Big Fish In A Small Pond

One of the interesting things about the recent Hugo nominations is to see how they're viewed depending on the location.

The new Doctor Who has picked up a variety of UK-specific non-genre awards; and is likely to pick up even more -- it's amongst Britain's best and brightest television series. But for an American audience, they're all awards in a far away land -- if you weren't a Doctor Who fan, in other years the BAFTA would be going to a television show that you had probably never heard of.

Of course, the Hugos are a genre award, and as such are limited only to the genre audience. And the Hugos have their strange quirks for someone outside of the Worldcon attendees -- was a sketch before last year's Hugo ceremony really better than any episode of Lost? Was the nomination list heavily influenced because last year's Worldcon was held in the UK?

One of the big differences right now is that in the UK, Doctor Who is truly a pop culture phenomena -- last year there were billboards, and it certainly sounds like everyone was aware that it was back.

Where in the US, it's the show that's coming on because they've shown all of their episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate until the fall. And while it sounds like the ratings are ok, it's still got a long way to go to repeat anywhere near the same sort of success it had in the UK.