Twelve Flavours of Doctor Who
May. 1st, 2007 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteOne of the things that consistently surprises me about reactions to new series Doctor Who is the assumption that RTD's formula is the only way the show will ever be done from now on. Sometimes this is seen as a good thing, by people who think it's the only possible way to make it work in the twenty-first century. Other times it's seen as a bad thing, by those who think the Evil Rusty has ruined their favourite show forever.
But, you know, it's really not true. Doctor Who has been played many different ways in the past, and I fully expect it to evolve further into the future. I doubt that RTD will stay on as producer forever, and the BBC would have to be insane to conclude the show just because he'd moved on. (And even if they did, there will be post-series continuations in novel/audio form.) The current formula is just one among many.
So, you know, slow day at work and I got to musing on what the defining characteristics of the different eras were ...
Before I begin, I note in passing that there are dozens - maybe hundreds - of stories that don't fit into any of the categories below. I defy anyone to classify The Mind Robber or Year of the Pig, for instance. Nor do they follow a strict chronology. For instance, The Mind of Evil is a Season Seven story that's accidentally wandered into Season Eight. It's also possible, especially in the spin-off media, for Doctors to borrow formulas from their fellows. That said, I think these generalizations are broadly accurate.
1. The 'What's A Formula?' Formula
One of the most incisive things about the first volume of Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood's excellent About Time series is the way they detail how gleefully experimental the first three seasons are. There are many things that will become part of the formula later on, but since nobody knows what Doctor Who is 'supposed' to be like yet it can be anything it wants. No other era could have given us The Massacre and The Gunfighters in the same year. On the plus side, this is an era of unrepeated free experimentation. On the minus side, not all the experiments are successful. There's a reason The Celestial Toymaker was not adopted as a template for future instalments.
Characteristics: No real certainty outside the seasonal appearance of the Daleks.
Good Example: Marco Polo
Bad Example: The Web Planet
2. The Innes Lloyd Formula
Gosh, it's another base. Which is - wait for it - under siege. Depending on who you ask, seasons four through six are either the show's first period of consistent brilliance or its first period of plodding, formulaic monster stories. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Doctor Who had to settle down and develop a clear identity at some point, but the plots do get repetitive after three years.
Characteristics: Jamie McCrimmon, gruff authority figures, mad science, hordes of Cybermen, and of course bases under siege.
Good Example: Fury From the Deep
Bad Example: The Wheel in Space
3. The Season Seven Formula
The Doctor is exiled on Earth, and we get a year of mostly serious drama that just happens to have aliens in it. The UNIT thing has not yet become fluffy at this point, and 'gritty' is the general theme. On the one hand, it works brilliantly for this one season. On the other, half the stories are over-long and the tone probably would have started to pall after another couple of years. I still wish it had gone on a bit longer, though.
Characteristics: Liz Shaw in kinky boots, moral equivalence between the humans and the monsters of the week.
Good Example: Inferno
Bad Example: With only four stories, there isn't time for one.
4. The Letts/Dicks Formula
Barry Letts and Terrence Dicks take creative control for the next four years, and start by toning down the grimness of the previous year. The Doctor gains a constant foe in the form of the Master and his brilliant scientist colleague is replaced with a blonde. On the down side, UNIT gets entirely too cosy, the alien invasions become standardized and the trips off-planet are little improvement. On the up side, Delgardo makes much of this watchable and things pick up a bit when Sarah Jane arrives.
Characteristics: More bloody aliens invading the bloody planet, the Doctor as James Bond, the UNIT family in full swing, the Master.
Good Example: Um. I'm not that big on the typical bits of these seasons. Terror of the Autons gets it pretty right. Even though it's a watered-down version of Spearhead From Space.
Bad Example: The Time Monster
5. The Hinchcliffe & Holmes Formula
And lo, there did come a golden age of Who when the scripts were consistent, the leads were brilliant, and even unconvincing rats could not spoil our enjoyment. I gather there are people who find all of this a bit dour and repetitive, but I am not one of them. When it comes to Doctor Who on the telly, I'd rather have something a bit formulaic but consistently entertaining than something experimental that doesn't actually work.
Characteristics: Gothic horror clichés that turn out to have alien origins, pseudo-historicals, Tom Baker looking thoughtful.
Good Example: The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Bad Example: The Android Invasion.
6. The Williams Formula
From Season Fifteen onwards, things get sillier and sillier. The Doctor acquires a robot dog and it becomes increasingly obvious that the lead is mad as a fish. Weather or not this is a good thing rather depends on who you ask. Personally, I feel there's an unfortunate tendency to confuse 'silly' with 'stupid' during this period. It certainly makes a change from Gothic horror, though.
Characteristics: K9, Time Ladies, Tom Baker looking manic.
Good Example: City of Death
Bad Example: Nightmare of Eden
7. The Christopher Bidmead Formula
A new producer and a new script editor put the breaks on and reign Tom Baker in for his last season. The comedy is replaced with Skience, to mixed effect. This year is an interesting experiment, but it's probably just as well it didn't go on or everyone's brains would have melted out their ears.
Characteristics: Skience, being terribly serious about everything, Tom Baker looking as if he'd like to be somewhere else.
Good Example: Warrior's Gate
Bad Example: Meglos
8. The Eric Saward Formula
The universe is a cold and horrible place where lots of people die and it is forbidden to have any fun, ever. (Except in Black Orchid, a story so far out of its time it must have a TARDIS of its own handy.) Saward introduces the idea of consequences to Doctor Who and proceeds to suck all the joy out of it. Occasionally this results in great entertainment akin to the best of Blake's 7. Mostly it's just depressing. One cannot help but feel that the script editor would have been happier with a show about space mercenaries.
Characteristics: General bleakness, pointless continuity references, an ineffectual or sidelined Doctor, a TARDIS more crowded than a peak hour train.
Good Example: The Caves of Androzani
Bad Example: Attack of the Cybermen
9. The Cartmel Masterplan
After a brief detour back into silliness, things become very strange and quite wonderful for the last couple of years of the classic series. The Doctor is a figure of mystery in a way he hasn't been since the days of black and white, and his fab new companion gets a proper arc for a change. A last gleam of inventive genius before the night falls, or the series disappearing up its own rectum? Fan opinion is divided, but I know I love it.
Characteristics: The Doctor planning everything in advance, character development, metafiction, bewildering plotting.
Good Example: The Curse of Fenric
Bad Example: Silver Nemesis
10. The New Adventures Formula
Like the Cartmel Masterplan, only with sex and swearing.
Good Example: Timewyrm: Revelation
Bad Example: I've not read far enough to come across anything truly dire yet.
11. The Eighth Doctor Formula
For the first time since The War Machines, there is no formula - because his TV era was so brief Eight never got pinned down. I gather the EDAs develop their own traditions as they go on, but for me Eighth Doctor stories work best when they're unconventional. For instance, Scott Gray has a wonderful way of starting a comic strip in an expected way, and then taking a sharp left turn. Other great demonstrations of this principle include Scherzo and The Natural History of Fear from Big Finish.
Characteristics: Wild experimentation, phase two.
Good Example: Alien Bodies
Bad Example: The TV movie. It breaks many of the rules of Doctor Who in favour of following the rules of bad American TV instead. Really, what's the point of that?
12. The RTD Formula
... which brings us to the present day. Russell T. Davies has pitched Doctor Who as a family adventure series with something for everyone. Drama, romance, and comedy abound. As a fan, he's borrowed a lot from previous eras while putting his own stamp on the finished product. His approach has both pros and cons, but it's certainly been a roaring success with the punters so far.
Characteristics: An obsession with contemporary Earth, celebrities both current and historical, pop culture references, the Doctor/Companion relationship as an explicitly romantic bond.
Good Example: Army of Ghosts
Bad Example: The Long Game
But, you know, it's really not true. Doctor Who has been played many different ways in the past, and I fully expect it to evolve further into the future. I doubt that RTD will stay on as producer forever, and the BBC would have to be insane to conclude the show just because he'd moved on. (And even if they did, there will be post-series continuations in novel/audio form.) The current formula is just one among many.
So, you know, slow day at work and I got to musing on what the defining characteristics of the different eras were ...
Before I begin, I note in passing that there are dozens - maybe hundreds - of stories that don't fit into any of the categories below. I defy anyone to classify The Mind Robber or Year of the Pig, for instance. Nor do they follow a strict chronology. For instance, The Mind of Evil is a Season Seven story that's accidentally wandered into Season Eight. It's also possible, especially in the spin-off media, for Doctors to borrow formulas from their fellows. That said, I think these generalizations are broadly accurate.
1. The 'What's A Formula?' Formula
One of the most incisive things about the first volume of Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood's excellent About Time series is the way they detail how gleefully experimental the first three seasons are. There are many things that will become part of the formula later on, but since nobody knows what Doctor Who is 'supposed' to be like yet it can be anything it wants. No other era could have given us The Massacre and The Gunfighters in the same year. On the plus side, this is an era of unrepeated free experimentation. On the minus side, not all the experiments are successful. There's a reason The Celestial Toymaker was not adopted as a template for future instalments.
Characteristics: No real certainty outside the seasonal appearance of the Daleks.
Good Example: Marco Polo
Bad Example: The Web Planet
2. The Innes Lloyd Formula
Gosh, it's another base. Which is - wait for it - under siege. Depending on who you ask, seasons four through six are either the show's first period of consistent brilliance or its first period of plodding, formulaic monster stories. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Doctor Who had to settle down and develop a clear identity at some point, but the plots do get repetitive after three years.
Characteristics: Jamie McCrimmon, gruff authority figures, mad science, hordes of Cybermen, and of course bases under siege.
Good Example: Fury From the Deep
Bad Example: The Wheel in Space
3. The Season Seven Formula
The Doctor is exiled on Earth, and we get a year of mostly serious drama that just happens to have aliens in it. The UNIT thing has not yet become fluffy at this point, and 'gritty' is the general theme. On the one hand, it works brilliantly for this one season. On the other, half the stories are over-long and the tone probably would have started to pall after another couple of years. I still wish it had gone on a bit longer, though.
Characteristics: Liz Shaw in kinky boots, moral equivalence between the humans and the monsters of the week.
Good Example: Inferno
Bad Example: With only four stories, there isn't time for one.
4. The Letts/Dicks Formula
Barry Letts and Terrence Dicks take creative control for the next four years, and start by toning down the grimness of the previous year. The Doctor gains a constant foe in the form of the Master and his brilliant scientist colleague is replaced with a blonde. On the down side, UNIT gets entirely too cosy, the alien invasions become standardized and the trips off-planet are little improvement. On the up side, Delgardo makes much of this watchable and things pick up a bit when Sarah Jane arrives.
Characteristics: More bloody aliens invading the bloody planet, the Doctor as James Bond, the UNIT family in full swing, the Master.
Good Example: Um. I'm not that big on the typical bits of these seasons. Terror of the Autons gets it pretty right. Even though it's a watered-down version of Spearhead From Space.
Bad Example: The Time Monster
5. The Hinchcliffe & Holmes Formula
And lo, there did come a golden age of Who when the scripts were consistent, the leads were brilliant, and even unconvincing rats could not spoil our enjoyment. I gather there are people who find all of this a bit dour and repetitive, but I am not one of them. When it comes to Doctor Who on the telly, I'd rather have something a bit formulaic but consistently entertaining than something experimental that doesn't actually work.
Characteristics: Gothic horror clichés that turn out to have alien origins, pseudo-historicals, Tom Baker looking thoughtful.
Good Example: The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Bad Example: The Android Invasion.
6. The Williams Formula
From Season Fifteen onwards, things get sillier and sillier. The Doctor acquires a robot dog and it becomes increasingly obvious that the lead is mad as a fish. Weather or not this is a good thing rather depends on who you ask. Personally, I feel there's an unfortunate tendency to confuse 'silly' with 'stupid' during this period. It certainly makes a change from Gothic horror, though.
Characteristics: K9, Time Ladies, Tom Baker looking manic.
Good Example: City of Death
Bad Example: Nightmare of Eden
7. The Christopher Bidmead Formula
A new producer and a new script editor put the breaks on and reign Tom Baker in for his last season. The comedy is replaced with Skience, to mixed effect. This year is an interesting experiment, but it's probably just as well it didn't go on or everyone's brains would have melted out their ears.
Characteristics: Skience, being terribly serious about everything, Tom Baker looking as if he'd like to be somewhere else.
Good Example: Warrior's Gate
Bad Example: Meglos
8. The Eric Saward Formula
The universe is a cold and horrible place where lots of people die and it is forbidden to have any fun, ever. (Except in Black Orchid, a story so far out of its time it must have a TARDIS of its own handy.) Saward introduces the idea of consequences to Doctor Who and proceeds to suck all the joy out of it. Occasionally this results in great entertainment akin to the best of Blake's 7. Mostly it's just depressing. One cannot help but feel that the script editor would have been happier with a show about space mercenaries.
Characteristics: General bleakness, pointless continuity references, an ineffectual or sidelined Doctor, a TARDIS more crowded than a peak hour train.
Good Example: The Caves of Androzani
Bad Example: Attack of the Cybermen
9. The Cartmel Masterplan
After a brief detour back into silliness, things become very strange and quite wonderful for the last couple of years of the classic series. The Doctor is a figure of mystery in a way he hasn't been since the days of black and white, and his fab new companion gets a proper arc for a change. A last gleam of inventive genius before the night falls, or the series disappearing up its own rectum? Fan opinion is divided, but I know I love it.
Characteristics: The Doctor planning everything in advance, character development, metafiction, bewildering plotting.
Good Example: The Curse of Fenric
Bad Example: Silver Nemesis
10. The New Adventures Formula
Like the Cartmel Masterplan, only with sex and swearing.
Good Example: Timewyrm: Revelation
Bad Example: I've not read far enough to come across anything truly dire yet.
11. The Eighth Doctor Formula
For the first time since The War Machines, there is no formula - because his TV era was so brief Eight never got pinned down. I gather the EDAs develop their own traditions as they go on, but for me Eighth Doctor stories work best when they're unconventional. For instance, Scott Gray has a wonderful way of starting a comic strip in an expected way, and then taking a sharp left turn. Other great demonstrations of this principle include Scherzo and The Natural History of Fear from Big Finish.
Characteristics: Wild experimentation, phase two.
Good Example: Alien Bodies
Bad Example: The TV movie. It breaks many of the rules of Doctor Who in favour of following the rules of bad American TV instead. Really, what's the point of that?
12. The RTD Formula
... which brings us to the present day. Russell T. Davies has pitched Doctor Who as a family adventure series with something for everyone. Drama, romance, and comedy abound. As a fan, he's borrowed a lot from previous eras while putting his own stamp on the finished product. His approach has both pros and cons, but it's certainly been a roaring success with the punters so far.
Characteristics: An obsession with contemporary Earth, celebrities both current and historical, pop culture references, the Doctor/Companion relationship as an explicitly romantic bond.
Good Example: Army of Ghosts
Bad Example: The Long Game