[Sype]

I just dont get why doctor who is so popular, there seems to be no thought behind things. In most sci-fi show like sg1 they get over a problem with an explaination thats far feched but just could be plausible. it feels satisfactory. The doctor sprays the humans with some differant coloured remedys and their cured of every disease known to man. It would never work, a stupid ending. and has anyone noticed that the diseased humans attacked like slow moving zombies. Just like the plastic mannequins in the last series. or the dead people infested by the gas beings in the last series. or the WW2 londoners with gas mask faces in the last series. I think the idea of the doctor is brilliant, it can lead to endless possibilities. the stories have great ideas in them but lack realism . the acting is ok and the production values are better than i expected. hope the rest of the episodes get better.

[mossy2103]

In most sci-fi show like sg1 they get over a problem with an explaination thats far feched but just could be plausible

Well, apart from Star Trek of course, where the later incarnations tended to go for the techno-babble approach (similar to DW's "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow").

[Black Guardian]

Originally Posted by mossy2103

Well, apart from Star Trek of course, where the later incarnations tended to go for the techno-babble approach (similar to DW's "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow").

Perhaps RTD and co don't think kids will question the science aspect of the scripts?

[Beth Hart]

Originally Posted by The Slug

Whatever happened to the lovely Beth? She always seemed so helpful, and was a Doctor Who fan too, if I recall correctly.

I'm not sure about the lovely bit but I'm not far away, just gestating rather than moderating.

I'll confess I was a little disapointed with the topical application of IV drugs bringing the resolution, it felt a bit like when you play a computer game but put in a cheat code to get to the next level instead of playing through - you get there but without the satisfaction. I hope they have a good story arc for this series, it's that which really makes it for me.

I have to say I'm liking DT as The Doctor, he feels like he belongs there, CE was great so I expected to feel odd with DT but it's worked well.

[mossy2103]

Originally Posted by Black Guardian

Perhaps RTD and co don't think kids will question the science aspect of the scripts?

Although it was a similar phrase that Jon Pertwee used quite frequently (either "neutron flow" or "flux capacitor" anyway). There was a chunk in a DW Confidential programme dedicated to this sort of gobbledegook over the various DW incarnations.

[Steve Hartley]

Another late arrival here, but was away at the weekend so only just caught up with New Earth.

Basically a great start to the new series with far better pace than last years opener although for obvious reasons on that score.

A little cliched with the New New York stuff etc...oh and the Duke of Manhattan. However on the whole the chemistry between DT and BP looks far more relaxed than with CE.


Roll on Tooth & Claw

[Black Guardian]

Originally Posted by mossy2103

Although it was a similar phrase that Jon Pertwee used quite frequently (either "neutron flow" or "flux capacitor" anyway). There was a chunk in a DW Confidential programme dedicated to this sort of gobbledegook over the various DW incarnations.

what I meant is a lot of people were disappointed with the science aspect of the storyline which they thought was rather lame...The Doctor using the IV drugs to cure everyone etc...so what I was asking was whether RTD didn't think that side of it was important in favour of the action?

[brangdon]

Originally Posted by DenWatts

It's Mickey that I never liked - from the start I could never understand how someone as gutsy as Rose would be enamoured of such a wimp (although again, in TCI he showed some courage.)

And I've never understood why people think Rose is more gutsy. In her first encounter, she basically just runs away. In her second encounter, she is a victim of the arm and just gets rescued by the Doctor. The third encounter, she doesn't notice her boyfriend has been replaced and when the Doctor turns up, she runs away again. Admittedly by now she has it together enough to trigger the fire alarm. She doesn't do anything really gutsy until the final encounter, at the end of her first episode, and even then she hesitates a long while before doing anything constructive. First she runs to the stairs, then she tries to hide in the Tardis, and only when all else fails does she help.

Mickey escorts Rose to the internet nutter's house. I think he does that because he believes there is a genuine threat and he is trying to protect her. So that's at least a little bit gusty. His first real encounter is with the wheely bin. He actively investigates its strange behaviour, which is good. And then it eats him. What he goes through next is far more traumatic than anything that happens to Rose in that episode. At the end, when Rose is doing her stuff, Mickey is still effectively on his first encounter.

The difference between them is that Rose is given more encounters and chances. Even so, she turns the Doctor down the first time he offers to take her away.

[thenetworkbabe]

Originally Posted by Sype

I just dont get why doctor who is so popular, there seems to be no thought behind things. In most sci-fi show like sg1 they get over a problem with an explaination thats far feched but just could be plausible. it feels satisfactory. The doctor sprays the humans with some differant coloured remedys and their cured of every disease known to man. It would never work, a stupid ending. and has anyone noticed that the diseased humans attacked like slow moving zombies. Just like the plastic mannequins in the last series. or the dead people infested by the gas beings in the last series. or the WW2 londoners with gas mask faces in the last series. I think the idea of the doctor is brilliant, it can lead to endless possibilities. the stories have great ideas in them but lack realism . the acting is ok and the production values are better than i expected. hope the rest of the episodes get better.

it is 5 billion years in the future and the Dr is a Time Lord - biblical miracles from coloured liquids would be very possible by then. The science might well sound like gobblygook too if you did explain it.

The problem was that we didn't see the doctor actually do anything with the existing coloured water. pertwee used to spend half an episode with test tubes before coming up with the answer - but Pertwee would have solved the hospital in 2-3 hours over 4 weeks - same thin plot with more filling. They can't do that now. You might say add a shot of the doctor tinkering in a lab but then people might argue that the show just pulls out a technological answer from the future anyway and if it going to be solved that way everytime there actually is no point going through the motions of showing it. A quick stir witrh the sonic screwdriver would fill the plot gap but would it add anything?

[The Slug]

Originally Posted by thenetworkbabe

it is 5 billion years in the future and the Dr is a Time Lord - biblical miracles from coloured liquids would be very possible by then. The science might well sound like gobblygook too if you did explain it.

The problem was that we didn't see the doctor actually do anything with the existing coloured water. pertwee used to spend half an episode with test tubes before coming up with the answer - but Pertwee would have solved the hospital in 2-3 hours over 4 weeks - same thin plot with more filling. They can't do that now. You might say add a shot of the doctor tinkering in a lab but then people might argue that the show just pulls out a technological answer from the future anyway and if it going to be solved that way everytime there actually is no point going through the motions of showing it. A quick stir witrh the sonic screwdriver would fill the plot gap but would it add anything?

I'm a very forgiving viewer but this 'solution' really jarred with me. I suggested earlier that the Doctor could have (quickly) devised an innoculation with the coloured water - the audience would understand that! This would allow the un-zombified characters to carry on with their lives, including allowing the cat-nuns to turn their attention to curing the zombies as an act of redemption. This is something we could leave them to do as we deal with Boe and Cassandra and then head off to Scotland.

[Alrightmate]

Originally Posted by Beth Hart

I'm not sure about the lovely bit but I'm not far away, just gestating rather than moderating.

I'll confess I was a little disapointed with the topical application of IV drugs bringing the resolution, it felt a bit like when you play a computer game but put in a cheat code to get to the next level instead of playing through - you get there but without the satisfaction. I hope they have a good story arc for this series, it's that which really makes it for me.

I have to say I'm liking DT as The Doctor, he feels like he belongs there, CE was great so I expected to feel odd with DT but it's worked well.

Hi Beth. Nice to see you.
What a great surprise to see you back here posting.

It's such a nice surpise to see you back here posting for fun. I do hope you stick around and join in posting about Doctor Who on the threads this year.

[Alrightmate]

Originally Posted by mossy2103

Well, apart from Star Trek of course, where the later incarnations tended to go for the techno-babble approach (similar to DW's "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow").

RTD's explantion to the resolution of just spraying everyone with the introvenous solutions was a 'techno-babble' approach.

Suggesting that nano-termites in the future can learn what's wrong with cells and repair them is good writing.

It's simple, clear, and because it's based on something that makes sense it isn't complete nonsense.

I can't even recall any of the non-RTD episodes suffering from 'techno-babble'.
It's a matter of how you explain it, and an understanding of the background behind what you're trying to say in your own story.

[Gutted Girl]

One thing I've noticed about DT's Doctor, as opposed to CE's Doctor is that they do seem to have addressed one of the criticisms from last year.

Last year you can count on one hand the number of time that The Doctor actually resolved the situation, DT's Doctor, whether you like the resolutions or not, has resolved the situation everytime.

[ReReg]

What a dreadful start to the new series. They should count themselves lucky Ant and Dec aren't on at the mo.

[northern sky]

Responding to a few posts made a while back about the 'science' and 'Who-purists'
Personally Im glad there is the bare minimum sci-fi babble in the new Dr Who's, Im also glad that the writers and producers haven't listened to the Who-purists because if they did Dr Who would be utter tripe, and I mean complete utter tripe..old school psycho babble sci-fi. Instead,what it is now (and what it was originally) is a good feet up, suspend all disbelief, dont take it all too seriously family show..it is not a sci-fi show made for purist sci-fi fans...and I for one Im glad of it.

[Alrightmate]

Originally Posted by thenetworkbabe

it is 5 billion years in the future and the Dr is a Time Lord - biblical miracles from coloured liquids would be very possible by then. The science might well sound like gobblygook too if you did explain it.

The problem was that we didn't see the doctor actually do anything with the existing coloured water. pertwee used to spend half an episode with test tubes before coming up with the answer - but Pertwee would have solved the hospital in 2-3 hours over 4 weeks - same thin plot with more filling. They can't do that now. You might say add a shot of the doctor tinkering in a lab but then people might argue that the show just pulls out a technological answer from the future anyway and if it going to be solved that way everytime there actually is no point going through the motions of showing it. A quick stir witrh the sonic screwdriver would fill the plot gap but would it add anything?

But if you didn't write yourself into a corner in the first place, then you wouldn't need to write yourself out of it again by going into too much depth to explain something.

He seems to be getting away with it at the moment though.

[Alrightmate]

Originally Posted by mossy2103

Well, apart from Star Trek of course, where the later incarnations tended to go for the techno-babble approach (similar to DW's "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow").

The thing with Star Trek though, is that any of the fancy talk is usually used more often to just enable viewers to suspend their disbelief by making the Star Trek Universe believable to them, by using terminology that you can imagine being spoken aboard a Federation starship by it's personnel.
Just to make it sound authentic in that fictional universe.
For some reason it doesn't tend to jar.

And it's mostly not so much used to resolve the actual story as a quick fix solution because you've bogged yourself down in something of your own conception that you didn't truly understand when you wrote it.

[Yoonix]

Doesn't have to be babble - logical would do. Actually, I think classing Russel's dodgy solutions as "techno-babble" is doing the fine art of technobabbling a huge disservice - much rather class the RTD approach as "techno-boll****" .

[Gutted Girl]

The medication was designed to be used by IV on the humans of New Earth, but as was made clear the pod people were of a different subspecies, so what worked by IV on one species could have worked topically on the other?

[thenetworkbabe]

Originally Posted by Yoonix

Doesn't have to be babble - logical would do. Actually, I think classing Russel's dodgy solutions as "techno-babble" is doing the fine art of technobabbling a huge disservice - much rather class the RTD approach as "techno-boll****" .

yes but 100 years from now scientific language will sound like babble to us and 5 billion years is a long time after that - several 1000 times as long as we have had to make language up to now.

If the Doctor had said " I will just add some runium and mix up the thera particles a bit with the sonic screwdriver " the plot hole would have been filled - but is it worth the trouble. We know he has scientific knowledge that can fix the situation so why show him using it and just not assume he has it and uses it?

Gutted Girl's explanation makes sense too - how do we know what would cure an artificially created body 5 billion years from now.

[thenetworkbabe]

Originally Posted by Alrightmate

The thing with Star Trek though, is that any of the fancy talk is usually used more often to just enable viewers to suspend their disbelief by making the Star Trek Universe believable to them, by using terminology that you can imagine being spoken aboard a Federation starship by it's personnel.
Just to make it sound authentic in that fictional universe.
For some reason it doesn't tend to jar.

And it's mostly not so much used to resolve the actual story as a quick fix solution because you've bogged yourself down in something of your own conception that you didn't truly understand when you wrote it.

Its more tthan that - Star Trek speak has now spread into all space faring TV and its a fair bet that as we actually go out there we will use the language Star Trek has developed for us - warp, tricoder, phaser, transporter - we now have the language before we have the kit.

Dr Who doesn't use that vocabluary - it just has a wise guy and a police box. Some people seem to expect more than that and want Star trek speak - actually Rose made that point in series 1 asking why he wasn't more professional - the answer is he just isn't.

[Alrightmate]

Originally Posted by thenetworkbabe

Its more tthan that - Star Trek speak has now spread into all space faring TV and its a fair bet that as we actually go out there we will use the language Star Trek has developed for us - warp, tricoder, phaser, transporter - we now have the language before we have the kit.

Dr Who doesn't use that vocabluary - it just has a wise guy and a police box. Some people seem to expect more than that and want Star trek speak - actually Rose made that point in series 1 asking why he wasn't more professional - the answer is he just isn't.

Who has said that?
I haven't seen anybody who has said that they want that.

Calling something a 'tricorder' is not '5 minutes of explanation', you just assume that it records stuff and that's all that seems to matter.

Words like 'warp' or 'transporter' are no big deal either. They are just normal words that could be used in real life.
And I'm sure that Doctor Who has used the same sort of words itself...

...It does use that kind of vocabulary.
They even used the word 'teleportation' in episode 2 last year...an RTD script.
And in another RTD script.....A 'Delta Wave'....
.....Oh no, RTD doesn't write technobabble does he?

The point here is that RTD makes up bullshit technobabble, yet criticises others for using it, and doesn't appear to be able to get his own technobabble to make sense.
Many other sci-fi shows have been received very well, whether they use a lot of terminology or not, and have been mainstream, entertaining,..and yet still managed to make an attempt to make some kind of believable sense.

It doesn't matter what show it is, It's simply a matter of good writing or bad writing.
I think it's a bit precious to be pedantic about the terminology used by other writers if you're putting them down to hide your own shortcomings.

I don't think people really care about Delta Waves, transporters, or whatever words are used to name something, as long as everything is believeable and makes sense in the universe it has been written in.

That doesn't mean that everything needs lengthy explanations, it just means that things have to follow the rules that you have given it in that particular fictional reality.

If it doesn't, then things jar and lots of people post about it on internet forums.
Not just this one either I can tell you.

The problem is when the writer invents something like a Delta Wave as a quick fix solution out of the blue which makes the viewer ask "Where did that come from? That's bullshit".
That's your technobabble.

Going at 'warp speed', using a 'tricorder', or a 'transporter' is no big deal, and are just words that take a fraction of a second to say.
We don't get every episode spending 5 minutes explaining to us how they work,...that's just some perception that doesn't really reflect the true situation.

And they make some kind of believeable sense in the Universe that has been created for which they exist in.
Star Trek have a team of scientific consultants hired to make sure that some kind of believability can be maintained to avoid complete utter bullshit.


I think the thing that irks more with people on here with some of RTD's writing is not the terminology used, but sense and logic that doesn't often work and makes many suddenly ask questions about the weakness of what's explained to us.

Just about every other writer for Doctor Who in last year's series was guilty of what RTD would call 'Technobabble' as they gave some explanation to some things to make sense of events occurring on screen.
Was it a problem?
Was it boring?
Most people think not. So I think RTD is either terrified of being labelled as writing too 'geekily', or he's looking for excuses that deflect from any potential shortcomings in his own ability.

Nobody asks for more or less terminology, they just want writing that doesn't insult their intelligence.
And that's more to do with the writing and how it's constructed.

The polls indicate that non-RTD stories are appreciated much more than RTD ones, and so do the many things written about them.
General stats show that 'New Earth' was the third least favourite episode of Doctor Who since it's reincarnation.
Most RTD episodes languish near the bottom of the favourite show lists.
The stats are just about identical on both this forum and Outpost Gallifrey.


So it's a bit rich of RTD to be looking down his nose at other sci-fi writers at this moment in time while he isn't so perfect himself.

RTD may want to criticise the work of others, but it comes across as slightly arrogant if he thinks he can write better than other people who have had success and he is still learning to write for Doctor Who.

I still think he needs to catch up a bit, even though he has strengths as a writer.

[Alrightmate]

Last year he was even bigging himself up by telling us that episodes he'd written himself would 'blow our minds', or other such hyperbole.

Now any writer who talks themselves up like that is going to give me doubts about how self-analytical and critical of their own work they really are.

[stuart@chandler]

I think everybody ought to just sit back and be thankful that the Doctor is back and fantastically so. Just enjoy the blimmin' show!

[Mulett]

I have no problem with the use of the Sonic Screwdriver (I have one at home) or technobabble as long as they are used as a simple plot device rather than a resolution.

To be fair to Star Trek and in particular Voyager, the technobabble was rarely used as a way to resolve the central problem/dilemma/storyline. Instead it was used as a way of speeding along each story towards the climax. Most of the stories were actually character-based dramas and revolved around emotional conflicts of some sort and everything else was a back drop to this.

In Doctor Who, I think the Sonic Screwdriver is the same. RTD said that in these new fast-paced episodes, the last thing viewers want stopping the Doctor is a locked door and I think he's right.

Just think of the scene in this week's episode where the Doctor and Rose/Cassandra made their way into the hidden part of the hospital complex after using the Sonic Screwdriver. How dull to have had them spend time coming up with a way to open the hidden entrance.