Moffat to take over Dr. Who from Davies

[Stark]

If the casual viewer is watching Doctor Who and can't grasp alien planets, they should change the fucking channel. Jesus Christ.

I think when they restarted the show, they were being very conservative about what might appeal to viewers. After all, they weren't just aiming at the thirty-something old DW crowd, but the general viewing public. I'm not sure how this logic worked, when it ruled of alien planets but included giant blue dudes and huge green fart aliens, but hey.

[Plekhanov]

RTD initially had most episodes on Earth due to him being wary of blowing the production budget and not presenting an alien world convincingly enough, it is also a sound ploy to not alienate the casual TV viewer who probably can't stand Farscape or Star Trek by setting most episodes in places the said casual TV viewer can relate to, as patronizing as it sounds

Indeed no doubt this is why Star Wars was such a commercial failure and only popular amongst hardcore scifi fans as 'casual' viewers just couldn't cope with it's alien worlds.

Moron.

[Patrick Degan]

The other problem with that "argument" is that Doctor Who is a series which sells itself on the very idea of a traveler in time and space wandering the universe and visiting other worlds. If you're not going to do that, and instead worry about keeping the audience in "places the casual TV viewer can relate to", you may as well say "fuck it" and do an Eastenders knock-off or a spinoff series from Footballers Wives.

[Big Orange]

Indeed no doubt this is why Star Wars was such a commercial failure and only popular amongst hardcore scifi fans as 'casual' viewers just couldn't cope with it's alien worlds.

Moron.

OK, fair enough, but remember A New Hope was mostly filmed in Pinewood Studios and around a few scenic towns with weird buildings in Tunisia. But that is a movie rather than a TV show, with TV sci-fi sometimes not always being convincing in depicting alien worlds and many American sci-fi shows like most of The Outer Limits or all of The X-Files, Lost, Sliders and Heroes are reolutely set on Earth, which is not really a detriment (although the TV show that is best at showing alien landscapes on a lowish budget is Farscape).

However I don't think NuWho has been too Earth based lately at all and I hope this is a trend being set, while Spain and Hungary would be great at depicting historical Earth locations or be exotic enough to depict alien planets similar to Earth (just dress them up slightly better than they do in Trek and Stargate).