Conflation of ep names - we've got The Unquiet Dead set in Victorian Wales, and the serious creep offset by much WW2-Flyboy cuteness of The Empty Child.

Edited due to very vague possibly spoileriness.

I love the new Doctor Who, but I do still feel that it's very much a kids' show. I don't mean that in a patronising way at all, but I do think I enjoy it more when I come at it from that angle.

I don't think I'd have wanted to expose my kids to the hollowed-out people or the very realistic decaying corpses in this edition. The scary bits of this are quite scary indeed. Scarier than much of Buffy, IMHO. (Not as scary as "Hush" or "The Body", of course.)

I think it would have scared the ever-loving crap out of me when I was a kid, but I liked having the crap scared out of me when I was a kid. Plus all I ever hear about the originals is how people used to watch it when they were kids and it scared the bejesus out of them. Hiding behind the couch from the Daleks and stuff.

Yeah. My problem is that I first encountered the Tom Baker Who when I was over 18, so was amused by the effects rather than scared.

This Doctor is pretty scary himself. Whoo, boy.

I think #9 is creepy as well as scary. The old Doctors were less on the creepy stuff. More "Boo!" and less steal under your skin and leak out when you're not expecting it.

Aha! You pegged it. For me, scary is "Will our heroes survive?" Creepy is "Gah. I won't be getting that image out of my head for weeks." The ninth Doctor is *way* creepy.

Furthermore, Rose's mother explicitly asks the Doctor to promise he will keep Rose safe, and he is silent. Later, he admits to Rose that he cannot promise to keep her safe.

I'm really hoping that Torchwood will amp up the creep factor. The tenth doctor already looks like he might not be as black and white as even the ninth. Which I like quite a bit.

I saw a Tom Baker Doctor episode when I was probably 8, and it scared the everliving daylights out of me. So much so, I have never seen a Doctor Who episode all the way through since.

(It was the invisible monsters that strangled people. Monsters I can see, okay, whatever, but invisible monsters? That is just a paranoid child's worst nightmare!! )

Nutty I think I know which episode you are talking about.

I never remember being really scared by Dr. Who...maybe a little creeped out. The only kid's show that ever freaked me out was the Bloodhound Gang on 3-2-1 Contact. I can't even remember the episode, just that I had to go through the dining room to get to the kicthen and the dining room was dark and creepy (of course I as about 6 at the time).