When did it start? It's no more SF than Star Wars is. It may occasionally waggle SF tropes like wormholes in front of our eyes but there's almost nothing in the show that obeys reasonable or consistent laws of physics. It's such a wild ride that I don't even think "space opera" adequately summarises it. It's a fantasy show set in outer space.
Just so with Doctor Who. There have been moments in the show's history where it dabbled briefly in scientific plausibility, and moments when they've dealt with impressively Stapledonian gulfs of time, but those are far outnumbered by the science-as-magic bits.
To be fair, what I'd like to see more of in Who is not so much scientific credibility as internal consistency and logic. For example this special featured a very neat use of the sonic screwdriver with the sound system, which works because anyone can grasp the idea of a sonic device and an amplifier. It makes sense even though the device has never been used in such a way before. Contrast this with the many contrived uses of the sonic screwdriver as an all-purpose deus ex machina.
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Date: 2006-12-26 06:16 pm (UTC)When did it start? It's no more SF than Star Wars is. It may occasionally waggle SF tropes like wormholes in front of our eyes but there's almost nothing in the show that obeys reasonable or consistent laws of physics. It's such a wild ride that I don't even think "space opera" adequately summarises it. It's a fantasy show set in outer space.
Just so with Doctor Who. There have been moments in the show's history where it dabbled briefly in scientific plausibility, and moments when they've dealt with impressively Stapledonian gulfs of time, but those are far outnumbered by the science-as-magic bits.
To be fair, what I'd like to see more of in Who is not so much scientific credibility as internal consistency and logic. For example this special featured a very neat use of the sonic screwdriver with the sound system, which works because anyone can grasp the idea of a sonic device and an amplifier. It makes sense even though the device has never been used in such a way before. Contrast this with the many contrived uses of the sonic screwdriver as an all-purpose deus ex machina.