Rules Would Be Good
Apr. 6th, 2013 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloDr Who this evening. Oh goody!
So how will he get out of this evening's tight spot? Will he discover in the Tardis's store rooms a piece of technology as awesome as the anti-gravity motor-bike he used to scale the sky-scraper in last week's episode?
Odd that he'd never used it before! Useful piece of kit an anti-gravity motor-bike.
I won't say the show has jumped the shark because it's done that many, many times before. Remember the time David Tennant's Doctor stopped the Daleks from destroying the Universe (yes, the entire Universe! Do you have any idea how big that is?) by moving a lever? Or the other time when he fell through a glass dome from a height of several hundred feet- and survived with nothing but a few cuts and grazes?
The first Doctor- William Hartnell's Doctor- was an old man living on his wits. Somewhere down the line he turned into a superhero. Superheroes- I humbly suggest- are less interesting than old men living on their wits.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the show. It's inventive and colourful and funny. But also exasperating. SF demands an initial suspension of disbelief- but if it's to engage us there's got to be some measure of internal consistency, some sense of the game being played to a rule-book. There should be things that are allowable and things that aren't- and they shouldn't be subject to the exigencies of plot. There need to be pricks to kick against. With Dr Who there has long ceased to be a rule-book. The Doctor is forbidden to cross his own time-line- except on the occasions when he can, he is subject to the laws of physics, except when he isn't, he can go anywhere in time and space except when he can't. His powers ebb and flow as the story demands. What's the explanation for all this? Well, sorry, but it's beyond your puny human understanding- or to use the technical jargon- all a bit timey-wimey. Timey-wimey- an amusing concept, but really you might just as well have gods descending on machines.
Oh, what I'd give for a modicum of rigour!
So how will he get out of this evening's tight spot? Will he discover in the Tardis's store rooms a piece of technology as awesome as the anti-gravity motor-bike he used to scale the sky-scraper in last week's episode?
Odd that he'd never used it before! Useful piece of kit an anti-gravity motor-bike.
I won't say the show has jumped the shark because it's done that many, many times before. Remember the time David Tennant's Doctor stopped the Daleks from destroying the Universe (yes, the entire Universe! Do you have any idea how big that is?) by moving a lever? Or the other time when he fell through a glass dome from a height of several hundred feet- and survived with nothing but a few cuts and grazes?
The first Doctor- William Hartnell's Doctor- was an old man living on his wits. Somewhere down the line he turned into a superhero. Superheroes- I humbly suggest- are less interesting than old men living on their wits.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the show. It's inventive and colourful and funny. But also exasperating. SF demands an initial suspension of disbelief- but if it's to engage us there's got to be some measure of internal consistency, some sense of the game being played to a rule-book. There should be things that are allowable and things that aren't- and they shouldn't be subject to the exigencies of plot. There need to be pricks to kick against. With Dr Who there has long ceased to be a rule-book. The Doctor is forbidden to cross his own time-line- except on the occasions when he can, he is subject to the laws of physics, except when he isn't, he can go anywhere in time and space except when he can't. His powers ebb and flow as the story demands. What's the explanation for all this? Well, sorry, but it's beyond your puny human understanding- or to use the technical jargon- all a bit timey-wimey. Timey-wimey- an amusing concept, but really you might just as well have gods descending on machines.
Oh, what I'd give for a modicum of rigour!
