Is There any Science Left In Doctor Who's Science Fiction?

[StCoop]

Before anyone jumps in with the obvious reply; yes the "science" in Doctor Who was always bollocks and the one time somebody tried to get it right we ended up with Christopher Sodding Bidmead but at least in the past the series tried to pretend to be existing in a scientific Universe where Magic didn't exist.

Now we have a Doctor who can swim (and talk) in Space and can be summoned by wishing and trees with souls who can make wooden time machines that will save your Daddy for you because the show now exists in a Universe where no one can ever die or stay dead because we don't want to upset the kiddies.* And the Doctor is now a character who should be swapping his Stetson for a pointy hat with stars on it and his Sonic Screwdriver for some thing from Mr Ollivanders shop, as Matt Smith turns more and more into Max Wall (look him up Yanks and young 'uns) with every passing episode that Moffat dashes off in the half-an-hour he manages to drag himself away from listening to his Yes Men tell him how wonderful he is. (I'd be happier if he spent some of that time seeking help for his Daddy Issues, so they'd stop infecting nearly every bloody episode but that's just me.)

Oh, and a Merry Christmas to all of you at home.


*First DW story I can remember seeing? "Horror Of Fang Rock" where everyone but the Doctor and Leela is dead at the end and it didn't scar me for life.

 

[RoJoHen]

Didn't like the Christmas special, eh?

Honestly, I have the same complaints from that story. I'm the kind of guy that can overlook ridiculous magical technology or plot holes if the story is engaging and I get something out of it. In episodes like last night's Christmas special, it didn't work. Keeping the husband alive was lazy and easy. Yes, it was a Christmas story, so maybe a happy ending is more appropriate, but for the story overall, it would have had a lot more emotional impact if the husband had stayed dead and the characters actually had to come to terms with it.

 

[Christopher]

Before anyone jumps in with the obvious reply; yes the "science" in Doctor Who was always bollocks and the one time somebody tried to get it right we ended up with Christopher Sodding Bidmead...

I was quite fond of Bidmead's stories. "Logopolis" and "Castrovalva" were very clever. And they weren't anywhere near scientifically accurate, just conceptually literate (and heavily rooted in ideas from Douglas R. Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a totally awesome book).

but at least in the past the series tried to pretend to be existing in a scientific Universe where Magic didn't exist.

Or at least where Clarke's Third Law was in full force -- the phenomena we think of as magic did exist and actually worked, but had an underlying "scientific" explanation.

Now we have a Doctor who can swim (and talk) in Space

I took the sound as poetic license, no different from being able to hear a ship's engines as it flies by or hear an explosion going off. As for the "swimming," I took that as a desperation move, not as something that actually had any effect. The fact that it couldn't possibly work was the joke.

and can be summoned by wishing

He said he could be summoned by wishing. Rule One: The Doctor lies. My guess is, as soon as he left Madge, he went forward in time and studied her life to discover the point at which she most needed help. Alternatively, he could've tuned the TARDIS's telepathic circuits into her mind somehow, but the former strikes me as more likely. Why wait to repay the favor when he has a time machine and can take a shortcut?

and trees with souls

Again, the Doctor described them as souls for the benefit of Madge's kids, but that was after describing them as "pure life force." We've seen disembodied life forces and incorporeal entities plenty of times before on this series.

who can make wooden time machines

Is it any worse than the Third Doctor in "The Time Monster" making a a Time flow analogue from a wine bottle, tableware, corks, key rings, and tea leaves?


Now, if you want to see something that really abandons the "magic is just sufficiently advanced technology" assumptions of the Whoniverse, look at Torchwood. They did that episode with fairies and that one with ghosts coming out of the old silent film or whatever, and didn't even bother trying to rationalize their supernatural elements as anything other than straight-up magic and mysticism.

 

[davejames]

The show's obviously become a lot more whimsical than ever before, but it still doesn't feel quite like "magic" to me. The show's new tone is just a reflection of a Doctor who is a lot more creative and imaginative with how he solves problems and uses his TARDIS.

He's doing things now that only seem a lot more magical and unexplainable, in other words. And hell, even crazy things like flying sharks seem like something Tom Baker's Doctor might have described seeing in his travels at some point-- the difference is now they actually have the budget to show it.

 

[Sci]

Thanks for the spoiler warning in your thread title.

 

[Zeppster]

Doctor Who has really always been a fantasy show more than science show. But then again there never was much science in science fiction anyway. Star Trek is pretty easy to prove that most of it's modern technobabble is bullshit.

 

[Skellington]

I don't really mind the use of the you-can-pray-to-the-TARDIS motif (). It's telepathic, it can supposedly see all of time and space (or something) and it's not just your bargain basement time machine. Basically this ability is just a step up from superphones, and it had already been introduced in Night Terrors anyway.

 

[Christopher]

I don't really mind the use of the you-can-pray-to-the-TARDIS motif (). It's telepathic, it can supposedly see all of time and space (or something) and it's not just your bargain basement time machine. Basically this ability is just a step up from superphones, and it had already been introduced in Night Terrors anyway.

Except in that case it was done by an entity with special abilities, not by an ordinary human.

Then again, as Idris said in "The Doctor's Wife" (and as many of us suspected for decades), the TARDIS takes the Doctor where he needs to be. Even at its most random, it always landed him right in the middle of a dangerous situation. So that does suggest that it has the ability to perceive danger and deliver the Doctor there so he can help.

Still, given what we've seen of this Doctor's (and his head writer's) approach, I do think it's more likely that he immediately jumped forward from the rescue to check up on Madge's future and find a situation where she would need his help. He wouldn't just sit back and wait; he's too much a creature of impulse and enthusiasm. Once he got the idea in his head of repaying Madge for her kindness, he'd immediately dedicate himself to that goal as his next project and be proactive about pursuing it.

 

[Cutter John]

As for the talking/swimming in space, perhaps there was enough residual escaping atmosphere from the huge ship that both were still briefly possible?

 

[ThankQ]

Good effort, but that's thinner even than the escaping air would be.

 

[Cutter John]

Actually havign watche dit, it didnt so much look like he was 'swimming' to me than it did just him flailing his arms trying to hook the suit. then of course the ship exploding behind him gave him a boost.

 

[stonester1]

Heck, I have no problem with something "magickal" that has no apparent explanation. That the Doctor says, "I have no idea how this works".

That says, A. We don't need to technobabble and satisfy the science nerds B. There may be things the Doctor encounters that he DOESN'T know how they work (which should be signs that something really scary is afoot or extremely mysterious) and C. There sure as hell things beyond our ability to explain, and there is no need to unless the story demands it. See A.

Slapping some technobabble on it doesn't make it scientifically valid. And in a universe of mystery (ours is, the WhoU certainly is), there is no need to label everything.

The Doctor's abilities and technology are well beyond our knowledge. And there are things in his universe well beyond that.

On the issue of the "soul", the WhoU has never dismissed that. Neither has Star Trek, for that matter.

 

[Saul]

As for the talking/swimming in space, perhaps there was enough residual escaping atmosphere from the huge ship that both were still briefly possible?

Or like the forcefield of the ship protected him long enough for him to breath and make noise like Amy was able to do when he held onto her outside the Tardis or how River could float over to the Tardis from the byzantium. Or he had by then reached the upper atmosphere of Earth.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Now, if you want to see something that really abandons the "magic is just sufficiently advanced technology" assumptions of the Whoniverse, look at Torchwood. They did that episode with fairies and that one with ghosts coming out of the old silent film or whatever, and didn't even bother trying to rationalize their supernatural elements as anything other than straight-up magic and mysticism.

I thought it was clear that those were some type of really funky alien with weird pseudo-mystical properties? (Like the Weeping Angels or that face-stealing chick in the TV). The thing about Torchwood is that they don't have a doctor around to explain what the hell is going on.

 

[Iamnotspock]

The Doctor has previously been seen to be able to survive for brief periods in the vacuum of space. Nightmare of Eden and Four to Doomsday, for example. Yes, the science is still highly questionable at best but there are precedents.

 

[Shazam!]

trees with souls

Established all the way back in the second episode of Christopher Eccleston's series.

 

[Deckerd]

Doctor Who was never science fiction. Anyone who thinks it was doesn't get it.

 

[Christopher]

then of course the ship exploding behind him gave him a boost.

That wouldn't happen in a vacuum any more than audible sound would. Sound and shock waves are basically the same thing, pressure waves propagating through a medium. It's the intervening atmosphere that exerts the force when something is blown outward by an explosion. So the sci-fi trope of a shock wave in space is a contradiction in terms, a classic bit of Did Not Do the Research.

Of course, this is Doctor Who we're talking about, and scientific accuracy has never been a concern there.

I thought it was clear that those were some type of really funky alien with weird pseudo-mystical properties? (Like the Weeping Angels or that face-stealing chick in the TV). The thing about Torchwood is that they don't have a doctor around to explain what the hell is going on.

No, as I recall, the fairies were treated as purely supernatural, something completely beyond Torchwood's ability to fight because they were unlike any mere alien menace.

And Torchwood had Captain Jack around to explain the technobabble. He was basically TW's surrogate Doctor figure, the man from another time who has advanced knowledge derived from having seen the future and from having lived immensely long because he can recover from death. But Jack was utterly terrified by the fairies because they were impossible to fight. (Which is one of the silliest sentences I've ever been forced to write.)

 

[Deckerd]

I thought we'd buried that myth. Shockwaves move through space.

 

[Christopher]

^If you mean that shock waves can propagate through the interstellar medium, that's technically correct, but the interstellar medium is so diffuse that those waves would be undetectable on the scale of a human (or Gallifreyan) body and would be incapable of "pushing" a person.

Like I said, shock waves and sound waves are pretty much exactly the same thing, just at different levels of intensity. If the medium is thin enough that you shouldn't be able to hear anything, then it's also thin enough that you shouldn't be able to feel any significant shock/pressure from an explosion.