Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it is.

[Aldo]

Ok, so the Doctor can apparently travel to any point in space and/or time. So where does the Doctor spend most of his time? Earth, whether it be the past, present or future most stories seem to revolve around Earth.

Now I've only seen a handful of Classic Who episodes (mostly from the Tom Baker and Peter Davison years...and the oft-maligned tv movie), but what really hooked me on the concept was that he literally did travel to the far reaches of space, sure stories still took place on Earth, but that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule.

It's certainly not hampering my enjoyment of the series, I still think David Tennant is the best Doctor (oh yeah, I'm currently making my way through series 4 at the moment). Kind of sad to see him go, but I felt the same way about Eccleston back then too.

 

[Starkers]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

It's a tricky one, there's clearly been a much greater focus on both Eearth in general and specifically the modern day in NuWho, although I'd argue a little less so under Moffat. There is an issue of cost, but really I think it boils down to the following two arguments (people feel free to disagree with me on this!)

Kids (and people in general) today lack the imagination to become engrossed in anything they can't relate to, hence the notion of alien worlds and futuristic cultures is replaced by modern day council estates because people are too thick to understand the concept of planet Zog.

Vs.

The classic series was too often a joke, with quarries = alien worlds, and utterly ridiculous outfits/terminology that no one could relate to. When Who came back it was designed to appeal to the broadest amount of viewers so such niche ideas were shuffled to the background, and a story can be just as engrossing, and more accesible, on the Powell Estates as it can on planet Zog.

Personally I think there's some validity to both arguments, and it is important that the show stays somewhat grounded and accesible, but I do think they need to be a bit braver and adventurous in terms of the wider universe sometimes.

 

[Aldo]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

I gotta admit though, even with them focusing on Earth a tad more than I'd like, they still manage to put out gripping stories.

I can certainly see the need to keep stories grounded to make them accessible to all viewers. But then I'd argue that Star Trek has been showing us alien worlds for years and still managed to make the stories human and relatable. Granted in Trek the alien worlds were more often than not populated by humanoid aliens that weren't too far removed from actual humans.

I think my annoyance with nuWho stems from the fact that I find the universe a fascinating thing, and knowing that this character can travel the vast expanses of time and space makes me wish for more grander stories than what they've given us so far.

 

[Starkers]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Yeah, Who's always been overly facinated with the 51st century as well for some reason, lord knows why!

 

[Cutter John]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

This has bothered me ever since the show came back. Honestly, whats so special about the Earth that alien races just seem to be drawn here? Surely there are other planets out there recieving frequent alien visitors, who I guess are pretty much on their own.

And yes, it does seem pretty small scale. I'd love to se them do a properly epic story along the lines of Frontier in Space.

Kids (and people in general) today lack the imagination to become engrossed in anything they can't relate to, hence the notion of alien worlds and futuristic cultures is replaced by modern day council estates because people are too thick to understand the concept of planet Zog.

Vs.

The classic series was too often a joke, with quarries = alien worlds, and utterly ridiculous outfits/terminology that no one could relate to. When Who came back it was designed to appeal to the broadest amount of viewers so such niche ideas were shuffled to the background, and a story can be just as engrossing, and more accesible, on the Powell Estates as it can on planet Zog.

Personally I think there's some validity to both arguments, and it is important that the show stays somewhat grounded and accesible, but I do think they need to be a bit braver and adventurous in terms of the wider universe sometimes.

It does my heart good to find out theres someone just as cynical about people today as I am. thank you sir.

 

[Starkers]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

^ ha ha, well I was really just trying to show the extremes of both sides of the argument really

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Yeah, Who's always been overly facinated with the 51st century as well for some reason, lord knows why!

Actually, the 51st Century is just a Moffat thing. RTD went with 200,000 (Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire) and 5 billion years (End of Earth, foundation of New Earth).

 

[Starkers]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

^Oh I know, but the 51st Century was used a lot in classic Who as well wasn't it? Weng Chaing was from then, and someone else as well I believe.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Even in the original series, the Doctor spent a healthy proportion of his time on Earth. After all, one of the original hooks of the show was to go back in time to teach children about Earth history.

But I agree that it does seem to have become more emphasised in NuWho. Part of this I believe is, as mentioned above, the feeling that new viewers would hook into the show more easily if they could relate to it more closely.

Another reason is that, in the beginning, NuWho was a very much an unknown quantity. They were not a proven hit as yet, and so didn't have the budget to convincingly create alien vistas. The producers thought it would be better to create realistic Earth-bound settings than cheap and badly made alien settings. At least until such time as they figured out what they were doing better and had more money to play with.

The other thing is that this is simply RTD's preferred style of writing, whether Who or otherwise. He has made no secret of two things - first, he loves kitchen sink drama. Two people sitting at a table is something he loved writing, so it would inevitably creep into Who. And he always said that any given companion's family would always be a part of their story, because that's simply how he rolls. Those two things together also spell a more Earth-bound philosophy. Fantastical elements feel more fantastical when they have a non-fantastical base to spring from.

Since Moffat is going for a more fairy-tale feel with his stories, the series is suitably less Earth-bound now. But still not completely, because you've got that relatability factor still.

As for the 51st Century, I'm guessing that's just somebody saying, "Where are we now? Oh right, 21st Century. How do we make something sound futuristic? Just add a bigger number onto that." Again, much more easily relatable and memorable by the average punter than the year 956,473,028.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

I am officially caught up with NuWho now. I just finished A Man Goes to War last night. I will definitely say this show is in my top five current favorite shows. Up there with Dexter, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Supernatural. It may be small scale in terms of centering around Earth, but it is pretty grandiose and epic in it's storytelling. Holy crap! Now I am sad I got to wait until the fall to get the back end of season 6. Now to catch up with Torchwood!

I am with you though, it took a while to get used to Tennant after Eccleston and Smith after Tennant, but I think I'm passed it now. Although, I don't know why, but Matt Smith reminds me of a British Crispin Glover.

 

[Anbaric Amber]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

This is just for my own satisfaction but I've always believed that Time-Lords are actually advanced humans who reached a point that they existed in all time, becoming Time-Lords. The Time-Lords may not even know this about themselves. I've always presumed the Doctor has and as such, has always had an unusual affinity to Earth.

That's just me.

Now, canonically (not that such a thing exists) the Doctor landed on Earth in the 60s, fell in love with the culture and the inexplicably identical lifeforms but in so doing has drawn villains and happenstance from around the universe to Earth. He's mentioned that Earth sits on a convenient space-time fuel stop for the TARDIS. So there's other reasons to keep coming back. But mostly, I think from the very first time he intervened in Earth history he's been obligated to keep coming back - to fix one Butterfly Effect after another after another.

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

AGMGTW managed to completely avoid 21st century Earth altogether!

and even the late great Jon Pertwee claimed the Daleks were never scarier than rolling over a bridge in Tooting Bec...

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Kids (and people in general) today lack the imagination to become engrossed in anything they can't relate to

Fiction is and always has been about us. It has nothing to do with "kids" or "people today".

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

For me, the best thing Doctor Who can do is juxtapose two things that totally do not go together, and I think this works most with something mundane and something fantastic. So, a contemporary Earth setting gets you the maximum effect. A space hospital on the moon of Zorbos is whatever, but "Smith and Jones" is the best Doctor Who episode ever made.

 

[marillion]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

This has bothered me ever since the show came back. Honestly, whats so special about the Earth that alien races just seem to be drawn here? Surely there are other planets out there recieving frequent alien visitors, who I guess are pretty much on their own.

And yes, it does seem pretty small scale. I'd love to se them do a properly epic story along the lines of Frontier in Space.

Kids (and people in general) today lack the imagination to become engrossed in anything they can't relate to, hence the notion of alien worlds and futuristic cultures is replaced by modern day council estates because people are too thick to understand the concept of planet Zog.

Vs.

The classic series was too often a joke, with quarries = alien worlds, and utterly ridiculous outfits/terminology that no one could relate to. When Who came back it was designed to appeal to the broadest amount of viewers so such niche ideas were shuffled to the background, and a story can be just as engrossing, and more accesible, on the Powell Estates as it can on planet Zog.

Personally I think there's some validity to both arguments, and it is important that the show stays somewhat grounded and accesible, but I do think they need to be a bit braver and adventurous in terms of the wider universe sometimes.

It does my heart good to find out theres someone just as cynical about people today as I am. thank you sir.

In my mind, it's not so much that other alien civilizations are drawn to Earth, specifically, but that they are drawn to Earth because that's the Doctor's favorite planet, and thus they threaten the planet to get to him..

That's why the Pandorica was placed here, allowing all the baddies to converge at once.

Just my two galactic credits.

 

[Sci]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Ok, so the Doctor can apparently travel to any point in space and/or time. So where does the Doctor spend most of his time? Earth, whether it be the past, present or future most stories seem to revolve around Earth.

Because it's a show about Earth, and about the Doctor showing his companions the history and future of their species.

And because the general audience out there, the Not-We, just don't care about fighting the Zog Monsters on the Planet Zog who are eating the innocent Zog when they try to mine for precious zog.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Is Zog, Klendathu adjacent?

 

[23skidoo]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Yeah, Who's always been overly facinated with the 51st century as well for some reason, lord knows why!

Actually, the 51st Century is just a Moffat thing. RTD went with 200,000 (Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire) and 5 billion years (End of Earth, foundation of New Earth).

Not to mention the year 100 trillion, which is probably the all-time record.

I have to disagree about "small scale". There's nothing small scale about A Good Man Goes to War, or The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. And if you're only sticking with the RTD era, I go all the way back to The Empty Child, Parting of the Ways, New Earth, Gridlock, Blink, Girl in the Fireplace, Last of the Time Lords, Voyage of the Damned.

The realities of producing television required that RTD focus on homegrown production as much as possible - same reason by Derrick Sherwin & Co. were required to keep the Doctor on earth during the UNIT era - but once you trim the occasional chaff like "Fear Her" and "Love & Monsters", or even a couple of bottle shows like "Midnight", there's nothing small scale about modern-day Doctor Who.

Alex

 

[Starkers]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Ok, so the Doctor can apparently travel to any point in space and/or time. So where does the Doctor spend most of his time? Earth, whether it be the past, present or future most stories seem to revolve around Earth.

Because it's a show about Earth, and about the Doctor showing his companions the history and future of their species.

And because the general audience out there, the Not-We, just don't care about fighting the Zog Monsters on the Planet Zog who are eating the innocent Zog when they try to mine for precious zog.

I think that's a slender argument. If you make the innocent Zog characters we care about then we care if they get eaten, by the same token just putting people who are a bit like us and a place a bit like now doesn't neccesarily grant us a connection if the characters do not feel fully formed. Saying you can only relate to people like yourself is fundementally flawed.

Take Martha; I have no clue what its like to be a young black woman who's a medical student and whose parents have divorced. The fact that she's from a recognisable world doesn't make me care about her anymore than if she was a Zogian?

And the argument works in reverse as well, by your definition why should we care about characters in 19th Century Cardiff, or Pompeii, both places are as far removed from our world as Zog is, populated by people who dress funnily and talk in strange ways. Why is this different?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Re: Getting back into nuWho again, still bugged at how small scale it

Ok, so the Doctor can apparently travel to any point in space and/or time. So where does the Doctor spend most of his time? Earth, whether it be the past, present or future most stories seem to revolve around Earth.

Because it's a show about Earth, and about the Doctor showing his companions the history and future of their species.

And because the general audience out there, the Not-We, just don't care about fighting the Zog Monsters on the Planet Zog who are eating the innocent Zog when they try to mine for precious zog.

I think that's a slender argument. If you make the innocent Zog characters we care about then we care if they get eaten, by the same token just putting people who are a bit like us and a place a bit like now doesn't neccesarily grant us a connection if the characters do not feel fully formed. Saying you can only relate to people like yourself is fundementally flawed.

Take Martha; I have no clue what its like to be a young black woman who's a medical student and whose parents have divorced. The fact that she's from a recognisable world doesn't make me care about her anymore than if she was a Zogian?

And the argument works in reverse as well, by your definition why should we care about characters in 19th Century Cardiff, or Pompeii, both places are as far removed from our world as Zog is, populated by people who dress funnily and talk in strange ways. Why is this different?

I know young black women, I know medical students and my parents have divorced. I've been to Pompeii and I've read novels written by Charles Dickens. All these things exist, all these things have left traces in history, all these things have built-in emotional resonance. When you use the real world as a backdrop for your stories, you gain all kinds of very complex connections you can't just replace with ad hoc worldbuilding.