Doctor Who is coming to America!!!

[hracctsold]

PBS was where I first came across the "good doctor" as was stated, and a friend to tell me I would like it.<br /><br />Yes, PBS has given us some good things, and a few things I personally wished they did not!!! Benny Hill comes to mind. But I worked with a guy from the Figi Islands who was and liked all things British. And he said he had the same conversation with his American wife who agreed with me. He said he had to watch it without the kids and her around.<br /><br />But then again, I have seen shows of the "Red Green" show that my wife called stupid, and did not want to know about it. It's all in the taste I guess. Note: Not that I am a big fan of Red Green but I will watch it when I am in a stupid mood, and I can find it. I think I have the right title for that show, two hillbillies who's bible is "101 ways to use duct tape."

 

[CalliArcale]

I love "Red Green". <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />I first saw Doctor Who on the day I was born, believe it or not. I admit I wasn't paying much attention at the time. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> The BBC ran a feed in Washington, DC for British diplomats, and since it was broadcast over air, anybody could receive it. My mom was looking for something to watch in the hospital while nursing me and found it. She then introduced my dad to it, and they became fans. When they moved back to Minnesota (after my dad got his MD), they were without Who for a few years, until the local PBS station (KTCA) picked it up. And that's when I became a fan. I grew up with it, basically. Wonderful show. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[hracctsold]

So, you come by Who naturally, almost inheritenly. <br /><br />Now about Red Green, how many ways have you found to use your duct tape. My mother-in-law has a T-shirt that says, when the going gets tough, the tough get duct tape.

 

[hracctsold]

But I have got to admit, if I were to go time tavelling, the good Doctor's TARDIS would be the way to go. I also would like to view the wonders of his vast chamber on the inside compared to that small box on the out.

 

[CalliArcale]

The TARDIS isn't actually smaller. They just have fewer TARDIS interior sets. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> We finally get to see a second TARDIS room in "The Christmas Invasion" (it's the warddrobe) but presumably it is still vast inside. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[cbxsix]

I too have been thouroughly enjoying the new series. I'm a little bit upset that Eccleston has effectively "used up" one of the Doctor's regenerations, since he only wanted to do one season... having 13 lives doesn't seem as many when you're on life 10!<br /><br />Having said that, I do have a question about the TARDIS (my favorite sci-fi conveyance, btw) that a hard-core Whovian might be able to help me out with:<br />Where/when exactly *is* the interior of the TARDIS, anyway? I was under the impression that the TARDIS doesn't actually move, just its exterior does. Since the Eye (the black hole that powers all TARDISes) is actually in the TARDIS somewhere, according to the 1996 TV movie, and the Eye is supposed to be in the center of Gallifrey, I always sort of believed there is only one TARDIS interior, and that it is sort of shared by all TARDISes, their occupants seperated by time, maybe. Thinking in 4 dimensions gives me a bit of a headache sometimes.<br /><br />Unfortunately my tidy theory is blown away by the revelation in the new series that Gallifrey was destroyed. But if so, where is the Eye now, and how is the TARDIS still powered by it? <br /><br />Or is there some completely different explaination provided by the canon that I'm not aware of?<br /><br />I'm confused. Help me, Time Lady! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>PBS, for reasons that will never be adequately explained, has got a "thing" for all things British. Brit-coms, British sci-fi, British documentaries...</i><br /><br />American television has a long and honorable tradition of 'borrowing' from British broadcasting. A classic example, I suppose, would be America's 'All in the Family,' cloned from the BBC's 'Till Death Us Do Part' (see All in the Family (The Museum of Broadcast Communications)). The network which chose to truly borrow British TV series, however, was the non-commercial Public Broadcasting Corporation. The three major commercial networks have usually preferred to borrow the concepts, leaving the series themselves back in the UK. So all the best stuff from Britain comes to us via PBS.<br /><br /><i>Not that I'm complaining! Not at all. PBS gave America Monty Python, Doctor Who, and an endless supply of funny-sounding words and phrases that have absolutely no meaning in American!</i><br /><br />And 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' Which I first encountered untold decades ago thanks to PBS. Back before VCRs and cable TV. Enjoyed the show, then forgot about it for awhile. Didn't find out about the books until meeting the woman who would become my wife. (Cute, curvy, red-haired <i>and</i> enjoys sci-fi - should've seen where this was going long before I did.)<br /><br />Back to British borrowings on American TV. While 'The X-Files' certainly owes a debt to its paranormal predecessor (Darren McGavin's 'The Night Stalker'), too often overlooked is its other ancestor, a British import: 'The Avengers.'<br /><br />Nothing like seeing John Steed and Emma Peel onscreen together was to show up on American television till Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, but I see that, as usual, I digress...

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>Unfortunately my tidy theory is blown away by the revelation in the new series that Gallifrey was destroyed. But if so, where is the Eye now, and how is the TARDIS still powered by it?</i><br /><br />I would say the explanation lies in the 4-dimensional headache alluded to in your post. Since we're talking time machines, just for the Eye to have existed at some point in history is enough. It exists somewhen, which means the TARDIS can still tap into its power, even if at some later point in history Gallifrey and its Eye are destroyed.<br /><br />Which implies that the interior of the TARDIS (or at least some portion/aspect of its time-traveling machinery) coexists in the same native era as the Eye, and perhaps also exists somewhere in the vicinity of Gallifrey itself - if it doesn't lie outside our space-time entirely.

 

[darth_elmo]

*groan* Does time-travel give anyone else a migraine...?

 

[serak_the_preparer]

It gets worse.<br /><br />The Eye may exist in a parallel universe, or occupy more than one space-time. Just because Gallifrey is destroyed in one time-line doesn't mean it simultaneously ceases to exist in all time-lines. If the Whovian universe is really a multiverse which permits uncounted alternate histories (something which is almost necessitated by the existence of time-travel), then the TARDIS need only hook into a time-line where the Eye and Gallifrey do not meet an early end but instead persist until the very last days of that universe (if not beyond).<br /><br />The advantage of this approach comes from its agreement with what science has to say about time-travel so far. According to what we currently know of physics, a time machine may only traverse the expanse of time during which the space-warp it uses exists. So your time machine may not take you back to a time before the machine was built, nor carry you beyond the time when the essential mechanism (the Eye) ceases to operate.<br /><br />I propose, therefore, that - in the interests of aiming for something approximating scientific respectability - the TARDIS is in touch with an Eye in a Gallifrey which reaches a ripe old age of several trillion years. What sort of history contains such a Gallifrey is ultimately unimportant - all that matters is that it exists...somewhen...

 

[CalliArcale]

Ultimately, I think the answer is that "the writers weren't paying attention when they put the Eye into the TARDIS in 1996".<br /><br />There were two major additions to continuity from the FOX movie. I don't like either of them: the Eye of Harmony serving as the power source for the TARDIS (especially odd since in "The Deadly Assassin", where the Eye was introduced, it was clear most Time Lords regarded it as a myth), and the Doctor being half-human (which is absurd and rather out of character for the series -- much effort has been spent by fans in retconning that).<br /><br />It frankly doesn't make sense for the Eye of Harmony to be the TARDIS power source. I've given up on retconning that one.<br /><br />The TARDIS interior is not inside the exterior. It occupies its own distinct spacetime. It is not the same spacetime as other TARDISes. Interestingly, the outside world does have an affect on the local spacetime inside the TARDIS, presumably via the real-world interface (which on the Doctor's TARDIS is stuck in the shape of a police box). For instance, it appears to deliberatly map the interior gravity to match the local gravity wherever the TARDIS has landed, unless that's someplace without any local gravity. So if the TARDIS lands on a slope, the inside will be at a slope too -- unless you deliberately specify otherwise. Presumably this is to help avoid the embarassment of falling on your face when you step out of the TARDIS. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

I seem to recollect from "The Five Doctors" (IIRC) that all Tardis' are powered by an artificial Singularity created by Rascillon.<br /><br />Btw, isn't there some odd evidence that the Doctor is, in actuality, Rascillon himself? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Yup. I have copies of both, naturally. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> I prefer the TV series. Both of those movies were based on existing Dr Who stories, with modest alterations. I haven't seen any of the stage shows, but I have seen the charity productions "Dimensions in Time" (awful) and "The Curse of Fatal Death" (brilliant, and hilarious). If you like Daleks, you'll like "The Curse of Fatal Death" -- they feature prominently.<br /><br />They had a running gag about how if the writers couldn't think of an explanation, they just had the Doctor say "I'll explain later":<br /><br />"Why do you have chairs on a Dalek spaceship anyway?"<br />"WE WILL EX-PLAIN LA-TER."<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[kdavis007]

So far I find Dr. Who boring...

 

[serak_the_preparer]

*** WARNING: Spoiler Zone for non-Whovians ***<br /><br /><i>Ultimately, I think the answer is that "the writers weren't paying attention when they put the Eye into the TARDIS in 1996".</i><br /><br />Agreed. There is a slap-dash quality to a great deal of the Dr. Who saga. Not that it fails to follow its own logic. Very organic, rather than carefully mapped out in advance, something that evolved a bit chaotically - like life itself.<br /><br /><i>It frankly doesn't make sense for the Eye of Harmony to be the TARDIS power source. I've given up on retconning that one.</i><br /><br />But isn't Yevaud essentially correct that a singularity lies at the heart of Dr. Who's TARDIS - and at the heart of every other TARDIS? You've got an Ur-Universe, a Web of Time, about nine Gallifreys, bubble universes, bottle universes, grandfather paradoxes, etc. The Apocalypse Element is what? Negative mass, nega-neutronium? In such a context, the Eye may not be so out of place. Maybe all singularities are really one singularity, and some call it the Eye of Harmony?<br /><br /><i>(especially odd since in "The Deadly Assassin", where the Eye was introduced, it was clear most Time Lords regarded it as a myth)</i><br /><br />The Whovian universe contains: reality-shaping space-time Swimmers (Intercreationals) who can destroy a universe with a touch; the anti-life-force Hastur the Unspeakable, aka Fenric (a Great Old One); the Seven Shadows; Shub-Niggurath (the Nestene Consciousness); god-like Chronovores (such as Kronos, destroyer of Atlantis); the magical talisman balancing Order and Chaos known as the Key of Time; Eternals; the Elixir of Life; the living metal Validium; telepathy; Vampire Wars; etc. It's chock full of myth. The Eye of Harmony seems consistent with the mythic quasi-magical spirit of the series.<br /><br />After all...<br /><br /><i>WE WILL EX-PLAIN LA-TER</i><br /><br />But this is an amateur talking, and I defer to a true Whovian. If you feel the Eye flies against the canon o

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>But isn't Yevaud essentially correct that a singularity lies at the heart of Dr. Who's Tardis - and at the heart of every other Tardis?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />According to the 1996 movie, yes. I don't recall it being introduced prior to that. TARDIS technology is generally pretty vague. Presumably Time Lord technology follows Clarke's Law and is essentially magic. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

More correctly, each TARDIS doesn't contain a Singularity itself - but they're all linked in some way to one located on Gallifrei. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Actually, that's fanon, or fan-devised canon. (Since Dr Who today is largely created by people who grew up as fans, though, fanon has a tendency to become canon.) The 1996 movie did not go into that much detail.<br /><br />According to the movie, the Eye of Harmony resides at the center of the Doctor's TARDIS and provides its power source.<br /><br />According to "The Deadly Assassin" (the only other time it was mentioned on the series), the Eye of Harmony is a black obilisk beneath the Panopticon, the seat of power within the Citadel on Gallifrey. Presidents of the High Council have unknowingly stood directly above it for thousands of years. It is a captive black hole, forced into a seemingly benign form by extremely skilled gravitational engineering. It provides Gallifrey with a power source, somehow put in balance against the mass of the planet.<br /><br />These two are obviously contradictory, so fans have reached the logical conclusion that since time and space dont' work in quite the same way inside of TARDISes, it's possible that both Eye of Harmonys are in fact one and the same. But this has not been explicated in canon. It's a very logical way of rectifying the contradiction, but there is no guarantee they won't come up with something different on the series.<br /><br />It's easy to confuse fanon and canon, especially with a series like Doctor Who where the fans have been so singularily creative. The novels and various other non-canon productions further confuse the issue. The dividing line between canon and fanon is extremely thin on this series. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>TARDIS technology is generally pretty vague. Presumably Time Lord technology follows Clarke's Law and is essentially magic.</i><br /><br />That's been my impression, too. It seems to me that story here takes precedence over science, and - as you say - the technology of the TARDIS is sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic.<br /><br /><i>These two are obviously contradictory, so fans have reached the logical conclusion that since time and space dont' work in quite the same way inside of TARDISes, it's possible that both Eye of Harmonys are in fact one and the same. But this has not been explicated in canon. It's a very logical way of rectifying the contradiction, but there is no guarantee they won't come up with something different on the series.</i><br /><br />This is also what I had concluded, that the singularity residing on Gallifrey is at the same time the singularity driving every TARDIS. Namely, that several seemingly separate singularities are in fact one and the same. In a multiverse which permits time-travel, this is certainly a possibility.<br /><br />Thanks, Calli, by the way, for all your detailed information about the series. You are unquestionably Space.com's source for all things Dr. Who.

 

[JonClarke]

Some of this is quite reminiscent of Asimov's explanations of time travel in th "The End of Eternity", one of his best books, IMHO, and one of the best thought out explorations of time travel.<br /><br /><b>Spoiler alert!</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There the time travel machines (kettles) are powered by the future solar nova. The time travelers (eternals) inhabit "eternity", a reality that is outside time and thus insulated for the changes that the eternals actions bring about in time. The eternals are not immortal, and age physiologically. They safeguard eternity, ensure the nondevelopment of other time travel and other damaging technologies.<br /><br />Unbeknownst to them, further in the future another culture has also discovered time travel, but rather than actually travel through time, prefers to observe alternate realities, including, those both with eternity and without.<br /><br />Both cultures have some similarities to the Time Lords. I don't think Asimov influenced the good doctor, which as gown organically. But I suspect that any logically constient time travelling culture must involve either alternate time lines or some kind of environment insulated from the consequences of meddling with time, and perhaps both. <br /><br />This raises the possibly that this may explain how the time war between the Darleks and the Time Lords actually. If the Time Lord's "eternity" is destroyed then their mastery of time ceases, and they themselves are doomed. If the Dr's TARDIS somehow has it's own micro eternity, then it explains why he, and he alone, has survived.<br /><br /><br /><b>Spoiler alert!</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The protagonists in Asimov's novel survive the "End of Eternity" much along these lines.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Oh, I loved that book!<br /><br />It is quite possible that Asimov did influence Dr Who; a lot of the writers were literature buffs, including science fiction literature. You can see a great many stories incorporating elements from all sorts of classics, although they're really never hommages or parodies or interpretations of those classics; just stories that incorporate some of the same elements.<br /><br />I think the Dr Who serial that most reminds me of Asimov is "The Robots of Death". Set on a Sandminer operated by an army beautiful robots governed by a small human crew, it's a classic closed-door whodunit. Somebody is killing the crew, one by one. What's worse, it might be a robot doing it, and this society has become completely dependent on robots, trusting in their programmed inability to harm humans.<br /><br />I don't want to give too much of a spoiler for it, but it becomes apparent that one of the crew isn't who he claims to be. Taren Capel, a notorious pro-robot terrorist, has substituted himself for one of the crew. Unfortunately, nobody knows what he looks like, so he could be any of the men. Taren Capel hates humans with a passion. He was raised entirely by robots and considers them his brothers, superior to humans. That reminded me a lot of the people in the third of the books about R. Daneel Olivaw and Lije Bailey. I don't recall the name of the planet (Aurora, possibly), but the people there lived entirely surrounded by robots, almost never seeing another human being except on videoconference. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[nacnud]

I had a collection of 1960s paperbacl Asimov Novels, unfortunaly by the time I got round to reading End of Eternity it just fell apart in my hands pages everywhere <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" />

 

[JonClarke]

Yes, that was a good episode. The enormous mining machine was a little like the spice harvester in Dune.<br /><br />The Asimov world you are thinking of is Solaria, not Aurora.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

Well, you missed out on a treat then. If you like Asimov this is a must read, he is at the height of his powers in this one.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Jon, thanks for passing along Asimov's 'The End of Eternity.' Interesting stuff - makes me wonder if some of those who shaped Dr. Who might not have been shaped in turn by the writings of Asimov and others. Seems reasonable enough.<br /><br />Now, for you and a certain Time Lady:<br /><br />CBBC Newsround | Quiz | Cybermen quiz