Options
Alien Planets in New Who.
daveyboy7472
Posts: 16,458 Forum Member
✭✭
Having watched a lot of the new series since it returned, it does appear that The Doctor doesn't appear to be visiting that many planets. In the classic series I know there were several seasons where he didn't really leave Earth a lot but I think one of the most staple ingredients of the Classic series was that he would visit the a planet and help solve problems there and move onto the next one.
I'm not saying he hasn't visited any other planets since the series returned in 2005. It just seems there's a lot of Earthbound stories and if he does go away from Earth he ends up on a space station or ship in some peril or he goes back in history. I'm just wondering why either RTD or SM seem to have no desire to go have adventures on another planet on a regular basis. I was wondering if this is because they are trying to get away from that because that's what he did in the Classic series but on the other hand, isn't that what the show should be about. Not all the time, but sometimes visiting an Alien Planet?????:)
I'm not saying he hasn't visited any other planets since the series returned in 2005. It just seems there's a lot of Earthbound stories and if he does go away from Earth he ends up on a space station or ship in some peril or he goes back in history. I'm just wondering why either RTD or SM seem to have no desire to go have adventures on another planet on a regular basis. I was wondering if this is because they are trying to get away from that because that's what he did in the Classic series but on the other hand, isn't that what the show should be about. Not all the time, but sometimes visiting an Alien Planet?????:)
0
Comments
Yes, they've made some good stories to detract from the fact their hasn't been many alien planets.
Yes, maybe that's the reason.
One of my favourite scenes was at the beginning of The Hand of Fear. The Doctor and Sarah Jane land on what Sarah immediately assumes is an alien planet, only for it to turn out to be an actual quarry.:D
Mine is where Sarah falls down a hill in 'The Five Doctors', and even though it isn't even steep, they need to use a rope to pull her up.
The "quarry of the week" jibe was often used to deried old Who and Blakes 7.
I can live with it though - it probably helps me, at least, that the first doctor I can remember (and so is my fave) is Jon Pertwee - who was Earth bound for much of his tenure.
The new series has mainly gone for space stations as they are easier to do convincingly, but they did come up with a pretty good alien landscape in The Doctor's Daughter.
But then that feels more authentic, somehow.
I agree with Dave.
I'm reading The Writer's Tale and RTD mentions quite a few times that all their writers find ideas and writing a script for an alien planet very difficult.
He doesn't go into detail why but I'd expect you'd need to invent a whole new culture and moral structure even before starting the script.
Lol. What a disgracefully lazy but hilarious scene that is. Davros himself could have wheeled himself up that incline!
Ah yes, the 'Incline of moderate Inconvenience!'... God Bless Liz Sladen for doing her best to sell it though... there's a lovely interview on the 5 Doctors Redux DVD that covers that infamous scene
The Byzantium was pretty clean - well before it smashed head first into that temple anyway
I've never really bought that excuse. If they have a strong story all they need is a couple of exterior planet shots like the ones they did for Gallifrey and the Citadel and then set most of it in interiors.
A lot of the classic series alien worlds only showed one shot of the outdoors, then most of the story happened inside. Because the supporting characters tended to be dressed in 'spacey' outfits and they had their own societies, beliefs etc you totally accepted it was another planet.
It does seem to me the new series are hooked on stories involving humans, even if they are on another planet. Utopia= future humans, Midnight=future humans, Planet of the Dead=present day humans, The Doctor's Daughter= human colonists, The Impossible Planet= future humans. Its as if they think the audience couldn't relate to an alien species. But classic who had lots of aliens that looked like humans.
See, I'm not so sure about this..... one of the best realised alien planets, imo, was the one in Survival; and that was basically just a sand quarry.
But the fact that it was a sand quarry, rather than a gravel one, and that they did a little cgi to reden the sky, and then interspersed scenes hear and there with slice aways of the "foreign" landscape, worked very effectively.
It doesn't necessarily require a lavish production to achieve that sense of "otherness" which is what we are going for, rather than "alieness".
IMO, it wouldn't take too much to do something a bit different with a forest or a coastline to make it seem like an extra-terrestrial environment.
The problem with Classic Who and Blake's 7 was not so much the fact that they used quaries, it was the fact that they only ended up using quarries and nothing else.
RT Davies made it clear that the series would be mostly Earth bound. the first glimpse of a slightly iffy alien world would bring back all those comments about DW looking cheap and crap.
Even now, old DW is often just dismissed as "quarries near Gerrards Cross". No matter how good some of those quaries looked (Attack of the Cybermen, Survival, Planet of the Daleks), it's seen as cheap, and the producers having a limited imagination.
The Doctor's Daughter had a good alien landscape (one of the few good bits of that rubbish story), and Utopia melded an excellent alien landscape with a decent alien culture.
The issue, i think, is one of imagination. How can we visualise an alien planet? How can the producers realistically do a planet of mists and gas? That would be a brilliant thing to see, but very difficult to achieve.
A really excellent jungle planet (Planet of Evil) would be great fun. I'd love to see forests and beaches in DW, wehtehr they be on Earth or elsewhere. It's an issue of imagination.
If it looks too Earthbound, then it could be a bit of a mockery, as the series prides itself on its design. An alien planet made up of conifer trees and scrubland? Would viewers "really" believe they were anywhere other than the Gower Peninsula?
This is a very good point. "Otherness" is the key to it. Taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary. Misty, cobwebby stuff hanging off trees and some weird lighting might work to make that forest on the Gower seem alien ... but if the DW team don't have confidence that it will work, they won't try it. They don't want to attract sneery comments in the Sun telly review.
I don't necessarily mind DW being based on Earth a lot, as long as they vary the Earth locations. That has not happened in the RT Davies years. As has been discussed in the thread about "budget", recently, setting everything in London makes it feel samey. The use of villages, this year, has freshened things up a bit.
I'd love DW to return to alien worlds. Alzarius, Morestra, Segonax, Androzani Minor ... those were the days ...
When RTD was interviewed by Mark Lawson, he said that he didn't feel that he could get away with making a few things or place look like an alien world.....he gave example of Heroes where the character Hero ends up in in the past in Japan (can't remember when), but that it looked obviously as if it was shot in America.....so RTD felt that he couldn't fool the audience, so limited them self on earth bound stories...
On the whole I don't mind as long as the writing remains strong. But I must admit I do get a bit of a thrill whenever we get a new planet.
RTD did indeed say that about ratings....but he based that on Impossible planet story...since then going on an alien planet hasn't affected ratings so I don't think he ever said it again....but maintained the idea of "convincing enough" and feeling that the current audience can't be fooled. Another evidence to support that ratings were not a worry for him was the fact by series 4 we had more planets.....yes there was that human connection somewhere along the line....but at least it was step upwards towards other worlds....and this series we have had one planet already, who knows where exactly the finale is set in...and maybe series 6 they will go alien world mad!
Good. Glad to hear it. So, yes - in these HD days there's no more convincing way to convey being in a British village than being in a British village. Different world plus civilisation - tricky.
At least this year we've had two enormous spaceships, TARDIS in the grip of a cold sun (plus lots of time in the console room) and that excellent er..beach and cave. I'm going to count a city miles beneath the earth as "different world" too. And as you say, we don't know yet what's to come.
I watched The Mutants (70's) recently which had it all. They set up a cultural history, political machinations, allegories to British history, misty marshy planet (bit of scrubby woodland) with caves (a cave) and futuristic building (the usual corridors and slidy door room things). I'd like to see them try something like that. Where they use a planet govt and politics to make people think about aspects of our own. Beast Below did something like it, of course, but I'm thinking of something a bit more, well, The Mutants like. Maybe the 45 minute limit to most stories makes this sort of thing difficult to pull off. Plus the difficulty of "convincing enough" when people are used to Avatar and Lord of the Rings.
It's a shame that even at its worst the new Who easily avoids the "rubbish monsters / poor sets" of the old show but if any of the CGI/sets are even slightly below Gollum/Gondor quality level you get howls of derision.
A shame that there's a nervousness about going "too" alien in new DW, but Mr Davies is right: if it doesn't look 100% convincing, it'll get slagged off. And how can there be teh confidence that the audience can suspend disbelief sufficiently, if we are being told it's an alien planet?
A shame, but kind-of inevitable. Maybe that's why i like the old stuff more: there's a lot more of a willing suspension of disbelief, and the audience plays along more. Not spoiled by the excesses of CGI.
Absolutely, I think when you measure a series you like to think there's a bit of variety. I'm not a great fan of the Pertwee Era but I like the way there was variety between the UNIT stories on Earth and the those set on an alien world. Like Season 11, where you had the Dinosaur story followed by a story set on Exxillon. An excellent contrast. Off course this wasn't confined to the Pertwee Era but I use it as an example.
As far as the new series go, when the show does has a rare foray to an Alien Planet, I think they get it right. I was absolutely convinced by the Mars terrain in 'Waters of Mars'. Thought they done a good job on that and has been mentioned the planet in 'The Doctor's Daughter' was well realised as well. If the budget is what's stopping them from doing other-wordly stories it seems a real shame as the potential to do more amazing stories on other planets would seem limitless.
Well, yes. I've already acknowledged Angels - I'm not complaining about this series. My point was precisely that it hasn't been too bad. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. The forest was part of the spaceship. Forgot to mention the museum. But there was carping about that - because they'd clearly used an earth building and not invented an alien looking thingy. (not my criticism - this thread is talking about the problems of creating alien worlds that people don't whinge about).
The military clergy idea was nice but the story wasn't exactly about their society and how its run. It was pretty much about looking for and then running away from monsters. But I do love the clever way they didn't just have plain soldiers. What with them chasing after an Angel and all.
I only really mentioned the Mutants in the sense of them trying to create a believable world with a history, society and politics and the Doctor getting caught up in it all. As opposed to just helping them look for and then run away from a monster. (And for clarity: I thought Angel story was superb. Loved it. Just saying I like a bit of allegory scifi every now and then.)