Doctor Who and Clifford

If someone asked me to come up with three shows broadcast on the BBC that are most like Doctor Who the first thing I’d ask would be ‘most like in what way?’

You see the answer could be ‘most like in terms of audience profile’ or it could be ‘most like in genre’ or even ‘most like in main star’ or even ‘most like in terms of channel it broadcasts on’.

So for audience profile I would probably suggest* Top Gear, Sarah Jane Adventures and um… MI-High. For genre you’d have Sarah Jane Adventures, Heroes Radio Show and Young Dracula.

For main star it’s a bit tougher as there is no easy way of searching by stars on the iPlayer site (although you could mash iPlayer and BBC Programmes to create a more complicated search engine) but if any show was available you could include The Catherine Tate Show, Doctor Who Confidential, I’d do Anything and Torchwood.

And channel is the easiest - for that you would just pick the most popular shows on the same network. So right now that would be Armstrong and Miller, Jonathan Ross and After You’ve Gone.

You could even mix those options up to include things like ‘most like on the same network’ or ‘most like and most recently watched’.





However, under NO option/description or set of circumstances would you set the following as the More Like this options:

64 Zoo Lane
A show on Cbeebies that features talking animals and a girl that lives next door to a zoo.

Clifford the Big Red Dog
Again a show from Cbeebies and based on the iconic childrens books about a giant dog that is red

Come Outside
More from Cbeebies and features the woman from Open All Hours flying around in her spotty plane finding out about things with her dog.

Mama Mirabelle’s Home Movies
More talking animals and more from Cbeebies - this one is about animals in the wild showing movies of their life and history.

I know what these shows are because I have three children - one who has only just started to get too old for Cbeebies content (he’s four going on five).

But there’s something else about my four/five year old - he might be too old for Cbeebies but he’s too young for Doctor Who (although his older sister loved DW at aged five).

He can’t watch Doctor Who at the moment as he has nightmares for a week afterward (even the tame episodes) so I wouldn’t show it to him.

Fortunately they’re not advertising Doctor Who to kids that watch the shows listed above on the iPlayer BUT why is it recommending those shows to fans of Top Gear.

Lets bring in my seven year old daughter - she loves Doctor Who but HATES every one of the shows listed above because they are “babyish” and I imagine that’s the case for pretty much (with the exception of university students) everyone who watches Doctor Who.

I think someone might of ticked the wrong box when calculating the ‘more like this’ shows for Doctor Who - either that or Clifford is really a brilliant piece of televisual SciFi - either could be true.

* Only shows currently available on the BBC iPlayer Beta (TV & Radio).

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