tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post6459973125499667234..comments2024-02-28T17:50:10.303+00:00Comments on LUCID FRENZY JUNIOR: A USER'S GUIDE TO CONTINUITY IN 'DOCTOR WHO' (CLUE: THERE ISN'T ONE)Gavin Burrowshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-477326920668474512021-02-02T17:26:15.782+00:002021-02-02T17:26:15.782+00:00I reckon that if you just switch the TV on to some...I reckon that if you just switch the TV on to some random film or TV show, you can often guess the era it's from more quickly with science fiction than something contemporary-set.Gavin Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-54114511998447337042021-02-01T20:43:53.147+00:002021-02-01T20:43:53.147+00:00"The idea of a TV show capturing its own era&..."The idea of a TV show capturing its own era" — yes, yes, yes! It's a big part of what makes older episodes significant now: they way the different futures they portrayed depicted futures as seen from back then. In the same way, I love re-reading Asimov's "Foundation" stories not so much for the 20,000-years-in-the-future stuff, as for the ways it reflects the 1950s.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-78105041551812316742021-02-01T17:22:09.587+00:002021-02-01T17:22:09.587+00:00Yes to both. Though, as these posts have most like...Yes to both. Though, as these posts have most likely given away, I also like the idea of a TV show capturing its own era. So it's continual reinvention of itself is more important to me than the continuity..<br /><br />I wonder if the idea of a TV show needed to be more important than the show in the old broadcast days, when its appearances were by necessity strictly rationed. It meant the main place the show lived was in your head.Gavin Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-40728731938684128032021-02-01T15:46:59.593+00:002021-02-01T15:46:59.593+00:00Doctor Who continuity is all very well if you appr...Doctor Who continuity is all very well if you approach it as a game. (Like the Sherlockians, trying to work out exactly what bus Holmes caught in a particular story when they know perfectly well that Conan Doyle didn't care.) If it interposes itself between you and the actual TV show, not so much. <br /><br />I think that the idea of Doctor Who is sometimes more important than the actual episodes. I think when early fans said that William Hartnell had, and Tom Baker didn't have, a quality they called "magic" one of the things they were talking about was the sense that the same programme and the same characters could do The Celestial Toymaker one week and the War Machines the next -- that fantasy and a sci fi and mock history were all somehow part of one big tapestry. Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16934052271846235431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-26081575798896872892021-01-23T15:46:33.698+00:002021-01-23T15:46:33.698+00:00This'll actually be the last Dr. Who post for ...This'll actually be the last Dr. Who post for a while. Those other two might come up more soonishly, however...Gavin Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-78062775654864940722021-01-23T15:32:34.426+00:002021-01-23T15:32:34.426+00:00Saw this in my feed and I'm all like "ah ...Saw this in my feed and I'm all like "ah well, Andrew's going to go on about bloody Dr Who for a while. No matter." And then you start quoting Mark Fisher and the uncanny I'm all like "fuck yeah!" Pete Ashtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03850579036751770929noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-61837622154029133672021-01-23T14:38:09.044+00:002021-01-23T14:38:09.044+00:00Also, 1981 would probably count as a relatively re...Also, 1981 would probably count as a relatively recent culturl reference from me.Gavin Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-58112804800424439262021-01-23T14:31:46.911+00:002021-01-23T14:31:46.911+00:00'Computers' to me is pretty much an interc...'Computers' to me is pretty much an interchangeable term with 'software'. The computer is just where the software 'lives'. How the computer makes that software work is pretty much magic in my mind.<br /><br />Is 'pedanti' the plural term for 'pedant'? (That's a pedantic joke about pedantry! There are levels going on here, levels!)<br /><br />Has anyone done the fanfic yet about the one Blake being the descendent of the other? With the big end-of-season reveal that the Federation is a front for Urizen? Bonus points if it's done by illuminated plates.<br /><br />There is neither a threat nor a promise in the land that could make me say a good thing about 'Vampires Of Venice'.Gavin Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347163260510316959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202625234167413814.post-69189961435796812192021-01-23T14:04:15.460+00:002021-01-23T14:04:15.460+00:00Lots of interesting insights here. So naturally I ...Lots of interesting insights here. So naturally I am going to respond mostly to the few places where I don't quite agree.<br /><br /><i>But the computer comes with a manual. It’s a delineable, predictable world <br />contained inside a box. Look into that screen and all can be right with the world.</i><br /><br />I think this metaphor would have worked much better in, say, 1981, when computers were micros, and anyone who put their mind to it could understand literally everything about one. Here in 2021, computer have become far more mysterious and unpredictable than any girl by the water fountain.<br /><br /><i>The Whoniverse was never some ordered place, with carefully annotated sheets of backstory and chronologoy. As our travels through the Hartnell years have shown, it was all made up on the hoof.</i><br /><br />... Or, if we are being pedanti, our travels have shown that the Hartnell era was all made up on the hoof. There has certainly been something closer to an actual plan in other eras. But, I agree, never <i>much</i> like a plan.<br /><br /><i>I'm saying that that the Whoniverse draws in the nerd precisely because of all this, because it’s such a muddle, so antithetical to Straczynski's meticulous timelines or Tolkein’s punctiliously detailed little maps.</i><br /><br />I think you're giving Tolkien rather too much credit here. While he was certainly capable on investing vast energies into the Middle-earth back-story, he had little concern for consistency outside of the two actual novels -- which is why Christopher Tolkien's job in editing <i>The Silmarillion</i> was so much about choosing specific versions of the various stories from the wide range of alternative and mutually contradictory versions. (You may also recall that in very early drafts of <i>The Hobbit</i>, Thorin was called Gandalf. And in very early drafts of <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, Strider was called Trotter, and was a hobbit with wooden feet.)<br /><br /><i>As Blake so wisely said “the bounded is loathed by its possessor.” (Disclaimer: Not the Blake who had the Seven.)</i><br /><br />I am ashamed to admit it, but I did assume you meant Blake from <i>Blake's Seven</i>, so I needed that disclaimer. Perhaps I need to rebalance my high culture and pop culture.<br /><br /><i>But put vampires into science fiction, such as in ’Doctor Who’s’ ‘Vampires in Venice’, and suddenly we need to be told why they don’t have reflections in mirrors and all the rest. (Disclaimer: I am admittedly picking on a crap episode.)</i><br /><br />Oh, no, I'm not having that. It's flawed, of course -- what <i>Doctor Who</i> story isn't? But it has some superb caharcter moments for Rory and a surprisingly congent explanation for the vampire powers; and, most importantly, it's just beautiful to look at.<br />Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.com