Death in Paradise or Dr who?

6 comments

1. Doctor Who is pretty mainstream in the UK. Pretty much everyone I know watches it or has enough of an understanding about it to talk about on some level.

   Death in Paradise isn’t as popular, not by a long shot. Not saying it’s bad (because I liked it when I watched it) but Doctor Who has a huuuge following. The general consensus is that the series went downhill each time they recast the lead and it feels like they’ve done that a lot more quickly than with Doctor Who.

   There is of course the target demographics too. Being a crime show Death in Paradise generally is more to appeal to older generation who will possibly just stick the telly on whenever and see what’s on. While Doctor Who have more die hard fans.

   You have to bear in mind, Doctor Who has had a following since the 1960s with a rich tapestry of lore and the notion of recasting the lead actor is baked into the premise of time lords regeneration, while recasting for other shows feels a bit like a loss of a character.

2. Most people don’t care about either.

   Although the BBC try to make the “next Dr Who” a media event like the “next Bond” a significant proportion of people never re-engaged following the reboot in 2005.

3. Dr who is great

4. Never seen an episode of Dr Who in my life

5. Doctor Who is way more popular and has been running a lot longer. Death in Paradise is an awesome show though

6. The media will run loads of stories about who will play the next Dr & it’s a prestige role for actors. Death in Paradise will have an article in the Radio Times about a week before broadcast (if you are in US/abroad its a TV listing magazine historically used to be BBC radio, then BBC TV& radio, then all TV& BBC Radio). Also I doubt there is any secrecy about Death in Paradise, so if an actor wanted he could just tweet the announcements. Dr Who announcements are controlled and timed.

   I’m a massive Doctor Who fan, but even I thought having a special announcement show for Peter Capaldi and an announcement teaser for Jodie Whittaker was really unnecessary.