Pratchett Attacks Doctor Who

[high_castle]

The thing is...Doctor Who is still fun and entertaining. There's a lot of pressure from the SF community these days to pen books and screenplays based in hard science. Or at least use lots of sciency sounding words so you can confuse your audience into thinking it's hard. And don't get me wrong, I love the works of authors like Alistair Reynolds, who have legitimate backgrounds in the sort of science they're writing about. But that's not the penultimate definition of the genre.

Face it, Star Wars, Firefly, and countless other beloved SF franchises have very little basis in actual science. This doesn't make them bad or any less valid. At the end of the day, most folk care more about the stories and the characters than the science. I watch Doctor Who because I want to see the titular character's continued growth and evolution. I hope for new insights into his past and future. The pseudo-science sets the stage, but it's just flash. The characters are the heart of the show, and that's why it's so compelling.

At the end of the day, we tend to sympathize with and relate to the human element more than anything else. Even in hard SF, you need relatable characters or you're story's going to fall flat. I would wager that characters are more important than science. The popularity of shows like Doctor Who are testimony of that fact.

 

[AboveUp]

SNIP

You were implying he had no idea who Terry Pratchett is, despite that person basically just quoting Pratchett in his post.

It's even there in the quotation part of your own post.

 

[wildpeaks]

Well I understand his frustration, especially in the latest episodes, some elements are illogical, for instance:

Spoiler

if you're hunting an angel whose only weakness is that it stops when being seen, why on Earth would you bring plenty of guns and only a handful of torchlight instead of bringing tons of spotlight and strapping yourself with thousands of tiny creatures with eyes so that even if you're not looking, something else is looking at the angel(s) at all time ?

On another note, I find it sadly ironic how

Spoiler

in the 1996 movie's commentary, they describe the tiny 2 seconds kiss as being their main regret about the movie's story whereas in the new series, he frenched all of his companions and several other characters too.

Still gonna continue watching though

Spoiler

Remember they did think it was just the one angel in the beginning of the episode, though

True but

Spoiler

I was already under the impression that it didn't make sense to bring only guns and a few torchlights back when they hadn't even entered the cavern, a fortiori afterwards

 

[AboveUp]

SNIP

You were implying he had no idea who Terry Pratchett is, despite that person basically just quoting Pratchett in his post.

It's even there in the quotation part of your own post.

To my opinion you can see from his post that he doesn't know pratchett at all

we may differ on this but that's what I stick with

How can he not know Pratchett if he directly quotes him as joke in response to something Pratchett is saying? Twice in a row even!

I think you may need to read the books again to get Terry Pratchett's sense of humor if you didn't get the joke that was obviously there.

 

[Wildrow12]

[HEADING=2]Hey, I have a cool idea: why don't people READ THE ENTIRE POST.[/HEADING]

Prachett says at the bottom that he still enjoys/watches Doctor Who. He just takes exception to the overuse of the Magic Wand approach in a Sci-Fi series. I believe that his point is that Doctor Who is a very "soft-sci" in its approach, and that he likes to see more "hard-sci" in his shows.

Are people not allowed to have an opinion anymore without being insulted?

Reading? Not raging like a fanboy? On the internets? Oh, Scott...you are such a dreamer.

 

[tzimize]

Is he fucking serious?

He makes his living writing fantasy novels, with clairvoyants, magic, and all that shit.

And yet he calls out Doctor Who?

What a lunatic.

Fantasy

Science Fiction

Taste a bit on those two words, where does fantasy/randomness fit. Where does logic fit?

 

[GuerrillaClock]

His argument falls down when he says it's entertaining. Any other concerns are tiny in comparison. It's Saturday night TV, not a hard-science brain-fuckathon.

Also, he doesn't take into account the Karen Gillan factor.

 

[Jonesy911]

Well I've always thought Doctor Who was a bag of smelly tripe and now I have the backing of a world famous author

 

[Therumancer]

Terry is right actually.

The problem is that science fiction has become a buzzword for any kind of work of fiction set in space or whatever. If it has robots and ray guns, then it's science fiction.

Science Fiction as a genere is characterized by trying to present things in a plausible light. While fantastic technologies might be invented, a lot of time is spent explaining how they might work, and what the repercussions might be, and exploring those elements within a story.

Things like "Doctor Who" and indeed most popular "sci-fi" are technically fantasy, or "space fantasy" if you need a sub-genere. Though for people today "fantasy" is generally considered to be sword and sorcery even if that isn't generally true.

In a real science fiction story the author is going to go on about explaining why space ships are shaped like bubbles (ie "Bio Of A Space Tyrant"), how artificial gravity works, and similar things, as he tells the story since those things are what influances the resolution. In space fantasy, you have guys blasting away with their ray guns, and racing space ships around, with little explanation for how it works... "we do this because it's cool". It's sort of like how you have ships exploding into fireballs in space... that couldn't happen, and if you see that, it's a good sign that it's not real science fiction but simply a work of fantasy with the developers trying to be cool.

I guess it's because your everyman, doesn't want to listen to an explanation on how something works, he just wants to see aliens and laser guns.. yet still wants to feel fairly smart as he's watching this stuff.

Overall I think Terry Pratchett is right, though in general I think it mostly comes down to the fact that they should be more honest within the genere, and what it's all about. Strictly speaking I do not think Doctor Who should be given credit as a work of science fiction, especially nowadays.

To use the whole "Transporting a hospital to the moon" thing as an example, a real science fiction author might very well use the whole "force field" thing, but would also explain how that force field is hypothetically generated, and how it's going to prevent the windows and such from blowing out along with other things.

If you like read a series like Piers Anthony's "Bio Of A Space Tyrant", Asimov's "Foundation", etc... you'll find a lot of musing on the subject, especially with Piers Anthony where he explains pretty clearly how the tech is supposed to work and as a result why certain things happen, or need to be done in a specific way. Foundation is more about sociology and such though, rather than technology.

 

[GonzoGamer]

[HEADING=2]Hey, I have a cool idea: why don't people READ THE ENTIRE POST.[/HEADING]

Prachett says at the bottom that he still enjoys/watches Doctor Who. He just takes exception to the overuse of the Magic Wand approach in a Sci-Fi series. I believe that his point is that Doctor Who is a very "soft-sci" in its approach, and that he likes to see more "hard-sci" in his shows.

Are people not allowed to have an opinion anymore without being insulted?

Yes it looked like people need a reminder/didn't actually read the article.
Pratchett did say that he's still a fan and will still watch the show.

I think people (who haven't actually read his books) should also be informed that Pratchett avoids the magic wand solution and that he fits more logic and science into his books than any other fantasy author.

He's just getting the Bill Cosby syndrome and needs to realize that not everyone is as talented as he is.

 

[Crispee]

When I saw the title of this article, I thought Pratchett was going to say how they stole his idea of "giant Star creature flies around outer space carrying a civilization on its back" that they used in episode 2 of the new series.

 

[SnipErlite]

Well I respect Terry Pratchett enough that I'd probably agree with him no matter who he attacked, but there was some valid points in there. Granted Doctor Who is a programme designed for entertainment (and yes I do enjoy it) it is a bit makeitup in the sense that these days I never really worry for the characters. You just know the Doctor (or Amy in the Beast Below) will come up with a solution and everything will be alright.

 

[Arestra]

Pratchett Attacks Doctor Who

And here's me hoping that Pratchet actually took a knife and went over to Matt Smith's house... Bloody tendentious newspaper headlines!

Love Docter Who though, I think/hope now they got Stephen Moffat in as a writer the stories will become better and less 'deus ex machina'-esque.

 

[jjofearth]

the problem with saying that science fiction is too fiction-y is that, well, the Doctor comes from a ridiculously advanced planet, in the future, the technology of which is already evolved enough to have invented time-travel, and reduced it to a "game for children" when we were inventing the wheel. Basically, it is sufficiently advanced to do most things. Remember:"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Arthur C. Clarke)