Because I’m a physicist, people automatically assume I must like science fiction. I’m not really sure how they worked that one out but I’m pretty sure there is a bit of stereotyping going on. I never really got sci-fi, as a kid I read the occasional story, but no more so that other kinds of fiction. It was more a case of whether a story appealed to my imagination; I wasn’t interested in the carefully thought out science or engineering concepts. It wasn’t the faster than light gear that excited me, so much as the automatic doors and in ship communication system on the Enterprise. I think it was because it didn’t seem to require quite the same leap of logic as the transporter system.
I found the revamped Star Trek dull, I was always waiting for something exciting to happen, but all they ever seemed to do was to resolve things at the last possible moment. It seemed to be written by sci-fi enthusiasts, with ideas carefully thought out so that there would be some kind of logic to it. It was all very nice but I wanted action; there they were floating about in a spaceship loaded with weapons and they would always try to talk things through. My idea storyline would have been an opening scene with them pounding the crap out of a defenceless planet that had something they wanted “captain;s log stardate blah blah blah, the Blingbats have incurred our displease and are feeling our wrath. In a moment we shall take their lunch money”
I thought Doctor Who was beneath all that; poorly constructed plotlines, actors stiffer than the scenery and a budget just large enough to foot the bill for loading the TARDIS on to the back of a flat bed and dropping it in the countryside for a bit of outdoor footage. As a kid I loved the show and could never understand why anyone could get freaked out by the cybermen or someone stumbling around wrapped in a bed sheet with a big eye perched on their head.
That’s all changed now. Apparently the new Doctor Who is too sexy. I haven’t seen him yet, I didn’t catch the last one either but if your yardstick is Jon Pertwee then I think that can only be a good thing. To find out how far adrift I was I took a look at the expansive Wikipedia page on the subject and found I must have stopped watching the show sometime around 1983. Since I probably didn’t start watching until the early 1970s, and given I would only catch the odd episode because, as a kid, at 5.30pm on a Saturday we would usually be stuck in traffic coming off Portsea Island, I think I must be about 140 episodes behind.
I downloaded a fairly recent episode which featured a floating dalek, which I have to admit did rather put me off. Yes, I know there is that whole thing about the problems with a dalek traversing a deep shag pile or a patch of grass less pristine than Wimbledon centre court, but it was kind of given that you couldn’t think too deeply about the whole thing. Sure, the daleks had evolved to rule a universe covered by neatly constructed linoleum walkways, but they did have that fuck off cool wobbly voice teetering on insanity that they always used just before they topped someone. But once they were no longer restricted to wiping out everyone in their highly polished and completely level path, well it just got even sillier… That floating dalek looked like it wanted to share peace and love with all mankind. I suppose that’s what happens when you suddenly find you can do stairs
If you hand the story line to real scriptwriters, rather than a bunch of sci-fi nuts who spent their youth writing their own Doctor Who stories in English class then you are going to see some major changes. (I didn’t waste my time on writing stuff like that, back then I don’t think I wasted my time writing anything, but I knew someone who did – I just looked him up on line and he is still churning out sci-fi stories). Confusing and inconsistent plots sadly appear to be out, along with the bad attempts at an American accent. Moralizing and sex are in. The extended episode length means it is now possible for the new Doctor to get it on with a dalek, agonize about wasting an entire civilization and still save the human race. Maybe i should give it a chance
Boadicea's Chariot 
Exterminate! Exterminate!
No telling about you scientists. Both my brothers are scientists, and only one of them liked sci-fi. I’m the one who watches Dr Who, that is when the episodes wend their way into US video stores, resource for the TV-challenged like myself. Silly is the essence of Dr Who, which is why we non-scientists love it. It replaces the mysteries of hard-core science with the totally accessible and illogical. Brings the Walrus and the Carpenter to “if p, then q”. Very funny blog, Cyanide. Thanks for the early morning laugh.
Wonderful piece, CB, most enjoyable. Thanks!
But you see, neither Star Trek nor Dr Who are really representative of Science Fiction. Hey, I love them both as fun programs to watch, but they’re not SF. Have a bash at an Iain Banks, a Peter Hamilton or an Alastair Reynolds (to mention three off the top of my head), then we’ll have a proper discussion! 😀
Bearsy,
Agreed, My Dad is a scifi nut, i tried reading many of the books he recommended, but only got into a few of them – e.g. Rendezvous with Rama, Ender’s Game, Foundation, a Heinlen book whose title i forgot. I generally find the style a bit too dry.
jaimea
If you are in the US, does that mean you still get the DrWho reruns on PBS? used to spend saturday evenings catching up on all the episodes i missed.
I’ve heard that they run the episodes on TV but I’m not sure what channel. Cable, I reckon. I rent them from one of the more exotic video stores, which means I’ve seen a large percentage going all the way back to the first black-and-whites with with funky special effects, the Tardis made out of an old washing machine carton, the dry-ice smoke clinging to some murky set. What were you doing in Texas, of all places?
William Hartnell was my Doctor Who, – never did like Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee could have stayed on HMS Troutbridge as far as I’m concerned. I quite like the modern series, though.
Hard to beat those special effects, Bravo. Christopher Eccleston is my fave, with Tom Baker coming in second.
Jaime, do you mean to say you got the HMS Troutbridge reference? I am amazingly impressed 😀
Eccleston was my favourite too Jaime. Oddly enough I’ve just borrowed the set of Star Trek movies from my daughter and am watching them – well sort of watching them while I’m sewing!
CB – I used to read a lot of SciFi – but some of the stuff Bearsy buys these day leaves my head wobbling. I haven’t got a clue what any of it’s about… 😉
Brilliant post, CB. I am a SciFi fan. I developed a taste for it at a very early age, and still love it.
Bearsy: I’ve just discovered Iain Banks ; I read The Algebraist last year and am looking for more!
Dr Who is the only program that all four members of the family sit down to watch together. It has to be recorded if we are out and the program that follows, ‘Dr Who confidential’ is avidly watched by the boys, but not me.
It is hilarious and clever and I really like the new chap. However I agree it is not really sci-fi. With real sci-fi my boys sit there and tear it apart.
“That wouldn’t happen. Ignores the universal roools of physics.” etc.
But with Dr W they suspend disbelief and enjoy.
I vividly remember my brother watching Dr Who from behind the sofa when we were small. And in the end he had so many nightmares we were banned from watching it.
Which was TOTALLY UNFAIR.
Pseu – we will finally get the ‘new Who’ on Friday… belief will be suspended here too!
Pseu, yours sound like mine, for obvious reasons, watching war films: ‘You can’t fire an RPG from inside a room, …’
and why do the older scifi writers always have a middle initial?
maybe i should change my name to Cyanide E Bunny
Maybe P would be better?
Hahaha!
I am a big fan of Julian May when it comes to sci-fi. Her pleistocene saga was a joy from start to finish.
Oooh and Patrick Tilley, The Amtrak Wars. There was some speculation that he was Stephen King under a pseudonym. (not ‘a’ not ‘the’) 🙂
As for Dr Who, he could hardly be any worse than the gurning, wide eyed loon Tenant. Eccleston was my favourite too. I subtle hint of insanity, Tenant tried but just looked stupid.
Julian May – excellent!
Stereotyping? No, it’s definately the ears that give it away. 😉
I think its on the scfy channel in the USA now (cable). It is not on PBS now.
Are there really people out there that think physicists should automatically be interested in crap shows? What do they think you do all day I wonder.
I expect the ‘peace and love’ aspect has been engendered by the PC mob. Just wait till they get their ‘lunch money’ nicked!
Very funny.
Sipu -you don’t sound science geek like at all! One close relative of mine is a physicist, and utterly obsessed with his work to the extent that we used to find bizarre scribblings and diagrams all over the place. And while I remember us watchig Dr Who – after Basil Brush, of course – as a child, on Saturday nights, it was never treated as anything but pure entertainment/a bit of a laugh in our house, I’m afraid! 😉
Julian May was good, but then she went of the rails with her Boreal Moon series, it never really took off
Julian is usually a guy’s name.
Nym,
Shes Canadian, nuff said. 😉
This is the first of three in the Rampart Worlds series. An absolute piggin belter.
????
Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire and Little Lost Robot. Brilliant stuff. Read some short stories. One I remember from my school days was the Ruum. Summary here. Gets you thinking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruum
Oops, Sipu; Cynide B; apologies – blonde bimbo strikes again. YOu’re all so brainy on here, I’m getting you mixed up now! 😉
Hmmm. I think I have a wider definition of sci-fi. And on TV and mass media, Dr Who is about as sci-fi as you will get. Though it’s really romance with techno trappings. It’s the Eccleston series that comes closest to sci-fi because of its portrayal of time. Well, I suppose the whole idea of non-linear time pushes the series into the realm of sci-fi, it’s just better portrayed in that sequence of Dr Who.
Sipu: Loved the Foundation series as a kid and young adult. Haven’t read it in years but remember it as the best of the best.
Bravo: As far as HMS Troutbridge, no. My anglophilia is not that detailed. But I can sing almost every song from the HMS Pinafore! Haha. And the internet is the portal to cultural decipherment. Sort of. I research the references.
And then there’s Red Dwarf. Possibly my absolute fave. Revealing, Claire, the depth of my braininess: equivalent to packaged Chicken Vindaloo.
I have been reading science fiction since adolescence. I love all the Star Trek TV series(es), but somehow I have never got the hang of Star Wars.
Favourite authors? Asimov, of course, who invented two distinct disciplines in the course of writing the Robot stories and and Foundation series, A.E. van Vogt (whom no-one remembers much), Philip K. Dick, David Brin, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card, Jack Chalker’s “Well of Souls” series. I am currently reading a collection of time travel short-stories.
Dr Who? The worst time was the 80’s, when there was a definite lack of imagination. David Tennant is the best of the recent actors, before him, Tom Baker, Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell. Elisabeth Sladen has always been my favourite ah-hem “companion” (i.e. totty).
If the old Doctor Who production teams had the budgets the current lot manage to attract, then it would have been even better than it was.
Red Dwarf! Yeah!
Sorry Jaime, but I’m amazed that an American can understand it, yet alone like it. You must be a wonderful person! 😆
I’ll take that as a compliment, Bearsy. Uh. Sort of. But the show was popular in parts of the States. OK. Not many parts. Some parts. And I know it’s hard to believe, but not all Americans drool, chew gum and spend their time shooting wolves from helicopters. That’s just the people [sic] who run the country.
It was meant as a compliment – I apologise for my attempt at humour. 😦
That’s OK, Bearsy. You can tell I’m one of those defensive American types who has had to put up with a lot of STUFF about being American.
CB – I was more Desperate Dan than Dan Dare. Funny … where was the divide in kids who liked weird alien creatures and kids who liked Dennis the Menace or the Bash Street Kids. I take my hat off to the guys/artists that drew the ‘Eagle’ comic pictures – Dan Dare etc; those guys were light years ahead of their time. Maybe they are the real scientists! PS I did enjoy Blakes 7 when it first came out on TV. Perhaps it had a cute factor; there was a posh black girl in it. I liked her.
Blakes Seven, oh yes. I remember how Avon used to stick out his hand as if he was going to karate chop someone every time he wanted to be threatening. I also remember they carried around some shitty little computer with a smug little voice. makes me think of a mac for some reason.
Blake’s Seven had wobbly scenery.
Red Dwarf for me too: great fun.
Elisabeth Sladen aka Sarah Jane Smith had her own series (or has)- but in my humble opinion was never a great actress. (I say this even though she was my namesake)
How about Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle?
Jaime, if you have half an hour to spare, you can hear an episode of ‘The Navy Lark,’ here – more insight into the English sense of humour. It’s the second series on the list.
PS. If you like the really way out, try ‘The Goon Show.’
PPS. Forgot the link, oops:
http://www.radiosunday.com/listen/index.htm
Like the new name. Going to write some sci-fi to live up to it? Something about an emergency dump of the warp core would be good.