Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor Who

[Chrono85]

I was looking at information on BBC America's 'The Real History of Science Fiction' and I found this interesting article where the writer cites other scifi shows that have been inspired by Doctor Who. It delves into Star Trek a bit with the Borg being similar to the Cybermen, which is pretty undeniable. http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2013/11/10-sci-fi-franchises-influenced-doctor/

However, it also claims that the Klingons were inspired by the Sontarans. I did a wiki search on Sontarans, and it turns out they debuted in an episode first broadcast in 1973, whereas the Klingons first appeared in 1967, so I think that particular claim is a bit off. The writers claim that the Millenium Falcon is based on the TARDIS, is also questionable. Also, it says that Star Trek took the name 'Vulcan' from a planet featured in Dcotor Who, but really, both shows were probably drawing from Roman mythology on that one. Other than these tidbits, it is kind of an interesting read.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

It's possible that they mean the way Klingon honor and society as presented in the later series was influenced by the Sontarans.

it is kind of an interesting read.

Maybe post a link?

 

[Chrono85]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

It's possible that they mean the way Klingon honor and society is presented in the later series was influenced by the Sontarans.

it is kind of an interesting read.

Maybe post a link?

Sorry about that, I totally forgot to post the link. Fixed I think the stuff about the Klingons is still a bit of a stretch. The idea of a culture built on honor or warfare, isn't something that Doctor Who originated, and the Sontarans were portrayed as warlike in the original series, but were never very fleshed out on the show.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

The whole article is pretty shaky. I think it's interesting that they mention Buffy as nuWho was quite influenced by it in its presentation.

 

[Set Harth]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

The writers claim that the Millenium Falcon is based on the TARDIS, is also questionable.

I would agree.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

IHowever, it also claims that the Klingons were inspired by the Sontarans. I did a wiki search on Sontarans, and it turns out they debuted in an episode first broadcast in 1973, whereas the Klingons first appeared in 1967, so I think that particular claim is a bit off.

Not to mention that nobody in America would've seen Doctor Who until the mid-'70s, and in most cases the early '80s. They didn't have global satellite TV and online torrents back then.

The writers claim that the Millenium Falcon is based on the TARDIS, is also questionable.

What???? That's beyond questionable -- it's totally idiotic. Just because two things are both vehicles, that means one inspired the other? Is this article writer even aware that there were works of science fiction written long before Doctor Who existed?

Good grief, if anything, the Falcon is more likely influenced by the trope of the "flying saucer," a disc-shaped spacecraft -- which is also an influence on the design of the Enterprise. The TARDIS is about as different from those as you can get.

Also, it says that Star Trek took the name 'Vulcan' from a planet featured in Dcotor Who, but really, both shows were probably drawing from Roman mythology on that one.

In fact, they were both drawing on a real astronomical hypothesis. In the mid-19th century, French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier, who correctly predicted the existence of Neptune based on observed anomalies in Uranus's orbit, proposed that another unknown planet might be the cause of anomalies in Mercury's orbit. Since this planet would be the closest world to the Sun, he proposed that it be named Vulcan after the Roman god of the hearth. The precession in Mercury's orbit was eventually explained by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, but by then, the concept of an unknown planet named Vulcan had been in the public consciousness for decades. So both Star Trek and Doctor Who were drawing on a concept that predated them by a full century.

I will never understand the insular thinking of people who see two relatively recent things that resemble each other and are thereby absolutely convinced that one is a copy of the other. Don't they realize that human history has been around a lot longer than that, that it's far more likely that the two works are independently drawing on some earlier influence? Why doesn't that possibility even occur to them?

All in all, this looks like a totally worthless clickbait article without an ounce of real research behind it. It's not "10 Sci-Fi Franchises Influenced by Doctor Who," it's "10 Sci-Fi Franchises That Vaguely Remind Me of Doctor Who."

 

[ATimson]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

The writers claim that the Millenium Falcon is based on the TARDIS, is also questionable.

What???? That's beyond questionable -- it's totally idiotic. Just because two things are both vehicles, that means one inspired the other?

Well, the Falcon is technically also bigger on the inside - the sets can't fit within the exterior of the ship.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Well, the Falcon is technically also bigger on the inside - the sets can't fit within the exterior of the ship.

The same goes for a lot of SF spaceships, including the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space, TOS shuttlecraft, the TMP Enterprise (certain sets), and the VGR Delta Flyer. Then there's the complicated question of how the interior and exterior proportions of Space: 1999 Eagles can be reconciled.

For that matter, there are no doubt a lot of house and apartment sets in TV that don't fit inside the exteriors. I was actually rather surprised to find that, as far as I could determine, the studio set for the interior of Jim Rockford's trailer in The Rockford Files actually did match the dimensions of the 1959 Nashua trailer used for its exterior. (Aside from the occasional episode where it was a bit wider in practice because they left off the side wall for filming.)

 

[AgentCoop]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

I seem to remember hearing that the Brady Bunch house's interior doesn't match the exterior.

They're spot-on about the Millennium Falcon, though. It turns out that it looks just like a Corellian phone box.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Yeah, that article is definitely reaching. Even as Bill & Ted goes, it was meant as a parody of sorts, making me feel like the writer totally missed the point.

 

[Blamo]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Now I'm a Doctor Who fan, but yeah, with the exception of the Borg and the obvious injokes/parodies, the only shows on that list that have been directly influenced by Doctor Who are Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Blakes 7 (by virtue of Terry Nation). Blakes 7 in fact was more influenced by Star Trek.

Alien is arguable, but amusingly enough not for the reasons he states.

Life on Mars doesn't count as all Doctor Who did was make the BBC friendly to "out there" concepts.

The rest is absolute rubbish and not researched at all. I mean Buffy? Really? The way that part of the article was written it sounded like he was suggesting Rose Tyler came before Buffy.

Funnily enough no mention of Dark Season (1991), which was written by RTD. Understandable I suppose, since virtually no one's heard of it, even in the UK.

I will never understand the insular thinking of people who see two relatively recent things that resemble each other and are thereby absolutely convinced that one is a copy of the other. Don't they realize that human history has been around a lot longer than that, that it's far more likely that the two works are independently drawing on some earlier influence? Why doesn't that possibility even occur to them?

This is one of my biggest peeves with sci-fi fandom. I had no time for it back during the whole B5 v DS9 and I have even less time for it now. To be honest a lot of these arguments are immature and generally perpetuated by people with little knowledge in regards to the genre and fiction in general.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Now I'm a Doctor Who fan, but yeah, with the exception of the Borg and the obvious injokes/parodies, the only shows on that list that have been directly influenced by Doctor Who are Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Blakes 7 (by virtue of Terry Nation). Blakes 7 in fact was more influenced by Star Trek.

Well, Terry Nation and Chris Boucher, the latter being B7's story editor and the writer of numerous DW serials including the classic "The Robots of Death." And the influence goes both ways. Boucher's novel Corpse Marker, a sequel to "Robots," includes a character from one of his B7 episodes, thus unofficially establishing B7 as taking place in the DW universe.

Alien is arguable, but amusingly enough not for the reasons he states.

Then for what reason? I think the influence on Alien (assuming we mean the original Ridley Scott film) was more haunted house movies, not to mention It: The Terror From Beyond Space, of which it's often considered a loose remake.

This is one of my biggest peeves with sci-fi fandom. I had no time for it back during the whole B5 v DS9 and I have even less time for it now. To be honest a lot of these arguments are immature and generally perpetuated by people with little knowledge in regards to the genre and fiction in general.

It's not the lack of knowledge that gets me, since nobody knows everything. It's the lack of imagination -- the inability to realize that others might know things they don't. They assume that if they haven't heard of a work of fiction, it doesn't exist.

 

[Blamo]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Then for what reason? I think the influence on Alien (assuming we mean the original Ridley Scott film) was more haunted house movies, not to mention It: The Terror From Beyond Space, of which it's often considered a loose remake.

Ark in Space. Can't see it myself.

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Good grief, if anything, the Falcon is more likely influenced by the trope of the "flying saucer," a disc-shaped spacecraft -- which is also an influence on the design of the Enterprise. The TARDIS is about as different from those as you can get.

Apropos of nothing: when I saw SW in its original run, I somehow picked up the idea that the Falcon spun in flight like a flying saucer because it turned around when first taking off. Both from Mos Eisley and from the Death Star, I believe. (What can I say, I was nine.)

On-topic ... the Falcon was inspired by the TARDIS because it seems to have a personality and doesn't always do what it's supposed to? In that case my DVR was also inspired by the TARDIS.

And let's not even talk about my toaster.

Also, it says that Star Trek took the name 'Vulcan' from a planet featured in Dcotor Who, but really, both shows were probably drawing from Roman mythology on that one.

French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier [proposed] another unknown planet ... Since this planet would be the closest world to the Sun, he proposed that it be named Vulcan after the Roman god of the hearth.

James Blish certainly remembered. In a novelization, the exposition said Spock was from an extrasolar world "confusingly called Vulcan." And more specifically in "Tomorrow is Yesterday": Discussing Spock, John Christopher mentioned "our" Vulcan. Not sure if he knew Spock was extrasolar but was confused by two planet Vulcans, or if he just assumed Spock was from "our" Vulcan. (That might have made intuitive sense if they kept Spock's original red skin! ) Anyway, they corrected him.

Was "our" Vulcan common knowledge in decades past? Blish must have thought so. Naming another planet "Vulcan" would only be confusing if you knew about Urbain Le Verrier.

All in all, this looks like a totally worthless clickbait article without an ounce of real research behind it. It's not "10 Sci-Fi Franchises Influenced by Doctor Who," it's "10 Sci-Fi Franchises That Vaguely Remind Me of Doctor Who."

At first I read that as "dickbait."

90+% agree ... but I'd possibly make it 9 franchises. I do see the comparison with Hitchhiker's Guide — and I can totally see Tom Baker going up against Vogons and the like.

First, however, we need proof that Adams actually emulated DW. Without any, I agree 100% .

 

[publiusr]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

However, it also claims that the Klingons were inspired by the Sontarans. I did a wiki search on Sontarans, and it turns out they debuted in an episode first broadcast in 1973.

I think the Sontarans themselves were based on Cosmonauts. They were a bit shorter than the Mercury Seven, and with wide helmets and spherical craft.

Take a look at the surface pattern here, post re-entry:
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=34028

And "Object D" probably also registered in Ray Cusick's subconscious mind
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/sputnik3.html

There is a part of me that wonders if the TIE fighters and X-wings were both inspired by this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pegasus_satellite.jpg

 

[Christopher]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Was "our" Vulcan common knowledge in decades past? Blish must have thought so. Naming another planet "Vulcan" would only be confusing if you knew about Urbain Le Verrier.

Yes, certainly. It was a commonly known astronomical hypothesis for decades, and Einstein's disproof of it was big news because it was the first confirmation of general relativity. So the idea was part of popular culture back then, which is the whole reason why works of science fiction like ST and DW -- and no doubt others -- were inclined to use "Vulcan" as a name for an alien planet. It's just that the Trek use has eclipsed the earlier pop-culture associations of the name. When Blish was writing in the early '70s, that hadn't happened yet; it was clearer that Trek itself was alluding to the earlier, fairly well-known concept of a "planet Vulcan." But pop culture has a short memory.

90+% agree ... but I'd possibly make it 9 franchises. I do see the comparison with Hitchhiker's Guide — and I can totally see Tom Baker going up against Vogons and the like.

First, however, we need proof that Adams actually emulated DW. Without any, I agree 100% .

Wasn't the Krikkit Wars thing from Life, The Universe, and Everything based on a rejected Who pitch?

Of course, the Adams work that's most strongly based on Doctor Who is Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which is basically a fusion of "Shada" and "City of Death" with the DW elements removed. Although Adams just reworked his own DW ideas into non-DW stories, so I'm not sure that really counts as emulating DW.

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

Couldn't tell you; my knowledge of DW is relatively limited. But I'd say working DW ideas into non-DW stories counts as emulating ... as long as tone and theme don't stray too far. Who better to emulate the material than someone who provably knows the material?

 

[Christopher]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

^Well, sure, but what I mean is that it was Douglas Adams adapting the scripts that he himself wrote for Doctor Who when he was its story editor -- although "City of Death" was actually a David Fisher story heavily rewritten by Adams and producer Graham Williams, and aired under the BBC house pseudonym David Agnew. Adapting ideas that he came up with in the first place isn't "influence" in the same way that drawing on other people's ideas would be.

 

[Marc]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

[
Well, Terry Nation and Chris Boucher, the latter being B7's story editor and the writer of numerous DW serials including the classic "The Robots of Death." And the influence goes both ways. Boucher's novel Corpse Marker, a sequel to "Robots," includes a character from one of his B7 episodes, thus unofficially establishing B7 as taking place in the DW universe.

Be a while since I read Corpse Marker but was it the same character who also appeared in The Kaldor City audios?

The Kaldor city audios for those who don't know are set on the planet where the Sandminders in Robots of Death orginated from. Found them really enjoyable not to mention the cast which included actors from Robots of Death (Brian Croucher, Michael Collings, the late Russell Hunter) other Doctor Who veterans and several from B7 (not named to keep some surprises but the voice of Peter Tudenham can be heard but not voice a computer)

Incidently accorrding the wiki entry for the audios, Terry Nation had wanted to introduce the Daleks to the B7 universe but it was nixed by the BBC.

 

[Silvercrest]

Re: Interesting article about Scifi shows that were inspired by Doctor

^Well, sure, but what I mean is that it was Douglas Adams adapting the scripts that he himself wrote for Doctor Who when he was its story editor -- although "City of Death" was actually a David Fisher story heavily rewritten by Adams and producer Graham Williams, and aired under the BBC house pseudonym David Agnew. Adapting ideas that he came up with in the first place isn't "influence" in the same way that drawing on other people's ideas would be.

I thought you meant adapting general story ideas or concepts. Taking a general idea that was intended for a particular venue (even if it's your own idea) and retaining the overall tone or theme while working it into a different setting with different characters and presumably a different plot ... well, that seems to fit the definition of "emulating" the source ... or almost fits it.

The original BSG emulates much of the style and tone of "Star Wars". We'd likely still say that even if Glen Larson had his inspiration from working under George Lucas.

Likely. Possibly. Perhaps. Maybe.

Anyway, I agree that if Adams took specific scripts or specific plot points to be used elsewhere, that's not the same as "emulating".