More Words, Deeper Hole

So you're saying that, to you, style is more important than substance?

No, I'm saying that when you assess the tone of a story, you look at the tone of the story and not the content. The Life of Brian, H2G2 and Blackadder are all light comedies no matter how many bloodbaths the stories involve because the bloodbaths are treated as a source of humor and not horror. Arthur Dent spends all of one line grieving the destruction of the Earth before we get on with the jokes -- that's not grimdark.

And you have a personal preference for grimdark family entertainment over the light-hearted or comedic*?

I made no such claim.

That's fair enough, for you, but Doctor Who is reasonably popular as it is.

There is no unitary "Doctor Who". The series has changed constantly. I'm making a historical point that one such change occurred in 1978 when the BBC received high profile complaints about the series becoming too grimdark for children, and shifted the tone in a lighter direction.

Also, I think you might have mixed up the serial titles? Possibly you meant City of Death, although I don't know anyone who thinks of it as a barrel of laughs the way you describe either.

No, I mean The Pirate Planet, the story about a planet-turned-space ship that goes around gobbling up other worlds regardless of whether they're inhabited or not. Prior to the Time War, this was the story with the highest death count in all of Doctor Who. But you don't even remember that part in favor of the comedy.