Doctor Who: The Library of Carsus discussion
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How Much Did the New Series Borrow From the Books?
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Just read another one! The Onihrs from Trading Futures. Wow. Talking rhino aliens who wear a bunch of battle armor.
The Judoon is a better sounding name for a race like that anyway. I kept thinking that spelling rhino backwards and naming an alien race after it was a bit naff.
The Judoon is a better sounding name for a race like that anyway. I kept thinking that spelling rhino backwards and naming an alien race after it was a bit naff.
I just posted a review of the novel. Sadly, I didn't like it as much as you did.
I did like the idea of the Onihr though. The fact that they evolved into an advanced species capable of hyperspace travel thanks to their highly trained sense of smell was fantastic... it was just really unfortunate to see them relegated to the comic relief towards the middle-end of the book.
I did like the idea of the Onihr though. The fact that they evolved into an advanced species capable of hyperspace travel thanks to their highly trained sense of smell was fantastic... it was just really unfortunate to see them relegated to the comic relief towards the middle-end of the book.
>Besides the very obvious, Human Nature, how much influence do you feel the books that were published during the years the show was off the air had on the writers of the new series? I have a note that "Option Lock" "is another one that the new series borrowed from". However, I don't have specifics.
"The Sound of Drums" and "Army of Ghosts" seem to have stolen their resonating imagery from "Loving the Alien".
Rose started out as Sam without the idealism, but played by an actress who not only made her bearable but likeable.
The new series Doctors are idiots, like the EDA Doctor. However, they depend on magic and guns to accomplish anything, so thank Harry Potter and the NAs for that.
Like the EDAs and PDAs, the companion in the new series can't go anywhere without people assuming she is the Doctor's girl toy. Never used to happen in the NAs, MAs, or TV show...
Speaking of the TV show:
"42" is "Planet of Evil"
"The Satan Pit" is "Pyramids of Mars"
>Besides the very obvious, Human Nature, how much influence do you feel the books that were published during the years the show was off the air had on the writers of the new series?Technically none, as they're one and the same. Russell T Davies is part of that group in the 1990s who said "Now it's our turn. This is what WE want from high and mighty aliens."
I wonder if anyone has ever sent this back to Jonathan Blum, who posted it as a joke in rec.arts.drwho August 16, 1999:
[Subject: Re: The Best Possible Who News]
LONDON, April 1, 2000 -- The duo behind the successful drama "Queer As Folk", Russell Davies and Matt Jones, will be producing a revival of "Doctor Who" with co-production money from the US cable network Showtime, the BBC announced today. As with its other SF/fantasy series, including "Stargate SG-1" and "Poltergeist: The Legacy", Showtime has committed to a multi-year run ahead of time -- a record-breaking four seasons of 22 episodes each.
Paul McGann has signed on to play the eighth Doctor. Writing staff positions and/or script assignments have already been offered to Paul Cornell, Kate Orman, Jonathan Blum, Lance Parkin, Paul Leonard, Chris Boucher, Gareth Roberts, Marc Platt, Steven Gallagher, Christopher H. Bidmead, Steven Moffat, Peter Allan Fields, and Cannes jury prize winner Rona Munro. In addition, the producers are setting up a special unit to work with aspiring scriptwriters, in hopes of cultivating new talent, and are also contacting a variety of established names from literary SF. Ben Aaronovitch has been given the position of Free-Floating Agent of Chaos, being paid a chunk of money just to hang around the production office contributing witty lines and ideas, without ever having a script deadline. Lawrence Miles is reported to be locked in the basement with a word processor and an IV drip filled with caffiene.
When asked if the new production would be canonical, Davies simply pointed and laughed.
In addition to the TV episodes, McGann will also be recording six audio plays a year, released through the BBC's licensing deal with Big Finish Productions. 'The idea is that we can produce fannish stories for the fan niche market on audio, with all the old character appearances anyone could want - and that way we keep them from cluttering up the TV stories,' said Davies. (The only such story announced so far is Jon Blum's seventh/eighth Doctor story, tenatively titled "The Child Is The Father Of The Man".)
Aside from a cameo by the Daleks in an episode entitled "The Ashes of Skaro", no characters from the old show are scheduled to appear until at least the first-season finale. The series will feature a mixture of stand-alone stories and a new ongoing story arc -- one which will have 'little or nothing' to do with the Time Lords or Gallifrey, according to Davies.
Jonathan Blum 16/8/99
I think Russell borrowed/ was influenced by the old series more than the books, aside from the couple books that became episodes obviously.While some TV Who writers got their start by writing for the books during the wilderness years, that might be considered influencing the show.
Or could be considered a 'test run'.
When she first appeared on the series I thought River Song was loosely based on Bernice Summerfield from the New Adventures. I say loosely because Bernice was an Archeologist, but she never became a love interest to the Doctor. We learned from the start that River Song has a past with the Doctor with subtle hints (at first and then not as subtle) that she was at one point (in her past but the Doctor's future) married to the Doctor.
re Travis's comment: The total research material for Davies's tenure appears to be a video copy of "The Five Doctors", the 1996 TV movie, and the NA "Human Nature". Every nod to the old series is wrong, so no one was actually going and looking. (I guess the new series is in one of those alternate universes the NA and EDA writers were so fond of. Judging by his clearing of the decks at the end of his first season, Moffat is of the same opinion.) However, there are some reimaginings of some old formulae: "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" is "Pyramids of Mars", "42" is "Planet of Evil".Kirk: Yeah, I instantly assessed Rose as Sam. Time didn't change that assessment. I would say I wish Rory was Fitz, but that's too dangerous a thing to say considering the authors had polar opposite opinions on how Fitz should be.
I don't think Russell is lacking in research, I think in his not wanting the new show to be 'just for fans' he took things very slow with bringing bits of the history back and then wanted to put his own mark on the show and the results are hit and miss.I get more annoyed with fans of the new show who have no sense of history, so think Russell isn't borrowing heavily from the past, but is being terribly original.
Well, there were certainly problems in communication. I have a friend I met during the third season who thought the show was "supposed to be" about the last of a breed who would eventually be pleasantly surprised to fall in love with an Earth girl and start repopulating the species. She was annoyed that the show seemed to be rapidly getting away from that central premise.There were other things I can't remember that the show had seemed to say to the newbie that as an, er, oldbie I had overlooked, but that one was so shocking it stuck in my memory. Go back and look at those early episodes. It's not far-fetched to get that impression. Certainly the bulk of the Rose-fic seems based on a similar premise.
To be honest, I'd never heard the 'repopulating the species' bit till today, so to me, it does sound pretty far fetched.But, I'm an 'oldie', so the whole idea of adding romance to the show feels like wandering away from it's central premise.
I've always seen the Rose/ Doctor relationship as them helping each other. She helps the scarred veteran of the time wars, he shows the directionless girl the big wide world and helps her grow up.
Every Doctor has a 'favorite' companion. Rose is just the one for the Eccelston/Tennant.
Yeah, the best Rose-fic has her grown up or growing.
> Every Doctor has a 'favorite' companion. Rose is just the one for the Eccelston/Tennant. It's interesting how the old patterns repeat: Rose is a Jo character, Martha is a Sarah, Donna is a Romana I.
I'd say Donna is more a Tegan, while Martha is more a Peri or a Liz Shaw, myself.If Captain Jack meets the Matt Smith Doctor, does that then make him the Brigadier?
Did you equate Rose with Jo because they are the two companions that have posed naked?
Or is that just me?
More that they're supposed to personify teenagers. Posing naked about says it all.
I just re-read Set Piece for the first time since it was actually a new book. Didn't remember a damn thing about it except for the fact that it was yet another Kate Orman torture-porn-with-the-Doctor special.
Anyway, I was quite surprised at some of the ideas in this book that have by influence or coincidence, wormed their way into the new series - at one point Ace travels through the time vortex unprotected much like Captain Jack does in 'Utopia'. There's gratuitous references to the Doctor as 'the Oncoming Storm'. A discussion about time being 'in-flux'...
Then there's the big one: rifts in time ala the Cardiff space/time rift in 'The Unquiet Dead', 'Boom Town', and most-all the shenanigans in the first few series of Torchwood.
But the most interesting for me was the Doctor, in explaining to Ace and Benny what Ship and the Ants were doing, described the disruptions and anomalies as 'cracks in time'.
(oh, and one could argue that Ship is a bit like the SS Madame de Pompadour in 'The Girl in the Fireplace' only on a much larger scale...)
Anyway, I was quite surprised at some of the ideas in this book that have by influence or coincidence, wormed their way into the new series - at one point Ace travels through the time vortex unprotected much like Captain Jack does in 'Utopia'. There's gratuitous references to the Doctor as 'the Oncoming Storm'. A discussion about time being 'in-flux'...
Then there's the big one: rifts in time ala the Cardiff space/time rift in 'The Unquiet Dead', 'Boom Town', and most-all the shenanigans in the first few series of Torchwood.
But the most interesting for me was the Doctor, in explaining to Ace and Benny what Ship and the Ants were doing, described the disruptions and anomalies as 'cracks in time'.
(oh, and one could argue that Ship is a bit like the SS Madame de Pompadour in 'The Girl in the Fireplace' only on a much larger scale...)
Travis wrote: "I'd say Donna is more a Tegan, while Martha is more a Peri or a Liz Shaw, myself.
If Captain Jack meets the Matt Smith Doctor, does that then make him the Brigadier?
Did you equate Rose with Jo be..."
.. how could a character be a "Peri or a Liz Shaw". Two characters that couldn't be further apart... Peri was idiotic eye candy and Liz was a brilliant scientist that actually HELPED the Doctor instead of getting in the way.
If Captain Jack meets the Matt Smith Doctor, does that then make him the Brigadier?
Did you equate Rose with Jo be..."
.. how could a character be a "Peri or a Liz Shaw". Two characters that couldn't be further apart... Peri was idiotic eye candy and Liz was a brilliant scientist that actually HELPED the Doctor instead of getting in the way.
Actually, I linked Peri and Liz as they are companions that are considered kind of 'just there', they had no huge impact on Who history/fandom and are seen as not terrible, but not wonderful.Which is where Martha seems to fit on the companion chart.
And if you listen to her dialogue, Peri is no idiot. Cleverer than the average companion, actually.
Leela4 wrote: "And if you listen to her dialogue, Peri is no idiot. Cleverer than the average companion, actually."
It's the accent. Or rather, Ms. Bryant's attempted valley girl accent. I think people just associate that vaguely Californian style of speech with airheads.
It's the accent. Or rather, Ms. Bryant's attempted valley girl accent. I think people just associate that vaguely Californian style of speech with airheads.
Concerning Peri If they really wanted her to be an American either cast a real American actress, or an actress that could do a more consistent "American" accent. At times Nicola's accent was OK, but mostly she would lose it. I think at the time they were trying to appeal to their "New" American audience and failed.
Matthew wrote: "I just re-read Set Piece for the first time since it was actually a new book. Didn't remember a damn thing about it except for the fact that it was yet another Kate Orman torture-porn-with-the-Doct..."The coincidences are certainly interesting although I imagine that ideas like 'cracks in time' and 'rifts in time and space' are probably not that original in science fiction.
The 'Oncoming Storm' is quite interesting though. I had a feeling that RTD had said in an interview that he wasn't a big reader of the novels but, given that he wrote one of them, he must have read at least a couple of them to get a feel for the series. Perhaps Set Piece was one of them and the Oncoming Storm reference stuck in his head.
It's only a coincidence that this example of "borrowing" mentions Peri. I was discussing today's smug intolerance with someone and was reminded of this:In "Burning Heart" (an MA), the sixth Doctor takes Peri a thousand years in the future to see if she can cope with the culture shock (so he can estimate whether he can go any further into the future with her). She does just fine. The only other time that premise was used was "The End of the World", wherein Russell T Davies takes the ninth Doctor and Rose five billion (Davies always has to dial it up to 11) years in the future. Rose freaks out about... well, everything really. Okay missy, from here on we're going to stick strictly to cultures with 21st century BBC values. In fact we're not even going to visit any "alien" worlds.
People are so culture-bound they don't even realize they can't imagine civilization more than a thousand years in any direction. Yay to Davies for having a go at pointing it out on television. Plus it was his most "Doctor Who"-like story.
The tone of certain TV stories reminds me of a good NA. The Satan Pit comes to mind, I suppose... sinister space setting, everyone dying in gruesome ways, the Doctor battling against a larger than life 'god' like being. Something like Blink could've been a NA too. I know it was one of the 'Doctor-lite' episodes, but this happened all the time in the NA's (something like Birthright, maybe?). The Doctor's influence is felt all over the place, but he's never seen until the end (usually to pop in and save the day).
There are also various elements from the era that have been repeated, some perhaps just by coincidence. We had a companion of the Doctor that wanted to shag any type of creature that would have him (Cwej in the NA's, Captain Jack in the series). We had our first black companion (Roz in the NA's, Martha in the series). Then there's the idea of a Time War wiping out Gallifrey, much like what happened during the eighth Doctor's run.
What else can you think of? Or do you disagree entirely?