As the episode progresses The Doctor and Amy start to take a look around the paintings, and Amy asks a question. This question gets the Doctor agitated and to what may seem like a harmless question to the audience, it annoys the Doctor, this shows the audience that the Doctor knows something Amy does not. This is very interesting for the audience because they want to find out what it is that the Doctor has just realised, because the audience know from previous episodes that when the Doctor notices something, there is trouble ahead.
The audience then witness the disequilibrium when the Doctor and Amy see the evil face in a painting of a church – the camera zooms in at this point to show the audience exactly what the characters are looking at, it makes the audience feel as if they are right there with the Doctor and Amy looking at the painting. The lighting at this point is very bright to make sure that the audience can see the image because the image in the window is very dark. The Doctor then asks the museum guide when the painting was painted, and he replies with the date, and tells the Doctor and Amy that the painting was painted little less than a year before Van Gogh killed himself. This shows the audience the role of the museum guide. The fact that the museum guide gives the Doctor the exact date means that he knows in exactly what time period he needs to be if he wants to speak to Van Gogh. This interesting occourance hooks the audience, and makes them want to watch the whole episode, and as this episode is the start of a new series, it is very important for the audience to enjoy the new series of Doctor Who inspite of having a new Doctor, something the audience has gotton used to. Therfore the audience like it when he is agitated or annoyed because it shows how his character acts, it gives the audience a much needed insight into the character.
The reason why Doctor Who is so popular is because the audience that watches Doctor Who is not a niche audience. It is broadcast on TV at prime time, so it is on television when the target audience, families, have had their dinner, and are sitting down to watch Doctor Who together. This means that BBC Wales incorparate different aspects into Doctor Who for everyone. For example, young children, enjoy the frightening aspects, and older women, might enjoy the Romantic scenes between The Doctor and his helper.
Another aspect that draws all audience’s into Doctor Who is all the good special effects because this defines the genre and is part of the audiences’ expectations, and this is where most of the money from the budget goes. Independence Day cost $75,000,000 to produce, whereas one whole series of Doctor Who costs around £2,000,000. This is a massive difference, but this doesn’t mean that the special effects in Independence Day are that much better, because the special effects in Dr. Who are amazing. It is usually because a film has ‘high production values’ whereas TV has much lower ones and this is shown in the great difference between the two statistics. However, BBC Wales has put a lot of money into Computer Generated Imagery and so; the special effects in Dr Who are very good.
Sci-fi consists of stock characters, such as the mad scientist, the hero, the helper, the alien/s and the person who is sacrificed. When comparing the ‘Mad scientist’ in Independence Day and Doctor Who, we see that in Independence Day, we have Dr. Isaacs, and we also have David. In Doctor Who we have the Doctor. They are similar in some ways such as, they all get excited over something that the audience doesn’t understand, and these are usually things associated with science or technology.
For example, when the Doctor looks into the window of the painted church and sees the evil face, he is a lot more affected by this face, than Amy, because he has prior knowledge with this kind of thing.
They are also similar, in dress sense. They are ‘nerd-like’. In Doctor Who, the Doctor wears a classic suit, a trench coat, and converse. – This is what the audience expect the Doctor to wear because he has always worn this, even when there were other Doctors they also used to wear this composition of clothing. David, in Independence Day, tries to be more ‘with it’ and he fails – he wears a vest top, jeans, and some sort of dog chain that people wear as a fashionable item. Probably to impress the woman he loves. Then you have, Dr. Isaacs, who is killed very early on in Independence Day, wears very high trousers, a shirt and a white coat. Not to mention that he has thick rimmed glasses. This is a ‘mad scientist’ to the extreme. The costume designers in Independence Day have over exaggerated the way that Dr. Isaacs dresses, because the way he dresses is a definite convention of Sci-Fi.
The hero is also a character in Sci-Fi. In Independence Day, the role of the hero is shared between Jasmine, Steve, David, and the President. In Doctor who, the hero is always consistent – The Doctor, and this is another reason why the audience enjoy Doctor Who because, one fo the reasons why people watch Television is familiarity.