Unfortunately, he's still in charge of the Sarah Jane Adventures, so he can still do more harm to the Doctor than the Daleks ever could manage. This quote from a story about the upcoming series is one example:
The Doctor doesn’t have to be white. And he can regenerate more than 12 times – a lot more!Oh, goody! Let's throw continuity, internal logic, and character integrity right out the window. It's so much more fun. Limited regenerations? Who needs them?! Why should we have any dramatic limitations for a character to deal with? That's so.. limiting. As for him being white? Well, that's just icky. You might as well cast the shade of Enoch Powell if you're going to do that.
But why stop there? Let's make Ivanhoe Chinese. Why not? We can, so let's. Robin Hood can be a Croat. How about an Irish Sherlock Holmes? No, that's an ethnic joke. I know, Rhett Butler played by Sarah Jessica Parker. David Tennant stars in the title role of The Life of Nelson Mandela. Sam Spade played by a bit of felt under-carpet. Bulldog Drummond as a Waldorf salad. Al Pacino as a tall person. John Cameron as a conservative. David Cameron as a Conservative. Wil Smith in two-thirds of the roles he's done in the past fifteen years. Adam Sandler in anything. Sydney Carton as a meeting of the Women's Institute. Heck, we could even have Sir Winston Churchill do a cameo, but he'd be a bit hard to notice because now he's a mispronunciation of the word "Braithwaite". Better yet, how about Oprah Winfrey as the Prophet Mohamed? Come on, it's so transgressive!
Chaos is so liberating.
4 comments:
Well, Hollywood threw the concept of "logic" out the window long ago, such as having Liz Taylor play Cleopatra. (And let's not even talk about "Heaven's Gate".)
Still, I'm getting the feeling that, as was said in the old Star Trek Writer's Guide I still have, they think that "we can do that because it's science fiction".
Sorry, no. SF has much stricter rules than almost any other sort of storytelling- because the operative word is "science". You could argue that Cleopatra VII might not have looked like the average Egyptian; it's difficult to argue that physics or an established pattern of biological function (like the Doctor's regenerations) don't work as advertised. The whole point of SF is, once you state that things work a certain way (FTL drive, time travel, whatever), you have to stick to it.
Not that Davies will ever figure that out. It would require actual thought.
cheers
eon
But to play second-level-demon-from-accounting-department's court-appointed lawyer, insisting that actors "look the part" too much means that a black man going into acting will end up playing an awful lot of Othello. If I'm willing to suspend my disbelief enough to pretend that it's not the Batley Townswomen's Guild but the actual battle of Pearl Harbor that I'm seeing, I'll deal with a Chinese Falstaff as well.
Film, perhaps, not as much, since the entire idea of the medium is to make things look like other things. Also, more actors to choose from, so someone making a movie should have his choice of faces, bodies and acting styles to realize his vision of a character.
Also, I think there can be a difference between casting characters who were known to be a particular nationality or race, and casting characters who change their entire body every so often.
There is indeed nothing keeping Doctor Who white; granted, there's not a particular reason to shout about it, but as long as the actor's a good one then that aspect doesn't really matter at all.
(One of the possible Elevens, for instance, was Paterson Joseph; he's a pretty darn good actor from what I've seen of him)
And, what the guy above me said.
PS: Russell Davies (he doesn't DESERVE a T) was booted off control of Doctor Who since before the last series; the new series with Eleven was under the control of one Stephen Moffat, who did some fantastic writing for the early episodes and has seen a marked improvement in the quality of show as of late. (Doesn't hurt that the guy playing the Doctor, Matt Smith, appears to have nailed the character)
Well I rather enjoyed RTD's time on Dr Who; well mostly. There is going to be an element of subjectivity about this, but I liked some aspects e.g. The Doctor being the last of his race and his relationship with his companions, was decidedly unimpressed with other aspects e.g. some episodes being silly to the point of irritating and too many deus ex machina endings, and for a couple of RTD's Christmas Specials my reaction was "Which idiot let Russell have the key to the medicine cabinet!"
I don't think that the Doctor being black would represent a problem with the programme's internal logic. As other people have pointed out when you're an alien who can change your whole body, including apparent age, ethnic background is probably just an optional extra.
I'd be rather thrown if a woman started playing the Doctor though; especially if they had an episode where she met up with one of the Doctor's male incarnations and . . . okay, let's not go there.
I don't think the Doctor having more than twelve regenerations is a problem with continuity either - given that continuity in Doctor Who is a little sketchy, I mean how many different ways has the human race originated - but as far as I can recall the idea of a limited number of regenerations was something that was cooked up to give the Doctor a dilemma in one of Peter Davidson’s episodes. I don't think it's unreasonable to ignore a one-off, off-the-cuff, premise from a time when nobody (I guess) thought we would ever get close to having as many as twelve Doctors.
Well that's my two-Altarian dollars on the subject.
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