Insightful New Yorker article on Doctor Who

[The Lensman]

Nice article but it's always a little irritating to have the Doctor referred to as "Doctor Who."

An "error" perpetrated by the show's credits for most of its run. I believe the Doctor was always credited as "Doctor Who" or "Dr. Who" from "An Unearthly Child" in 1963 all the way up until sometime in the middle of the Tom Baker years in the late 1970s. Even on the new series, Christopher Eccleston was billed as "Doctor Who" for all of Season 1. (They did change over to crediting "The Doctor" during the David Tennant & Matt Smith years.)

Let's not forget one or two in-series incidents of the Doctor being called "Doctor Who" or a story or two being called "Doctor Who and _____" as well as many of the early books having that aspect of their title.

It was clearly a name of sorts in our world, and not some eternal question ala "Doctor..Who?"

I have zero problem with anyone calling him Doctor Who, and I'll do it just to annoy people who're bugged by it.

 

[sonak]

Just fuck off.

eh, the effects did look ridiculous at times in the older shows, and the second point's not totally unfair.

Suit yourself. I happen to disagree. But by saying that the show used the "shabbiest possible" effects, the writer is effectively deriding the work of the Visual Effects department, who were talented and capable people, and always striving to achieve the best effects possible. That they may have occasionally been defeated by budget restrictions and time doesn't deny their efforts. But the article writer is suggesting that they were deliberately making bad effects. So, I stick to my comment.

The writing was also tightly constructed most of the time.

I see your point about the word choice with "shabby." It implies that it was deliberate rather than an effect of budget concerns.

 

[EKeelerWasRight]

"The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi." X-Files? *cough*Blake's 7*cough*

 

[Sci]

"The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi." X-Files? *cough*Blake's 7*cough*

Do you really think Blake's 7 was anywhere near as influential in the emergence of television serialization in the late 1990s and early 2000s as The X-Files?

Really?

C'mon.

(Though credit for that phenomenon really ought to go to programs like Hill Street Blues, ER, and NYPD Blue as well.)

 

[Gov Kodos]

"The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi." X-Files? *cough*Blake's 7*cough*

Do you really think Blake's 7 was anywhere near as influential in the emergence of television serialization in the late 1990s and early 2000s as The X-Files?

Really?

C'mon.

(Though credit for that phenomenon really ought to go to programs like Hill Street Blues, ER, and NYPD Blue as well.)

One would also have to ignore the decades of day time soap operas, for one thing. Bringing season long stories and themes to evening TV, Dallas and Dynasty come to mind off the bat, there may well be others.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The show used the shabbiest possible effects, plus a fly-by-night attitude toward narrative logic

Just fuck off.

eh, the effects did look ridiculous at times in the older shows, and the second point's not totally unfair.

My first viewing of Doctor Who was during summer vacation away from home and my next viewing didn't come until years later as my family broke into laughing fits at the bad FX. And mind you that was in the 80s.

 

[Sci]

"The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi." X-Files? *cough*Blake's 7*cough*

Do you really think Blake's 7 was anywhere near as influential in the emergence of television serialization in the late 1990s and early 2000s as The X-Files?

Really?

C'mon.

(Though credit for that phenomenon really ought to go to programs like Hill Street Blues, ER, and NYPD Blue as well.)

One would also have to ignore the decades of day time soap operas, for one thing. Bringing season long stories and themes to evening TV, Dallas and Dynasty come to mind off the bat, there may well be others.

I don't really think soaps, daytime or primetime, had that kind of influence on mainstream primetime dramas.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Do you really think Blake's 7 was anywhere near as influential in the emergence of television serialization in the late 1990s and early 2000s as The X-Files?

Really?

C'mon.

(Though credit for that phenomenon really ought to go to programs like Hill Street Blues, ER, and NYPD Blue as well.)

One would also have to ignore the decades of day time soap operas, for one thing. Bringing season long stories and themes to evening TV, Dallas and Dynasty come to mind off the bat, there may well be others.

I don't really think soaps, daytime or primetime, had that kind of influence on mainstream primetime dramas.

Not directly, they might have even delayed the use of such devices due to the perception of them in the minds of media creators and their conception of what daytime and night time audiences would want to watch. I was only thinking of the use of character and story arcs having been conceived for TV in the nineties. I may have misconceived the point here. Was it simply influential shows on media, or just the use of those story telling structures mentioned?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Let's not forget one or two in-series incidents of the Doctor being called "Doctor Who" or a story or two being called "Doctor Who and _____" as well as many of the early books having that aspect of their title.

I don't recall him ever being called "Doctor Who" by name in any dialogue in the series. However, I do recall a few episodes referring to him that way in their titles. "Doctor Who & the Silurians" was Jon Pertwee's 2nd story. Part 5 of "The Chase" was called "The Death of Doctor Who."

the effects did look ridiculous at times in the older shows, and the second point's not totally unfair.

My first viewing of Doctor Who was during summer vacation away from home and my next viewing didn't come until years later as my family broke into laughing fits at the bad FX. And mind you that was in the 80s.

In some ways, it seems like the 1980s were probably the worst period for the show in terms of relative production values. It seems like in the 1960s most British TV had that kind of slap-dash nearly-live quality to them. Doctor Who's rough, wobbly quality was somewhat par for the course; though it was strained a bit further by the ambitious, fantastical nature of the stories. The 1970s saw some improvements that kept pace with the rest of British TV. But once you get to the late 1970s-1980s, you start seeing a proliferation of higher quality production values on sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, & Star Trek: The Next Generation (to say nothing of big screen efforts like Star Wars & Superman). Meanwhile, Doctor Who was unable to keep up with the times while the BBC kept cutting its budget and threatening to cancel it.

 

[Captain Dago]

I don't recall him ever being called "Doctor Who" by name in any dialogue in the series. However, I do recall a few episodes referring to him that way in their titles. "Doctor Who & the Silurians" was Jon Pertwee's 2nd story. Part 5 of "The Chase" was called "The Death of Doctor Who."

He was referred to in that manner in dialogue in the first episode I ever saw -- "The War Machines" back in '66.

 

[DWF]

Terrible article, completely misunderstands Who - hard to believe the writer has ever even watched it!

Can you elaborate upon that, as in being more specific about where the writer misunderstands Doctor Who?

Well IMO only, the article is somewhat skewed in favor of the new series as if the old series didn't contain complex ideas and storylines. The article also mentions the visual effects on the old series, whch also comes across as an attack on the old series and one really without much merit. Doctor Who and television in general has changed so much over the years since Doctor Who first aired in 1963, the only important that matters in the end is how well the old series continues to entertain audiences, I know that three parts of The Chase shown last Saturday at the Grandview theater were as well received as the new series was.

 

[Cyke101]

Terrible article, completely misunderstands Who - hard to believe the writer has ever even watched it!

Can you elaborate upon that, as in being more specific about where the writer misunderstands Doctor Who?

Well IMO only, the article is somewhat skewed in favor of the new series as if the old series didn't contain complex ideas and storylines.

She's not exactly hiding that as some sort of subliminal agenda, though. She makes it clear that she's only reviewing the last two seasons of Who, not the entirety of the show. She even blatantly says she's not reviewing the RTD era. TV shows can get vast, critics are allowed to critique specific (usually the most recent) parts of TV.

*****

As for the article itself, I enjoyed reading it, and I'm almost ashamed that I didn't find this thread when it first appeared.

 

[DWF]

Can you elaborate upon that, as in being more specific about where the writer misunderstands Doctor Who?

Well IMO only, the article is somewhat skewed in favor of the new series as if the old series didn't contain complex ideas and storylines.

She's not exactly hiding that as some sort of subliminal agenda, though. She makes it clear that she's only reviewing the last two seasons of Who, not the entirety of the show. She even blatantly says she's not reviewing the RTD era. TV shows can get vast, critics are allowed to critique specific (usually the most recent) parts of TV.

*****

As for the article itself, I enjoyed reading it, and I'm almost ashamed that I didn't find this thread when it first appeared.

She also claims to remember the old series.

Before I caught up on the last two seasons, my expectations were low. I anticipated something like the seventies-era series that I faintly remembered: a goofy, juvenile thrill ride. (I haven’t watched Davies’s version, but a fellow TV critic told me that she was so attached to his “Who” that she wasn’t watching Moffat’s.) The original “Who” dwelt on pure sci-fi obsessions, abstract questions of how society is organized and the line between humans and machines. But, as deeply as fans loved the show, its themes were rarely emotional. Instead, it jumped from Aztec civilization to Mars, as much an educational show for children as an adult narrative, with a British-colonialist view of the universe. (So many savages, so little time.) The series’ most striking feature was the Doctor himself: in contrast to “Star Trek” ’s Kirk—the Kennedyesque leader of a diverse society—the early Doctor Who was an alien iconoclast with two hearts and a universe-wide Eurail Pass. For a certain breed of viewer, this was an intoxicating ideal: the know-it-all whose streak of melancholy—or prickly rage, depending on who was Who—had to be honored, because he actually did know everything.
Though that show had its charms, I was surprised, and delighted, to find that the modern “Doctor Who” has a very different emphasis: it’s a show about relationships, in an epic and mythological vein. Certainly, the show has plenty of the classic “Doctor Who” pleasures, albeit with more sophisticated effects: there are seafaring pirates; a metallic England floating on a giant “Star Whale”; and a factory full of avatar-laborers whose faces melt off like goo. The Doctor himself is a pale, puppyish genius who shares several qualities with Moffat’s modernized Sherlock Holmes, including fashion affectations (he insists that bow ties are cool, then fezzes, then cowboy hats) and a Professor-from-“Gilligan’s Island” allure. The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi.

The author only faintly remembers the old series and yet seems to knock the old series to praise the new series.

And yet again that's only my feelings about the article.

 

[Cyke101]

Well IMO only, the article is somewhat skewed in favor of the new series as if the old series didn't contain complex ideas and storylines.

She's not exactly hiding that as some sort of subliminal agenda, though. She makes it clear that she's only reviewing the last two seasons of Who, not the entirety of the show. She even blatantly says she's not reviewing the RTD era. TV shows can get vast, critics are allowed to critique specific (usually the most recent) parts of TV.

*****

As for the article itself, I enjoyed reading it, and I'm almost ashamed that I didn't find this thread when it first appeared.

She also claims to remember the old series.

Before I caught up on the last two seasons, my expectations were low. I anticipated something like the seventies-era series that I faintly remembered: a goofy, juvenile thrill ride. (I haven’t watched Davies’s version, but a fellow TV critic told me that she was so attached to his “Who” that she wasn’t watching Moffat’s.) The original “Who” dwelt on pure sci-fi obsessions, abstract questions of how society is organized and the line between humans and machines. But, as deeply as fans loved the show, its themes were rarely emotional. Instead, it jumped from Aztec civilization to Mars, as much an educational show for children as an adult narrative, with a British-colonialist view of the universe. (So many savages, so little time.) The series’ most striking feature was the Doctor himself: in contrast to “Star Trek” ’s Kirk—the Kennedyesque leader of a diverse society—the early Doctor Who was an alien iconoclast with two hearts and a universe-wide Eurail Pass. For a certain breed of viewer, this was an intoxicating ideal: the know-it-all whose streak of melancholy—or prickly rage, depending on who was Who—had to be honored, because he actually did know everything.
Though that show had its charms, I was surprised, and delighted, to find that the modern “Doctor Who” has a very different emphasis: it’s a show about relationships, in an epic and mythological vein. Certainly, the show has plenty of the classic “Doctor Who” pleasures, albeit with more sophisticated effects: there are seafaring pirates; a metallic England floating on a giant “Star Whale”; and a factory full of avatar-laborers whose faces melt off like goo. The Doctor himself is a pale, puppyish genius who shares several qualities with Moffat’s modernized Sherlock Holmes, including fashion affectations (he insists that bow ties are cool, then fezzes, then cowboy hats) and a Professor-from-“Gilligan’s Island” allure. The show’s strength, however, is not its one-off stories but its longer arcs, a structural breakthrough of “The X-Files,” which modelled the notion that episodic TV could be woven together with powerful, season-long themes, inspiring the more complex breed of modern shows, both sci-fi and regular-fi.

The author only faintly remembers the old series and yet seems to knock the old series to praise the new series.

And yet again that's only my feelings about the article.

She only "faintly* recalls the old show, in her words. I don't think she's knocking it so much as she is just simply pointing out differences for the sake of the reader's context. There's no point in talking about how different Moffat's Who is if you don't establish what came before. Simply that what worked before is different than what works now, and vice-versa. She said she was surprised and delighted at the new show's emphasis, but she didn't say she was bored and hated the old show's perspective. You also guessed that she was bashing the show because to you it sounded like she said it didn't have, in your words, "complex ideas and storylines," yet from the same passage you quoted:

The original “Who” dwelt on pure sci-fi obsessions, abstract questions of how society is organized and the line between humans and machines.

...and that doesn't sound like she's bashing the show, nor does it sound like it was lacking in complex ideas, either. If anything, she's comparing the old show's more traditional, harder sci-fi focus to today's more relationship-driven focus. And notice that her analysis of the Doctor's character is consistent and positive with both the old and the new, regardless of actor. If she was bashing the old show, she would probably express confusion as to why a show she dislikes so much (that is, IF she disliked it) lasted for 26 years; on the contrary, she mentions the franchise's longevity as a positive.

I'll be honest, as an American who got back into Who in 1996 and then 2005, my faint memories were also of the 1970s. With latter-TNG effects fresh in my head, as a youth I thought the 70s DW special effects looked rather cheap -- but Whodom also takes a certain sense of nostalgic pride with aluminum foil monsters, which is also fine. Say what you will about those old effects, but her point is that they've jumped leaps and bounds with the new show. I watch the old show with fondness and a lack of cynicism thanks to RTD and Moffet, but my earliest memories of Doctor Who coincide with the author's as well. But she can't comment on individual, noteworthy episodes of Old Who because she only *faintly* remembers them, and even then the focus of her article is Moffet's Who and nothing else.

 

[DWF]

The article wasn't a review of Doctor Who at all merely a comparison of Doctor Who with a short segment on Community, it'd been best for the author not to have mentioned the old series at all.

 

[JRoss]

Wasn't impressed with the article. It was just too "hooray for this thing that you should watch," than actually offering a fair view of the show.

 

[Sci]

How dare a writer for the New Yorker have a mildly negative opinion about a cheesey old British science-fiction show with mostly mediocre writing, terrible visual effects, wobbly sets, and an unemotional core!

 

[Starkers]

And it must eat you up that if it wasn't for that show, the Who you love wouldn't exist...

 

[Sci]

And it must eat you up that if it wasn't for that show, the Who you love wouldn't exist...

Nope. There are plenty of similar situations, where really wonderful works of art are built on the basis of far simpler, lower-quality works that came before them.

No reasonable person would argue that, say, the somewhat schlock-y original versions of Superman and Batman from Action Comics #1 (1938) and Detective Comics #27 (1939) are superior in any respect to more modern incarnations such as the ones featured in Kingdom Come or The Long Halloween. (Hell, even a film as brilliant as The Dark Knight owes an evolutionary debt to the Adam West Batman TV series.) Most people would not look at, say, Under the Gaslight or The Poor of New York (two mid-19th century melodramas whose influence were vital in the evolution of Realism/Naturalism) and argue that they're superior to Hedda Gabler or The Three Sisters (two Realist/Naturalist plays commonly considered the apex of the form). Modern musical theatre might never have existed without The Black Crook, but I promise you that modern musicals like Next to Normal or Sunday in the Park With George are superior in almost every respect. Modern cinema would be impossible without the contributions to the medium that came from early 20th century films like Birth of a Nation or Le Voyage dans la lune, but I promise you that later films like Citizen Kane, The Godfather, or The Artist are superior in most meaningful respects. The modern situation comedy would absolutely not exist without the contributions of early television programs like The Honeymooners or I Love Lucy, but I'd put a sitcom like Community or Parks and Recreation up against the old ones any day of the week.

I am perfectly comfortable acknowledging the debt modern Doctor Who owes to the original series even as I think it inferior in almost every meaningful respect.

 

[DWF]

How dare a writer for the New Yorker have a mildly negative opinion about a cheesey old British science-fiction show with mostly mediocre writing, terrible visual effects, wobbly sets, and an unemotional core!

The sets weren't as wobbly as people claim, visual effects are a matter of technology and everything else is a matter of opinion.