From: as010b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (andrew david simchik)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv,rec.arts.startrek.misc,rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: ST:TNG (critiques) vs Dr. Who
Date: 16 Dec 92 17:06:32 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <15DEC199220262390@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu> doctor8@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu (Jason Abner Miller) writes:


>Each of these characters were semi-believable.  They all had very human
>traits (arrogance, hatred, hubris), but were painted in such a way as
>to make the series more of a biting, caustic, social satire, disguised
>under nonsensical stories.  In order to get at all this, you have to
>be able to look at the series at different levels, and since I saw
>these McCoy stories when I was 16-17, I didn't get this at all, and
>the novelizations, although better than Terrance Dicks' in that they
>tried to explain character motivations and stuff, weren't overly helpful.
>	I'd probably have to see all these stories again in order to
>appreciate the commentary bit, but since many people here are of the
>opinion that it was more of UK satire (i.e. the Skinheads in "Silver
>Nemesis") than universal, I might have a hard time understanding it.
>	And THAT is the fundamental difference between the McCoy episodes
>and the older stories.  The older stories were, for the most part,
>universal.  They were proud of their British heritage, but could be
>transferred to anywhere else in the world without losing anything.  Many
>McCoy fans are, of course, not British, but I had trouble understanding all
>this.  It seems as if the newer stories weren't mean to appeal to an
>audience as wide as they used to; this is part of the series' demise.

And here you have put your finger on the two characteristics which turned me
off to the McCoy stories: satire/allegory and narrow appeal.  I also watched
the shows when I was 16-17 (I'm 18 now, BTW) and picked up on the unusually
figurative nature of these stories right away.  However, I think you have
expressed the satirical element very well above, so I shall not attempt to
restate it.  IMHO, it's nice to see some deeper literary elements in Who,
but (a) it should be handled by writers who are able to use satire in the
bounds of a good story, and (b) the space opera aspect of Dr. Who should
always be uppermost, and the satire secondary.  If I want good satire, I'll
pick up Voltaire.  If I want to be entertained by a thought-provoking sci-fi
story, I'll turn on Dr. Who.  When the one (Who) reaches out for the other
(Voltaire), the one is compromised and while it doesn't quite reach a decent
level of satire, it simultaneously loses the entertainment value it once
had, and we're left with mediocre stories on both counts.  The elegant and
careful sci-fi background of Dr. Who has been all but thrown away by the new
writers in order to do their silly ideas up, and *this* is the main grudge I
have against the McCoy years--it's as if the show has been twisted to fit
the writers' vision, instead of the writers expressing their vision in terms
of the show.  Bad, bad thing to do to a series that has been running for a
quarter-century; don't mess with a clearly successful milieu.  And the
universal appeal of Dr. Who has definitely been lessened by all this "modern
Britain" stuff.  The problem with doing satire is if the audience can't
relate to what is being satirized, the show is meaningless to them and
therefore uninteresting.
  
>	Yes, but it *is* frustrating to have the Doctor show up in
>Perivale, see a black cat zip across the screen, run off to buy
>cat food, and end up in another universe.  Or to have him materialize
>in 1942, and know right away that he has to find Judson's Ultima 
>machine or see the entire world be destroyed.  This is just too much
>omniscience ... if you don't go into the story knowing that you have
>to read between the lines, it's downright frustrating, and since many
>people are only going to see the story once, they become hard to grasp.

Right, and this is the other problem I have with McCoy's Doctor: he's just
such a blasted know-it-all.  Before we were able to learn what was going on
through the Doctor; he was smarter than us, sure, and he knew what to do
about it, but at least he didn't know exactly what was happening while we
were just floundering.  He told us the story instead of making us race after
him like some sort of...COMPANION?  What a giveaway!

Drewcifer
-- 
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