According to best-selling author Sir Terry Pratchett, anyone who thinks that “Doctor Who” is science-fiction doesn’t really know what science-fiction is.
At least that’s according to a blog post Pratchett has written as part of his job guest-editing “SFX Magazine.”
“People say ‘Doctor Who’ is science fiction. At least people who don’t know what science fiction is, say that ‘Doctor Who’ is science fiction. ‘Star Trek’ approaches science fiction. The horribly titled ‘Star Cops’ which ran all too briefly on the BBC in the 1980s was the genuine pure quill of science fiction, unbelievable in some aspects but nevertheless pretty much about the possible,” Pratchett writes. “And yet, I will watch again next week because it is pure professionally-written entertainment, even if it helps sometimes if you leave your brain on a hook by the door. It’s funny, light-hearted, knows when to use pathos and capable of wonderful moments,”
Pratchett says that he has a long pedigree when it comes to “Who” and that he recalls seeing the first episode as it aired in November of 1963.
“I was there at the beginning, chums, the very beginning, when the world was monochrome, and pretty grainy monochrome at that. I remember arguing at school about the tune, particularly how long you should go bumdy bum bumdy bum bumdy bum bumdy bum before you got on to the woooooooeeeeeee bumdidy bum bit,” he writes. “It was all new in those days. In fact I was there twice. It was talked about so much in the following week that the BBC had to air it again on the next Saturday before showing the second episode. There was a huge amount of interest even though the Daleks hadn’t turned up yet.”
You can read the full article by Pratchett HERE.
ejdalise says
Yep. I’ll watch anything without bitching as long as they don’t classify it. Once they set a premise, a genre, a structure, well then, they have entered into a contract with the viewers.
That’s what made Firefly so great. It was everything, and it was nothing; western, comedy, drama, science fiction, romance, horror, and I few I can’t remember.
Serenity (the movie, not the pilot), departed from the people angle and turned River into something like the Doctor. There should be nothing she can’t do, essentially destroying the promise of the character, and replacing it with something that has nowhere to go, no growth path.
He mentions “The Empty Child”, which I coincidentally watched this past weekend. Excellence in acting, characterization, and story-telling. Eccleston did a decent job of adapting the personality of the Doctor to the situation, dark and dire, complete with the stress relief of the finishing dance number.
The current Doctor has not learned that yet . . . no matter how perilous, no matter how dire the situation, there’s a smile . . . no, a smirk, and a hubris that hints at having read the script and knowing all will be OK . . . despite how many people die.
Maybe because they are both new, but Amy is the same way. Neither conveys the gravity of a given situation, but I blame the writers and directors for that; they apparently rather concentrate on the campy and the humorous as opposed to gripping storytelling.
Kyle Nin says
He says that “Doctor Who” ISN’T sci-fi, but he doesn’t say what it IS. And if you know that something in a story can happen, then doesn’t that just make it fiction, not science fiction?
Brian says
Yea, we actually made a Dragon*ConTV video about this in 2009 …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m2H5qxmu28
TallGrrl says
In one of the recent Confidentials (the wonderful mini-documentary “Making Of” shows that they do for each episode), Stephen Moffat says that “Doctor Who” is “more Fairy Tale than Science Fiction.”
And I am total agreement with that.
Other than the Time Machine and the Sonic Screwdriver. And that Time is “wibbely-wobbely timey-wimey…stuff”, it’s not so sciency. (Yes, that’s a word…now.)
Bronzethumb says
Very true. For all the spaceships and aliens and time travel, the series (like Star Wars) really has more in common with fantasy–or under Moffat’s reign, fairy tales.
Scooter says
I don’t think anyone who watches the show seriously thinks that it is Science Fiction.
ejdalise says
@scooter . . . I beg to differ. One of the reasons I started watching it again is because friends who watch it say “You’ll like it; it’s science fiction”.
Kyle Nin says
“I don’t think anyone who watches the show seriously thinks that it is Science Fiction.”
I do.
It’s a time MACHINE! They’re not traveling through time because they’re sprinkling fairy dust on each other.
tmw says
Honestly, I’m not sure why it matters. I’ve always felt the dividing line should be intent rather than method – in fantasy and soft sci-fi, the author uses the presently impossible (whether magic or future science) to explore characters and create an escape from reality, whereas hard sci-fi is about exploring the interaction between technology and the human condition. I personally have always preferred the former, because fantasy/soft sci fi tends to have more likable characters and prettier worlds. In books that means I read fantasy, in TV it means I watch soft sci-fi (cuz lets face it, there’s a depressing lack of supernatural/fantasy shows outside of the CW and BBCAmerica. Actually, now that I think about it there’s more supernatural/fantasy than sci fi, I just rewatch farscape, x files and firefly so often I kind of forget they’re off the air…).
Lost is a perfect example of not bothering with trying to pidgeonhole it as one or the other – electromagnetic time travel and immortal smoke monsters coexisting = awesome.