Illuminati-R-Us

So BBC America has had a Doctor Who Marathon going all week. I may be seeing things in my head, but it occurs to me that Dr.Who shows - and other British action shows - tend to be way more violent than American shows of similar stripe. I mean that in terms of graphic violence. In US shows a guy gets shot, he falls down, you rarely see bullet holes. Captain Kirk got his shirt torn and smudges on his face. On Dr.Who, people get eaten, fall to their deaths, encounter all manner of mayhem that is seen directly, rather than implied as in US shows.

So the amateur armchair shrink in me tries to figure this out, and the conclusion I draw is that WW2 made death and violence real for the UK, while over here our cities were never bombed. A neighbor might go into the Army and never return, but we never saw him blown apart. I could go on, but I hope that articulates it. Does this sound rasonable?

I don't know if that explains Dr Who, but when the 9/11 attacks happened, the elderly British people I knew, those who had lived through the blitz, seemed remarkably unimpressed by the cult of 9/11 victimhood.

That generation is mostly gone now.

Viewed from Germany, the level of violence in seials and movies rated for audiences aged 12+ is astounding. U.S. or British imports, no difference. Comparing our cultish Sunday Night crime series that has been running for 50 years now to any CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, CLUNK-CLUNK, Courtroom (what's it's name again?), our stuff it is downright pedestrian. Inspectors in trenchcoats staring down underfucked rich housewives before driving off in a BMW, discussing the case. There fave been a few final shootouts, but the only time a director staged a really high-end, grisly showdown he was criticized for being superficial and this wasn't family TV 'n'more.

I first had these feelings watching Space 1999, when I might see someone burned to a crisp, their body lying there with a burnt hole where the chest was. CONTrast Star Trek where dead people tend to just wink out of existence.

The Next Generation got some flack for the gory graphics in the episode "Conspiracy." But I think that was the exception more than the rule throughout the rest of the series.