I actually don't think that Doctor Who is contemptuous of SF. It doesn't give SF that much thought! It doesn't regard itself as SF any more than Buffy does, and if any of its writers says otherwise then they clearly think Lost in Space is also SF.
I think that parma_violets is focusing on small niggles in this quote. I personally disagree that phrases like "The Dark Times" are poor; they serve the same purpose here as in Buffy, and very effectively sketch a kind of Pulp Scientific Romance kind of history. I also disagree that a throwaway gag like the weather device needs sensible technobabble. There are dozens of ways he could have done it, and it has no bearing whatsoever on the story. Likewise the age of the Earth being wrong (I can't actually remember the figure used in the episode) makes no difference to the plot and, hey, maybe the Doctor misspoke. All of these examples seem to me pretty trivial.
I agree more with your comments about magical plot devices. It's just that it doesn't seem inherently crazy to me - in the context of the DW universe - that powerful alien SUPERSCIENCE could drill a really stupidly deep hole to the centre of the Earth which did not spew magma (hell, the Daleks did exactly this in the original series). This is stupid science and a plotting convenience but hardly a magical deus ex machina because it sets up the problem rather than solving it.
And having set up the problem - a really stupidly deep hole with aliens at the bottom - what exactly is so illogical or inconsistent about flooding the aliens at the bottom using the previously established river overhead? Or using the previously established remote controlled bombs to do it?
Aside on the age of the Earth, I checked the tape and he does say "4.6 billion years" which isn't that wrong as a view of Earth formation (given that the web ship is supposed to have accelerated the accretion process; IIRC the 4.6 figure corresponds to the time when the body is fully accreted.) I couldn't find any reference to figures like "trillions" as others have referred to.
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coalescent) wrote2006-12-25 08:16 pm
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I think that
I agree more with your comments about magical plot devices. It's just that it doesn't seem inherently crazy to me - in the context of the DW universe - that powerful alien SUPERSCIENCE could drill a really stupidly deep hole to the centre of the Earth which did not spew magma (hell, the Daleks did exactly this in the original series). This is stupid science and a plotting convenience but hardly a magical deus ex machina because it sets up the problem rather than solving it.
And having set up the problem - a really stupidly deep hole with aliens at the bottom - what exactly is so illogical or inconsistent about flooding the aliens at the bottom using the previously established river overhead? Or using the previously established remote controlled bombs to do it?
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