Spot on
Spoilers Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
- Start date
Spot on
During the Berman years, a lot of Star Trek fans argued that TOS was unnecessary because it was dated, campy, artificial, etc. They didn't see it as timeless. Not everyone is going to see Berman Trek as timeless, either.
I think it might stand a better chance than some of what we have now.
Sometimes things that are hard attached to the period they were made in get a kind of evergreen status — usually because they are emblematic of that era. Stuff like The Avengers, The Prisoner, etc. and sometimes it does happen with future set stuff — sticking to the sixties there’s TOS itself, or Thunderbirds. Usually cos we get a kind if ‘retro’ trend happen every twenty years or so (though I notice Terrahawks has yet to get its comeback with the eighties resurgence…) but also because of the elements involved I think.
Doctor Who doesn’t really come back as a retro trend, because it ran so long, and came back — and I think the same is true of Trek’s various shows.
One of the areas where suspension of disbelief breaks down for a modern audience watching an old show *is* around language I think. It’s all the ‘groovy daddy-oh’ stuff that took me out of those retro shows as a kid anyway, but fortunately they’re not… everywhere, in much of that stuff. (Don’t quote me on Avemgers and Prisoner mind you, I haven’t watched as much as the Anderson shows. And the live action Anderson dated harder than the puppets, likely because of audience accessibility and just somehow not hitting that sweet spot that Thunderbirds seems to have landed in with generations of kids.)
The more it ties and is overt, the more it’s going to age poorly I suspect.
In Trek terms, the defrosted 20th Century people are one of the elements that hasn’t aged so well for example, much like TOS’ space hippies. But they’re isolated in amongst the other stuff.
For Who, I think both Davies era’s are going to date in part because of the way the Doctor speaks, in a way that previous Doctors haven’t (even Baker the Second) in part because they were somewhat out of time already. Ecclestone will probably age ok I suspect, but the mockney Estuary of Tennant and…whatever that was happening with Ncuti, probably won’t do so well. (Perpugilliam Browns American accent may also be an example of something they just about got away with once upon a time, but barely gets by now perhaps.)
I think the modern Treks will also have that happen.
Whedonesque quipped dialogue and references in speech and story are fun at the time, but get left behind so fast.
Like Roger Moore telling a Tiger to sit.
Oh, I remember those arguments. Some of them in this very forum...
They were almost a welcome change of pace from the TOS diehards who refused to accept TNG, but all those debates were already really tired by the time of DS9 and Voyager.
for some reason it didn't bother me, I may have been distracted by something.
Was it one something? Or did it come as a pair?
The civilian costumes in the early episodes of TNG definitely have not aged well.
Which is why I love Buck Rogers and Doctor Who 2005: They dress in contemporary generic gear and they've dated faster if not worse. At least those trying to predict future clothing styles, which will be proven wrong, get a little more leeway in tailoring creativity.
TNG's attempt at civilian costumes do feel more like an attempt to predict the future, even if some 80s-style features are present. At least it's not trying to look like a second-rate Studio 54, when not K-Mart or whatever generic off-the-shelf clothing stuff existed.
Actually, save for Chekov before he magically switched outfits to be free of that retro chic 70s collar in the bridge escape scene, some future-clothing in TSFS looks really good, as the crew are in Kirk's home and discussing "absent friends" (Spock). Even then, most TNG civilian fare looked better -- but in the future, for all we know, those might indeed be the styles. Look at some of the stuff in 1968 and 1978, nobody predicted those and they're definitely of their time and some people wouldn't dare wear them in public today, either because they're too loud or too frilly or too short or too somethingoranother. Still cool to have a field day and trying.
That is a good point, while they still come across, to me at least, as very '80s futuristic, at least they were trying to be futuristic. They look better the modern eye, but the civilian costumes in the new shows are probably a little too modern for shows set between 200 - 1,000 years in the future.
Not to mention the revelation that the eighth Doctor will have three different futures.
Time wars should be weird.
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