It depends how Fry is defining not very grown up. If he's dismissing SF on these grounds then he's a twonk.
Doctor Who... Page 555
Quote: Matthew Stott @ June 16 2010, 9:32 PM BSTIt's just the whole 'not grown up' thing that I'm not keen on. What exactly is grown up? Who decides what is 'grown up'? Why should I make a distinction if something entertains me? Should I feel good about enjoying Mad Men and take, say, Firefly as a guilty pleasure, because it's not 'grown up'? That's all that's bothersome, the notion that you should make the distinction. If it's good, it's good, as far as I'm concerned.
Just made her watch an episode of Firefly - No 3 - and she loved it so may buy a HD version of the lot if it is available. 
Quote: chipolata @ June 16 2010, 3:28 PM BST
What the f**k's happened to his face? It looks like a brown paper bag filled with shit.
Just as well old Fry is white and English. Imagine that being said about Johnny Foriegner! Not that it is, of course!
Godot, you shouldn't be encouraging this kind of drivel, what with you being a black cab driver and all!
I'm doubly horrified!
Are that's better, now I can see...
Quote: Mickeza @ June 16 2010, 9:08 PM BSTIndeed. Fry is a big who fan so I don't think he means it in a nasty way.
You shouldn't have any doubts that he was 'dissing' the show.
He likened it to a Chicken McNugget. His alternative was something surprising, savoury, sharp, unusual, cosmopolitan, alien, challenging, complex, ambiguous, possibly even slightly disturbing and wrong. So he regards the show as being or containing none of those things.
I have to say I am amazed more people on here aren't behind him. I've heard of couch potatoes, but the passivity of some viewers in this thread to cliché, lazy writing and rehashing previously used material has genuinely shocked me. I thought half you lot had degrees.
The show is like the Tardis. An old fashioned Police Box.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 17 2010, 1:11 AM BSTHis alternative was something surprising, savoury, sharp, unusual, cosmopolitan, alien, challenging, complex, ambiguous, possibly even slightly disturbing and wrong. So he regards the show as being or containing none of those things.
Funny that, the show was pretty much all of those things... in 1963!
Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 17 2010, 1:11 AM BSTI thought half you lot had degrees.
This lot are mostly 90 degrees off the vertical, flat on their backs, you should know that by now!
Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 17 2010, 1:11 AM BST/....the passivity of some viewers in this thread to cliché, lazy writing and rehashing previously used material has genuinely shocked me.
In a 45 minute show, things have to be moved along at a fast pace, and to that end, quoting familiar references will help enormously, even though that risks cliché. There isn't time to build everything new every time.
I subscribe to the view that there are two levels of shortcomings in the show, those which are understandable and forgivable, and those which are not. In the former category, I'd place things like the way the spaceship was dealt with in last week's show, because while we could stop and question just why having two people putting their hands on the control panel would cause a sophisticated spaceship to go into meltdown, on balance it's quick and moves the ending on at such a pace that we don't feel concerned by it (I've not heard any complaints here, anyway). Unforgivable things include plots which just don't make any sense, something which was much more common in the time of RTD; and pedestrian pacing, which is something that occurs when too much time is spent dealing with the forgivable shortcomings.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 17 2010, 1:11 AM BSTthe passivity of some viewers in this thread to cliché, lazy writing and rehashing previously used material has genuinely shocked me.
Did you do a full on 'Gasp!'?
Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 17 2010, 1:11 AM BSTHe likened it to a Chicken McNugget. His alternative was something surprising, savoury, sharp, unusual, cosmopolitan, alien, challenging, complex, ambiguous, possibly even slightly disturbing and wrong. So he regards the show as being or containing none of those things.
I wonder if his own, unused, Who script did?
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ June 16 2010, 10:46 PM BSTIt think Fry's point, and mine, is that the Beeb doesn't make *any* grown-up drama.
You've clearly never heard of 'Total Wipeout'.
It's hard work thinking of something new to say about Doctor Who each day. Yet we can't not!
Well here's one, as the next chunk is a two parter... do you wait and watch it all in one go??
Quote: Marc P @ June 17 2010, 10:11 AM BSTWell here's one, as the next chunk is a two parter... do you wait and watch it all in one go??
No. Otherwise you won't be able to take part in this entertaining and informative thread for a whole 7 days!
It has happened before! 
Quote: Godot Taxis @ June 17 2010, 1:11 AM BSTI thought half you lot had degrees.
I do have one, hence why I can understand what he was saying, "And they're very good children's programmes, don't get me wrong, they're wonderfully written". Fry regularly tweets about enjoying Doctor Who, and saying it's for children isn't a criticism, it's a fact. Here is what the current show runner said when asked this very question;
Interviewer: We've been debating on our site endlessly: Is Doctor Who a kids' program?
Moffat: Yes. Debate over. It's good to fix those things quickly.
Doctor Who is aimed at eight year old children, the reason I enjoy it is because at heart, I'm a big kid. The problem Fry is alluding to is that the BBC are offering very few adult only dramas of a similar quality to Doctor Who. It's like going to the cinema, sometimes I want to see Toy Story 3, other times, The Hurt Locker. The problem is, the BBC aren't showing The Hurt Locker.
Quote: Mickeza @ June 17 2010, 10:29 PM BSTInterviewer: We've been debating on our site endlessly: Is Doctor Who a kids' program?
Moffat: Yes. Debate over. It's good to fix those things quickly.
Doctor Who is aimed at eight year old children,
Yesterday, Moffat had this to say in reponse to the idea that it's just a kids show:
"Doctor Who was designed specifically to be a family programme. That's what it's for. It's the junction between the children's programmes and the adults' programmes. It's the one that everybody sits and watches."
Is it aimed at eight year olds? Yes. Is it just aimed at eight year olds? No; it's aimed at, and intended to entertain, the whole family.