:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Friday, November 12, 2004 ::

For The Sake Of Understanding

My gf doesn't like Doctor Who. Perhaps it's 'cos I'm more interested in seeing episodes I haven't seen with my meagre video rental money than re-watching "classic" episodes with her. More likely, though, is that she doesn't quite get it. However, thanks to a letter to the BBC that Matt was so kind as to link to, written back when the new series was just a rumor, I can at least try to explain why people like the show.

What is the essence of Doctorness? Not, as Colin Baker says, his morality, the fact that he always does what is Right. Some images of the Doctor have been more cynical than others; early Hartnell had something of the callous Holmsean misanthrope. Even Tom Baker could be a thug; look at the way he sacrifices lives in "Fang Rock".

The essence I think, is that he is outside of time, outside of the script, outside of the rules: he can joke and behave madly because he is the one fixed point, and the rest of the universe revolves around him. He knows it's TV show, and can occasionally wink to camera. This is true when Tom Baker treats the entire universe as the set of a not very well assembled pantomime, and equally true when Sylvester McCoy winks cryptically and starts unravelling schemes which he has been preparing for since Time began.

If someone asked me what was the point of 'Doctor Who', I might show them 'Androids of Tara'. Not a classic story, in many ways. But it understands the point. The subsidiary cast deadpan their way through a pastiche of Prisoner of Zenda, taking it all quite seriously and sensibly, even though it involves androids. Doctor Tom wanders in like some Shakespearean fool, cast in the wrong play. Instead of chasing the Key to Time, he goes fishing. When the baddy zaps him with a raygun, he says 'Put that thing down. My hat's on fire.'

...Some programmes, such as 'Star Trek', depend on their setting; 'Enterprise' would not work if you did not have some awareness of what is meant by 'Vulcan' 'Klingon' and 'Federation'. 'Doctor Who' was never like this; there never was a 'Doctor Who' setting outside of the minds of the fans. 'Doctor Who' was an anthology series, along the lines of 'Twilight Zone' but which used the device of the time machine to have a continuing set of characters.

It gave writers the freedom to plonk the Doctor into a 'galactic empire in the far future' and not expect it to connect with last week's galactic empire in the far future, or next week's galactic empire in the far future. It was part of the freewheeling experimentation of the show that entire settings could be introduced and exhausted in 100 minutes. So what if no one understood "Warriors Gate"; you only had to put up with it for a couple of weeks, and then you could go back to random chase scenes through the streets of Paris. Even with recurring villains like the Daleks writers paid only the most minimal attention to what had happened in previous appearances; the Daleks of 'Genesis of the Daleks' have nothing whatsoever in common with the Daleks of 'Dead Planet.'

...'Doctor Who' is not about special effects. In particular, it is not about massive space battles and action sequences. 'Doctor Who' is character driven costume melodrama. The costumes and sets, should, of course, be done as well as possible. But the moment it tries to sell on its spectacle, it ceases to be 'Doctor Who'.

The reason that 'Doctor Who' survived 28 years with 'bad special effects' is not because people in the 1960s were so stupid that they couldn't see the wire on the Dalek's spaceship. The reason that 'Doctor Who' survived 28 years with 'bad special effects' was that 'special effects' were never relevant to what the series was doing.

A misunderstanding of this point has kept the series off the TV for twelve years. The argument goes like this

A: 'Doctor Who' is sci fi

B: People watch sci-fi movies for their 'special effects'

C: 'Doctor Who' had poor special effects

D: Therefore, 'Doctor Who' was poor sci fi.

This argument is put forward by people who assume that 'Doctor Who' and 'Star Wars' are very much the same kind of thing, and who like neither. It is perfectly true that post-Lucas, there has been a market for movies whose main selling point has been the spectacle. It does not follow that all 'science fiction' is by definition spectacular. Some people want 'Doctor Who' to be 'Attack of the Clones' with a police box in it. They are wrong.

It is unquestionably the case that TV sci-fi, because of budget and the size of the screen, can never have the spectacle of movie sci-fi. It is also the case that TV cop shows cannot have the stunts or the action of movie blockbusters, but no one argues therefore that the BBC should stop making police drama.

...The original version of 'Star Trek' had a special effects budget of slightly less than zero; spacecraft simply hung in front of painted backdrops. Roddenbury therefore created a style of space-ship battle which required more or less no model work: it consisted of enemy captains threatening each other on view screens; close ups of captain's faces and the bridge shaking and filling with smoke. This forced the writers to create battle scenes which turned on characterisation; perhaps Kirk bluffs the Klingons into thinking that his ship has a secret weapon called 'corbonite' , or maybe the two captains beam down to an alien planet and settle it with fisticuffs. 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' was free to use post-'Star Wars' special effects if it wanted to, but it very largely stuck to the grammar of the old version; so, in fact did the movies and 'DS9'. Partly, because that style of battle had come to define what 'Star Trek' was about; partly, because it was exciting and it worked. Any re-vamp of 'Doctor Who' should apply the same reasoning.

Small space ships, men in rubber suits. But hopefully, technological advances will ensure that the rubber suits actually fit.

That being said, I think that, of all the things that make Doctor Who unique, the following sums it up nicely.

The Doctor is a wanderer with a time machine.

The Doctor is a traveller.

'Hello, I am the Doctor. I travel in time and space.'

That is the only thing which the new viewer needs to know.

:: The Squire 2:10 AM :: email this post :: ::
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