Applying Todorov and Propp: Doctors

Doctors Series 10 - 206 Amends

Brief storyline: When Daniel is called to attend to an asthmatic bride on her wedding day, he soon finds himself embroiled in a tense family reunion. 

Meanwhile, Jimmi tries to keep his personal feelings under control when he meets a father who is struggling to cope.

Channel: BBC One 

Date: Wednesdays 

Time: 

Duration: 30 minutes 

Applying Propp

Some of Propp's character roles are found in Doctors and they are as followed:-

Hero -  Dr Daniel and Dr Jimmi 

Villain - Two villains; the Bride's father as he steals and the audience discover through dialogue that he abandoned the family before but now suddenly appearing out of the blue with an agenda.  Further, the other villain in this particular episode is a father neglecting his young son reasons because of the recent death of his wife and a mother.  

Helper - The receptionist, Vivien March, who helps the hero in doing the right thing; helping out the boy.

Dispatcher - Vivien March 

The Father - mother of the bride as she is in to protect her and walking her down the ile

Princess - The bride, Becky

False Hero

Applying Todorov

In this episode, Todorov's theory fits in in many ways including :-

A state of equilibrium 

 Everything is normal, Becky is having a treatment after an ashtma attack which, i find as normal as it is expected with the sufferes of the disease and a bride to be a nervous at her wedding.

Tracking shot of Dr Jimmi to his everyday career.

Disequilibrium/ A disruption

Father is worried about David in turning gay because of developing an abnormal characterist of consantly admiring female clothing and playing with dolls instead of football in addition to that refuses to talk or make conversation with anyone therefore takes him to Dr Jimmi to get checked but as expected, he finds it ridiculous and disturbing. Also father is neglecting his son, leaving him alone in a car crying and avoiding talking about the death of his mother.

The bride's father shows up, heating up the mother with anger but the daughter insists in letting him stay until he steals a very precious and priceless necklace form her.

A recognition of the disruption

Dr Jimmy rescues the abandoned boy, David, from the car and also considering to call the Social Services.

 Dr Daniels the hero has a conversation with the villain, the father of the bride whereby he confesses waht he did. As what a hero is expected to do, make the bride's father feel guilty about what he had done and the consequences of  his actions, Becky and her mother realise that the father is leaving and the necklace is missing.

Attempt to repair the damage

Father of the son looks for his missing son an then finds him with Dr Jimmi, apologises in neglecting his son and reconciliates of the Dr to not call Social Services. Dr Jimmi also finds himself discovers his mistake of being too evolved in the situatonand also applying personal judgement into the story.

Father if the Bride apologises and returns the necklace back, but Becky is too angry to forgive him. He then tries agan to make peace with his daughter only to find her having another asthma atttack ending up saving her life.

Establishing a different equilibrium

David misses his dad and when he sees him, he starts talking again and father leant a lesson of not neglecting his son. Dr Jimmi learns not to take some patients' strories personal

Father of the bride is at peace with his daughter.

 

TV Drama Updates; Little Dorrit

Scedule information

• Channel- BBC four
• Date- Saturday 17th January
• Time- 7 pm
• Duration- 30 minutes
• Audience- since it is a literary adaptation, it is aimed at people interested in literature in particular to this drama, Charles Dickens. Also families as it it on during prime time TV.
  

Brief storyline

Mr dorrit is released from the Masharlsea after Mr Clennam discovered their wealth, however is rather hard for Little Dorrit to forget her past, seen as disgrace by her siblings, like her father wants her to since their are going abroad. Rigaud (Blondaus) i set on a mission by Miss Wade, to spy on the newly weds, Pet and Henry Gowan but on his way, meets the eye with the Dorrits. Since he desperately wants find out what connects them with the Clennam family, he therefore desides to follow them.

Binary opposition

• Good and evil

Groups, events, indidivudals, places that are represented and how the representation is conveyed

Individuals - One of the characters that are represented in Little Dorrit includes Rigaud (Blondaus). He is represented to be the villian in the drama through different shots and clips of him scamming people and murdering other characters in the drama; cold blooded murderer. This representation in conveyed through in some episodes whereby another character Cavalletto, recognises him with a close up showing expressions of terror and fear. As already he's a spy, he is also foregrounded as a character who blackmails innocent, vulnerable characters. He also lacks manners and this is illustrated especially in this episode whereby he was eating disgustingly and we get various shots and a shot reverse shot of him and tother characters to show their reactions towards him.

His appearance has a contibution towards his evilness through the typical

Also the fear of unknown; throughout the first episodes, he convinces people that his name is Blondaus which raises supspisions for the audience of the reasons why he might lie his name.


Another character which is a contrast to Rigaud is Mr Clennam, a man of his words, very
generous as is is he who pays off Little's Dorrit's brother out of his debts and also discovers the

TV Drama Updates; Britannia High

I watched the season finale of Britannia High and in the process i had to recollect this information:

Scheduling information

• Time- 7:00 pm

• Date- every Sundays

• Audience- young teenagers and family as it is broadcasted during prime time tv hours. Also, it is targeted as family as it brings the sense of happiness.

Brief summary of the storyline

Its the end of year showcase and all the students are being faced with a distraction, Danny has a dilema of choosing one girl he reallly loves, between Lauren and Claudine. Whilst all this is occuring, Lauren gets her results from her hospital telling her whether or not she has a disease that might end her career as a dancer. Steph on the other hand, is back taking Lola by surprise and on top asks her to come away with him.

Groups, events, indidivudals, places that are represented and how the representation is conveyed

• Groups??
• Events??
  

• Individuals- Each character has their own representation e.g. Danny, one of the students, is represented as a 'ladies man'. This is reinforced through using cheeky comments such as, "Which one is the fittest?" in his speech. In this particular episode, he is foregrounded as a jerk by showing a two shot of him having a conversation with Lauren about how she is the chosen one to be his girlfriend and when she rejects him, the same shot is used showing him saying the exact same words on Claudine. This helps him relate to the audience of young teenagers as they might be in the same situations and it sort of gives them advise on how not to deal with situations such as that or related to that.

Claudine is one of the main characters. Through the perfomance of her and Lauren whereby she was dressed in black representing evil and mean in comparison to Lauren who was wearing white which connotates saint and peace, the audience recognise her as a the jeaolus character. Also props are used in addition of her representation; black bob hairstyle. Close up shots of her frawning when looking at her enemy, Lauren also reinforces her representation.

• Location- The city, London is represented in various ways. In the opening sequence, we see the London tubes, London bus stops signs on them for the audience to emmidiately identify the setting. During the episodes, they also show glimpse of The London Eye and the Swiss Re, one of the most famous London landmarks.

Examples of binary opposition

• Good and evil

• Boys and girls

Intended overall message

To forget about the past and the problems surrounding it and move on, look forward to the future. It is easy since we are all friends which makes the drama believe in Todorov's theory which illustrates that at the begginning is in a state of equllibrium, a distraction occures caused by an event, the distarction is notcied therefore is is dealt with and everything goes back in order but with different establishments.

Any alternative readings?

Yes, the way in which teenagers are represented. Ofcourse there are recognisions of the main ideology of how teenagers are e.g. not able to make up their mind therefore doing silly things in the process but Britannia High represents teenagers as determined, very positive and very focused towards their future. This makes Britannia High seen as a drama that, subversives the genre as the other dramas e.g. Skins and Hollyoaks represents them very negatively,in such an open sexual manner, lost, wild, drunk addicts and junkies which is compeletely different with Britannia High.

Welcome to my AS Media Studies blog!

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am an AS student and currently studying Media Studies. As part of my course, we are focused on British TV Dramas and delving deeper in their categories and the differences between them; one off (Tess of the D,Urbevilles), series (Britannia High) and serial (Hollyoaks) dramas, further, their codes and conventions. Moreover into the dramas, we are recognising the diffferent genres as well as how camera work, mis-en-scene and setting helps to identify the types of genres.

We have just recently started studying binary oppositions and ideology, a bit confusing but interesting when it comes to talking about gender and how its represented in TV Dramas.

Hope you enjoy reading further on my blog!