A line like Doctor Who's "everyone lives!" is very difficult to find in an american show.
(It's not that I have a problem with american fiction, I just find it curious)
“Heroes are important. Heroes tell us who we want to be but when they made this particular hero they didn’t give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or a warship or an X-Wing, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help and they didn’t give him a superpower or a heat-ray, they gave him an extra heart. And that’s extraordinary. There will never come a time when we don’t need a hero like The Doctor.”
The Doctor is a wonderful call back to a science fiction time when humans could be rational. Sometimes violence was needed, but always when all other options have been exhausted. Since then, science fiction tends to dwell in the darker and dystopian aspects of humanity.
This idea that violence can be used to solve stuff is not limited to fiction, people use it in their everyday lives in America.
I'm always fascinated by how quickly situations in America will degrade to physical violence, or the threat thereof.
England's are sex and drugs.
I think that taking that as a "lesson" is a mistake. Its true that American fiction is pretty prone to relying on physical violence as the central form of conflict, but I don't think that's so much a lesson as a lack of creativity.
(Again, I don't think is a huge deal and I am not implying that people can't distinguish fiction of real life or something)
Action/adventure stuff definitely reaches for the gun pretty quickly.
Because it's clear (and you may be acknowledging) that violence is the best option in at least some circumstances. Otherwise, prisons, soldiers, and police officers wouldn't be necessary.
For example, if you want to stop a meteorite hitting Earth, do not use rockets attached to its surface, explode a huge nuclear bomb!
If you have to start the nucleus rotation, do not make any chemical reaction or engineering project, just explode a huge nuclear bomb!
If you are a multibillionaire that wants to solve crime, just personally punch criminals in the face!
And we're talking about fiction, not real life. I'm ok with spectacular, but I can't help noticing it :-P
Blowing inanimate things up is just physics.
See, how do you know you dont think that because of decades of the media tell you to think that? Not just that but American culture is gun culture rooted in the Wild West way of things. Look at how the gun nuts can even consider life without guns. Something weird, amusing and scary to many civilized countries.