The Black Hole of Plot Holes

[Mabinogia]

He does know how to run a good idea into the ground, then beat it with a stick before running it over with a bus over and over.

Seriously, Blink was one of my all time favorite episodes. The Weeping Angels might be my all time favorite Who baddies...in that episode. But then they came back. I never needed them to come back. They were perfect one off antagonists. They were creepy, they made you look at a normal everyday object differently. They were great. Then they came back and became less creepy and less interesting. And then they came back again, and this is where I stopped watching weeping angel eps because I want to remember them as they were in Blink.

[Bruinsfan]

Exactly. Blink might be my #1 favorite episode (probably down to that or School Reunion), and I'd have been just fine with it if Weeping Angels had only ever been given the occasional mention afterward rather than becoming recurring antagonists and diluting their impact.

[clack]

An ongoing niggle I have about the show is in how contemporary and British-centric the Doctor's sensibility is. The Doctor is an alien, has travelled to the furthest reaches of the universe, has visited humanity's distant past and far future, but yet his ideological, philosophical, political, anthropological, etc. views are those of an early 21st century London-based Labour-supporting TV writer?

A writer can't escape their own perspective, but they can imagine another one. 

[LoneHaranguer]

2 hours ago, clack said:

An ongoing niggle I have about the show is in how contemporary and British-centric the Doctor's sensibility is.

Is that a consequence of being telepathically linked to a TARDIS that's a London police box? A Time Lord can't be expected to automatically know how to behave everywhere/when he may visit, so the chameleon circuit might be designed to help him "blend in" too in a different way.

[Joe]

2 hours ago, clack said:

An ongoing niggle I have about the show is in how contemporary and British-centric the Doctor's sensibility is. The Doctor is an alien, has travelled to the furthest reaches of the universe, has visited humanity's distant past and far future, but yet his ideological, philosophical, political, anthropological, etc. views are those of an early 21st century London-based Labour-supporting TV writer?

A writer can't escape their own perspective, but they can imagine another one. 

You could call it playing to the audience. And it's supposed to be watched by young kids. If it gets too alien, people might not find it relatable any more and stop watching.

[clack]

But, for a man who has journeyed through time and space, the Doctor's perspective seems, sometimes, so provincial.

I mean, the Thames being frozen in 1814 might seem interesting to a British person, but what would it mean to a Russian, Swede, Canadian, or American, all with their own mundane frozen rivers? Never mind what it would mean to a citizen of eternity like the Doctor, who has travelled to frozen planets.

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, clack said:

An ongoing niggle I have about the show is in how contemporary and British-centric the Doctor's sensibility is.

Since it's really just the show trying to make him at least somewhat relatable to a contemporary British-centric audience, I just go with the assumption that this time and place just happen to have resonated with him somehow. People, and I'd guess time lords too, like what they like. He seems to keep returning to present day England so he must just like it there. Maybe he's thinking it's the point where humans are developed enough but not too far gone to appreciate what he has to offer, the evolutionary sweet spot as it were. Maybe, like me, he just loves the accents. lol

[Llywela]

5 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Since it's really just the show trying to make him at least somewhat relatable to a contemporary British-centric audience, I just go with the assumption that this time and place just happen to have resonated with him somehow. People, and I'd guess time lords too, like what they like. He seems to keep returning to present day England so he must just like it there. Maybe he's thinking it's the point where humans are developed enough but not too far gone to appreciate what he has to offer, the evolutionary sweet spot as it were. Maybe, like me, he just loves the accents. lol

I agree. Plus, you know, it's a British production, therefore of course it is highly British-centric - in the same way that all the ancient prophecies of doom in shows like Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer centre around the US. Shows are primarily structured around the land in which they are made, because that's their primary audience (plus the majority labour market they are working from), that's just something viewers have to accept as part of the inherent suspension of disbelief involved in any sci fi or fantasy show.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Llywela

[clack]

I understand why the show is British-centric. But is the Doctor himself British? And not just British, but contemporary British, with the values of a liberal early 21st century urbanite?

Are we really the ultimate in socially evolved attitudes? All history has led to us, and so now are current values and attitudes are the ones that will hold sway for the next million years, or however far the Doctor travels into humankind's future?

It would take imagination to give the Doctor a sensibility not so imbued with contemporary culture, but that's something actual science fiction writers do, or try to do, all the time.

[smorbie]

On 10/1/2014 at 9:41 PM, elle said:

And why couldn't one just take a sledge hammer to them?

Well, now that's a great question!  I never thought of it, but it would seem a reasonable solution.  Are you the Doctor?

If not, you should apply.  There's a vacancy soon, you know.

Edited May 10, 2017 by smorbie