty, and should've, in fairness, prompted the same kind of moral backlash?
Now I am of the position that the show *did* get too nasty, about midway through Davison's era. But mulling it over, I can't ignore the wider context that it wasn't the only popular TV show at the time that was going a nastier, meaner route.
Off the top of my head, there are two others that come to mind.
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986). Notably this took place *after* the suspension crisis, and was the kind of BBC-Grundy Australian co-production that JNT was being encouraged to seek. It was based on the 1983 book by Fay Weldon, and there is a particularly nasty sub-plot where the main anti-hero, Ruth, decides to manipulate the Judge overseeing her cheating husband's fraud trial. She seduces him and begins to bring out his cruel streak in an effort to push for the worst sentence, but as a by-product he becomes an horrific wife-beater as well.
And this is never resolved. The last time we see his entirely innocent wife, sporting a black eye is during a very nervous breakfast the morning after where you can tell she's scared to stand up to him. And to all intents and purposes, by the story's end she's still trapped in that hellish, abusive marriage but the story has moved on without a care.
It pretty much makes the Sixth Doctor's violence to Peri in The Twin Dilemma seem almost genteel by comparison. And it makes her ultimate fate in Mindwarp seem a lot less coldly handled than it could've been.
The other example that comes to mind for me is The Comic Strip Presents... Now this was something of a genre-twisting anthology show, with each episode being its own surreal comedic mini-movie. But more often than not it did veer more towards the gritty and grotesque. Hell, some of the episodes felt like a natural successor to the more apocalyptic Pertwee and Tom episodes (the episode War for instance almost seems to pick up where Inferno, Day of the Daleks and Invasion of the Dinosaurs left off).
But specifically the episode Slags comes to mind. A futuristic dystopian episode about a girl gang who decide to wage war against a largely pacifist group of Hawaiian entertainers who are trying to help regenerate the decaying urban hellhole. And ends basically with a massive bodycount as the rival factions kill each other. It even uses some of the same filming locations as Resurrection of the Daleks.
I think when fans describe the Sawardian approach in the series, they might as well more be thinking of this mini-movie than anything in Doctor Who at the time.
But the way it's told almost seems to want us to root for the cruel gang against the dumb peace-loving Hawaiians who seem so easily bullied but are also villainized just because they want to spread their peaceful message and spoil the gang's mischief. The retributive ending with both factions killed off, almost seems to be suggesting the two groups were meant to be as bad as each other, which seems wildly off the case.
Which is odd because it was written by Jennifer Saunders who we now think of for writing Absolutely Fabulous, which frankly is not the kind of show we would expect Saward to go on to create. But if Saunders had material as nasty as this in her to get out her system first, maybe ordinarily Saward could've surprised us with his later material after leaving that darker phase behind.
I suppose what I'm getting at is, had Doctor Who lost its way, or was it simply following a wider zeitgeist that had in general just gotten a lot meaner and nihilistic all of a sudden? What other shows do you recall similarly crossing the line? And for that matter, what actually was happening to 80's TV that made it sometimes so shocking to look back on?
Now I am of the position that the show *did* get too nasty, about midway through Davison's era. But mulling it over, I can't ignore the wider context that it wasn't the only popular TV show at the time that was going a nastier, meaner route.
Off the top of my head, there are two others that come to mind.
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986). Notably this took place *after* the suspension crisis, and was the kind of BBC-Grundy Australian co-production that JNT was being encouraged to seek. It was based on the 1983 book by Fay Weldon, and there is a particularly nasty sub-plot where the main anti-hero, Ruth, decides to manipulate the Judge overseeing her cheating husband's fraud trial. She seduces him and begins to bring out his cruel streak in an effort to push for the worst sentence, but as a by-product he becomes an horrific wife-beater as well.
And this is never resolved. The last time we see his entirely innocent wife, sporting a black eye is during a very nervous breakfast the morning after where you can tell she's scared to stand up to him. And to all intents and purposes, by the story's end she's still trapped in that hellish, abusive marriage but the story has moved on without a care.
It pretty much makes the Sixth Doctor's violence to Peri in The Twin Dilemma seem almost genteel by comparison. And it makes her ultimate fate in Mindwarp seem a lot less coldly handled than it could've been.
The other example that comes to mind for me is The Comic Strip Presents... Now this was something of a genre-twisting anthology show, with each episode being its own surreal comedic mini-movie. But more often than not it did veer more towards the gritty and grotesque. Hell, some of the episodes felt like a natural successor to the more apocalyptic Pertwee and Tom episodes (the episode War for instance almost seems to pick up where Inferno, Day of the Daleks and Invasion of the Dinosaurs left off).
But specifically the episode Slags comes to mind. A futuristic dystopian episode about a girl gang who decide to wage war against a largely pacifist group of Hawaiian entertainers who are trying to help regenerate the decaying urban hellhole. And ends basically with a massive bodycount as the rival factions kill each other. It even uses some of the same filming locations as Resurrection of the Daleks.
I think when fans describe the Sawardian approach in the series, they might as well more be thinking of this mini-movie than anything in Doctor Who at the time.
But the way it's told almost seems to want us to root for the cruel gang against the dumb peace-loving Hawaiians who seem so easily bullied but are also villainized just because they want to spread their peaceful message and spoil the gang's mischief. The retributive ending with both factions killed off, almost seems to be suggesting the two groups were meant to be as bad as each other, which seems wildly off the case.
Which is odd because it was written by Jennifer Saunders who we now think of for writing Absolutely Fabulous, which frankly is not the kind of show we would expect Saward to go on to create. But if Saunders had material as nasty as this in her to get out her system first, maybe ordinarily Saward could've surprised us with his later material after leaving that darker phase behind.
I suppose what I'm getting at is, had Doctor Who lost its way, or was it simply following a wider zeitgeist that had in general just gotten a lot meaner and nihilistic all of a sudden? What other shows do you recall similarly crossing the line? And for that matter, what actually was happening to 80's TV that made it sometimes so shocking to look back on?
