Computers and Doctor Who

Esther Schindler writes "We all know that the arts reflect the technology of their times. So let's look at The Doctor ('the definite article,' as Tom Baker said in December 1974) and his use of computers. Actually, for a show so closely associated with the Slashdot-techie lifestyle, Doctor Who didn't have much to do with computers early on. This article by Peter Salus traces the formative years: 'In January 1970, Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3) acquired a Cambridge scientist (Caroline John as Liz Shaw) as his companion, which might lead the unsuspecting viewer to think that a firmer computer science basis might ensue. But only in April did Liz exhibit her technical knowledge (by recognizing a Geiger counter reading).' And then we get to K-9....."

Comments

Fantasy more than SF

[intermodal]

I know people think of Doctor Who as SF, but it's really a fantasy series. The SF elements are only a mechanism for allowing the fantasy.

Re:Fantasy more than SF

[i kan reed]

Well, no, not entirely. Sometimes you get occasional "high science fiction" type elements raising interesting questions about time-travel and its implications or the ethics of dealing with other forms of intelligence. But monster-of-the-week adventures, or battling the daleks again tends to be very fantastical and short on the interesting considerations.

Re:Fantasy more than SF

[Beardo the Bearded]

Huh, I thought it was a horror show.

Re:Fantasy more than SF

[i kan reed]

No, time travel itself isn't, but examining its implications is. It's why Star Trek TNG was science fiction when it came to time travel, but Star Trek 2009 was an action movie that incorporated time travel.

Re:Fantasy more than SF

[JustOK]

Wasn't he the guy Lister was always talking about in Red Dwarf, and that other guy from the Triple X movies Vin De Loo or whatever?

Re:Fantasy more than SF

[MightyMartian]

I think this gets into the philosophical debate as to where fantasy begins and SF ends. In the end, I tend to think it's all pretty fuzzy, and that most SF in the movies and on TV tends to straddle the line. There are a few films that I would consider SF, even if the physics is dicey or even outrageous; Metropolis, The Day The Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Alien franchise, Blade Runner are all what I'd view as science fiction. Star Trek, despite the technobabble, is still SF. Dr. Who sits in the same category as Star Trek; a lot of technobabble and mumbo jumbo, but still presented as essentially scientific and realistic.

The science fictionesque shows that I consider fail the test are the Star Wars saga and the X Files, that while they have the veneer of science fiction, are thematically fantastical/supernatural in nature. Any "sciency" aspects are very thin veneer over mystical and mythical themes. Sure Star Trek has its Vulcan mindmelds and other telepaths, but the show still tried to portray itself with some level of faux realism.

Re:Fantasy more than SF

[jellomizer]

However... With Dr. Who Smaller on the inside/Time traveling technology why would you need Digital Electronics?
So you get yourself a mechanical differential engine, the size of room. Have it in a time bubble a few million years in the past, in a room bigger on the inside. You don't need to worry about all those details about digital computing. You have a simple calculator which is easy to fix and maintain. Start the processing a millions of years ago, when it is done it sends the message to your current time, So no wait.

The biggest advantages of Digital Technology is Speed and Size. If you master space and time, These advantages mean little to you.
     

News for nerds

[OglinTatas]

For nerds? Definitely.
Stuff that matters? Unquestionably.
News? Not so much /Tom Baker was my first Doctor.

Re:News for nerds

[alexander_686]

I would agree. The article was awfully thin. Doctor #1 did this, #2 did that. Not much in the way of analyst or insight.

what was the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

This read like a middle school student's book report. WTF was the point of cataloging the interactions of a tv series and a piece of technology? I thought maybe they would point out how the changes in technology affected the show, but that only got a final paragraph that seems unfinished.

In other news, Two and a half Men's coverage of stem cell research is, frankly, appalling. Had they know that in 2032 stem cells would cure alcoholism, they could have made heavier use of the subject. amirite?

let me just put this here...

[MickyTheIdiot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJeu3LCo-6A

Obviously not canon, but these commercials are mentioned quite a lot.

oh come on

[rubycodez]

the computers are always there but to Doctors are like the oodles of controllers we have in cars, microwave ovens and elevators. too ubiquitous to even merit notice or much thought.

yes kiddies, for our controllers I'm using the old definition of digital computer was device having processor, memory, input, output

Re:oh come on

[TangoMargarine]

No.

yet the only technology I ever noticed

[themushroom]

was that in programming the TARDIS in some Who iteration (I'm not a Whovian so know zilch about which) he typed coordinants on a 1940s typewriter. Who knew the TARDIS was an analogue device?

Re:yet the only technology I ever noticed

[sandytaru]

This. The Doctor was always adjusting the control room to suit his personality and mood. The TARDIS (which is actually the size of a large building if I remember right from the books) had chameleon circuits on both the inside and the outside that let it appear as whatever was needed. The outside circuit got stuck as the police box early on in the series (maybe even mentioned in the first episode) but the interior one is mostly functional.

Hence, any appearance of a teletype was there because the Doctor liked it. The actual function of it was something different. It'd be like hooking up a monochrome VGA monitor to a Core i7 with command line jury-rigging in place.

Obligatory:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit, he's a Doctor, not an Engineer!

Re:Obligatory:

[sandytaru]

Funny enough, River Song was a better driver of the TARDIS than the Doctor. (She read the instruction book, apparently.)

Re:Obligatory:

[Jason Levine]

My kids recently caught up to watch the episode where River drives the TARDIS. (It's fun re-watching these and seeing what points will be brought up later. Like the museum they start out in being the final resting place of the headless monks... who make an appearance next season.)

River comments how she was taught by the best, the Doctor thinks that means him, but River adds "too bad you weren't available that day" (or words to that effect). Next season, we find out that he "wasn't available" because he was dying from poison lipstick that River dosed him with. And the "best" was the TARDIS itself (herself?).

Too bad the TARDIS doesn't teach the Doctor how to drive her. Then again, we'd lose that cool VWORP VWORP VWORP sound if he stops leaving the parking brake on!

MacGuffins, all of 'em

[TWX]

The point of Doctor Who in the time that I've seen it (eighties through current) is adventure with cleverness driving the story. Every thing in the story that serves to drive it is a MacGuffin, and computers and other tools fit into that category.

Even the TARDIS itself is generally a MacGuffin. Despite people's attempts to render what the TARDIS looks like in its pocket universe within the time stream, we really don't know what it looks like or how it truly functions. Things get made up as they're needed for the story, and over-explaining may hamper storytelling in the future.

Terry Pratchett's choice to not make detailed maps of the Discworld is for the same reason, he doesn't want to tie himself down with factoids that will later hamper future story telling.

Re:MacGuffins, all of 'em

[mikael]

The best Tom Baker stories were when they could see the world in an entirely new perspective such as dropping down to miniature size to fight a virus, or taking advantage of iconic technology of the time; Jodrell Bank, BT telephone tower. The excuse about the TARDIS was that it's chameleon device broke down while trying to imitate a police box.

Though the scariest parts were when they used jelly for the daleks eye-stalks. That had kids having nightmares. There there was the Seeds of Doom where people slowly turned into giant walking trees larger than manor houses.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but notice you got the point without getting the point...

Why? Because Dr. Who is an Incredibly Analog Man

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Everything he does is by the seat of his pants. To do seat of the pants things you need to grasp handles that are connected to levers which control valves and apertures that gloop glop into gloping chambers. Every button is a Frankenstein switch that tosses a relay accross the room, and for every relay there is an Override Lever.

You need steam driven technology to propel your contrivances, with beefy pistons, moving fluids and rotating coils. You need planetary gears and axles and rocket assisted rotation (NOTE: replace rockets after each use). You need self destruct device timers with real gears so you can save yourself with a piece of chewing gum.

If you have a computer companion on board you cannot stoop so low as to conduit everything, make yourself into a helpless git by relying on digital to analog circuits to (hopefully) permit you to ask the computer to fly what is actually YOUR own goddamned ship.

Your computer must consist of a hybrid electro-mechanical system that is mobile and pot-bellied, that loco-motes where it is needed and drives multiple robotic arms (with Mickey Mouse gloves) to grasp aforesaid mechanical controls just as you would. In case of a virus or malfunction you can then just kick the stupid thing out of the way and take control of your own destiny, rather than whimper and die like some horrid little clam trapped inside a malfunctioning shell.

Every control system on your ship must be able to operate with a kick, or be disabled by kicking harder.

There must be lots of blinking lights, but they must be operated by relays and stepper contacts.

And if your computer plays chess, it is because there is an actual dwarf hidden in the console.

Dr. Who did not spend his time debugging arcane API incompatibilities after version control branches incorrectly and legacy memory-mapped data type formats change after a compiler and library upgrade, forcing some off-by-one read of noble structs to ignoble garbage that makes pointers overflow and underflow, careening wantonly through memory structures like spiders on LSD. All of this causing nothing to happen in the real world, it just sits there inoperative.

Dr. Who has no need for do-lotsa-think-first Object Oriented threaded systems either, he is impulsive, violently productive and has visited three Universes in the time it takes you to decide on whether to capitalize or encapsulate or do whatever the hell you do, or not.

And he does it all with levers and dials.

And girls. He does it with girls.

Case closed.

Re:MacGuffins, all of 'em (maybe a spoiler here)

[RoverDaddy]

That was really the weakest point of that story and really completely unnecessary. Considering that Doctor Who established that a Weeping Angel is a -stone statue- that can't move at all if anybody is looking at it, it makes no sense at all. First, the Statue of Liberty is not stone, and second, is there actually any point in time where -nobody- at all is looking at it?

Re:MacGuffins, all of 'em (maybe a spoiler here)

[idontgno]

Ya gotta love Slashdot... a lecture on the unreality of one trivial but effective plot detail in a clearly admitted pseudo-SF fantasy series involving immortal time travelers and neverending existential threats to (fictional) life throughout the (fictional) multidimensional multiverse.

I find your selective lack of suspension of disbelief amusing.