Below is my Argumentative Essay for my World literature class. Please read and tell me what you think, Thanks…
How the BBC TV Show “Doctor Who” Changed the World of Television and Movies.
Science Fiction is a genre of fiction set in fantasy situations and building upon known concepts, expends the possibilities of alternate realities. Typically, science fiction stories are set in the future depicting what could be achieved through the use of technology. Science Fiction has a very large fan base of dedicated followers. However, I would be willing to bet that even people who are not Science Fiction fans would recognize R2-D2 from the Star Wars movies or Mr. Spock from the Star Trek series. These two characters have become icons of popular culture. How did these two icons get to be so prevalent in our culture? What makes them stand out? The answer is that they are icons, not because they are science fiction creations, but because they are memorable characters. Memorable characters are the foundation for any good story, science fiction or otherwise. It is easy to see that R2-D2 and Mr. Spock are very popular creations by talented writers. The creators of these two characters credit the British television show Doctor Who as an inspiration for their work in television and big screen movies. The Doctor Who television show has also been inspiration for countless other writers, producers and directors who have used what they watched on Doctor Who as ideas for their own work. In this way, I believe the BBC TV Show Doctor Who Changed the World of Television and Movies.
Science fiction has been in literature from the late 1800’s and became a more defined art form in the early 20th century with writers like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. With roots based in literature, science fiction television and movies became popular in the 1950’s with low budget “B Movies” such as “The Man from Planet X, It Came from Outer Space and even comedies such as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. Typically the plot and characters in these films were pretty one-dimensional and did not require much thought by the audience. Basically the bad alien came, caused havoc and then was defeated by resourceful humans. This was pretty much all there was to science fiction. While these movies were popular, they could not be considered thought provoking or calling upon their audiences to expand upon a concept or envision how the world could be in the future.
In 1963, the science fiction television series Doctor Who aired for the first time on British TV. The first airing of this show revolutionized the way science fiction was written. Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction series of all time and the series will mark its 50th anniversary in 2013. Doctor Who has influenced many writers and producers in this genre. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars¸ and Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek¸ watched this show when they were younger and were inspired to create their own television shows and movies. More recently, shows like Torchwood, Faction Paradox, Iris Wildthyme, and K-9 are all shows that were created as a spin-off’s from Doctor Who. Science fiction is underfunded and has a small audience, but somehow the longest running series on television is a science fiction show. Doctor Who has changed the way science fiction is portrayed. Science fiction has grown from simple monster stories, to thought provoking ‘what if’ scenarios that asks the viewer to consider all sorts of possibilities limited only by one’s imagination.
The television show Doctor Who is centered around the main character called ‘The Doctor”. The Doctor belongs to a race called Time Lords who have the technology for traveling back and forth through time. Gallifrey was the home planet of the Time Lords, but was destroyed in the Last Great Time War. The Last Great Time War was fought between a race called the Daleks and the Time Lords. The Doctor is the last remaining Time Lord. A recurring theme in the Doctor Who series is a lesson in humanity that, in order to save the universe he must destroy his own planet. There have been a total of eleven doctors due to the fact that when one Doctor dies he regenerates into a totally new person. The Doctor has two hearts; he is an alien but appears to be human. The Doctor has a fondness for humans as well as sense of right and wrong. In each episode, The Doctor struggles with questions of good vs. evil and he strives to make sure the right path is taken. Very similar to the good and dark side of ‘the force’ in the Star Wars movies.
The Doctor has a fondness for humans and he is always trying to protect humans from aliens and themselves. The Doctor always has someone with them that the audience can relate to. These people are referred to as ‘the companions’. A companion is a human that the Doctor takes with him through their travels. One of the most recognizable things from Doctor Who is the T.A.R.D.I.S. The TARDIS (which means Time and Relative Dimension in Space) is the Doctor’s time travel ship. Normally The TARDIS would camouflage itself and blend in with its surroundings, but the ship’s “Chameleon Circuit” broke and now it is stuck as a blue police box from 1963 London. The sonic screwdriver is the Doctor’s main tool. He will not carry a weapon because he is against violence. The sonic screwdriver can open almost any door and can scan anything. Doctor Who writers have created a whole culture and storylines that overlap between time and space.
Great producers and writers of our time have been influenced by the creators and writers of Doctor Who. Creators of Star Wars, Lost in Space, Star Trek, and other popular science fiction of this modern era have influences from this show. Cybermen of Doctor Who inspired the creation of Star Trek’s villains The Borg. It is not a far jump from the Cyberman’s phrase “Resistance is useless” to The Borg’s “Resistance is futile” is it? The Cybermen from Doctor Who see emotion as a weakness, this is the same for the Borg. The Cybermen and the Borg are created from humans and other aliens. The Cybermen transform the supposed ‘weak’ humans into machines without emotion. The Borg do the same thing but call this “assimilation”. Gene Roddenberry used the Cybermen as a template for creating the Borg.
The writing staff is highly varied. There is not just one person writing every episode. Steve Moffit is the main writer but other famous writers such as Douglas Adams, Russell T Davies, and Helen Raynor are also on the writing staff. Even the author of the Hugo and Nebula Award winning novel, American Gods, Neil Gaiman wrote an episode. Originally most science fiction was written by one writer and then edited by one person. Doctor Who mixes science fiction and horror into a complex storylines. The Cybermen, Daleks, Ood, and Weeping Angels are just a few of the different creations of Doctor Who. The different races have their own storyline and history. For example the Weeping Angels are one of the most interesting creatures in the universe of Doctor Who. The Weeping Angels are also known as the Lonely Assassins. They resemble stone statues of human women with wings but when they are attacking they grow fangs and claws. The Weeping Angels possess the nearly-perfect defense mechanism: quantum-locking. Quantum-locking is when the Angels are being watched they turn to stone. They are often depicted with their hands covering their faces because if an angel is looking at another angel they are forever quantum-locked. This is also how they got their name of “Weeping Angels.” They are, according to the Doctor, “The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely.” One of the most famous lines from Doctor Who is in the episode “Blink”. The Doctor: “Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t blink! Good luck.” This is referring to the Weeping Angels because the Angel only move when you are not looking and attack you when your eyes are closed, even for a second when you blink.
An argument against Doctor Who would be that the only main villains are the Cybermen and the Daleks. In the Star Wars movies there are many different creatures that are against the Jedi. Also in Star Trek you have the Borg and then all the other villains in the universe like the Romulans and Klingons. Unlike the Klingons and other show’s villains, the Cybermen and Daleks are not human like at all. They seek to destroy all humanity because humans are different. This is basic concept of genocide and not an original topic. One could say that the writers and developers just copied other themes with different characters. Also, while in Star Wars and Star Trek there are many main characters but in Doctor Who there is normally only two or three main characters. This creates the ability to get to know their personalities and different little quirks of the main characters.
Another aspect of revolution of science fiction is that most shows at the time were about space and space travel. Doctor Who added time travel into the mix. Unlike Star Trek, The Doctor does not just stay on the Enterprise. Using the TARDIS the Doctor takes us elsewhere and they do not spend all the time on the ship. They traveled around and visited different planets and times. Also when Doctor Who first aired it was not widely publicized in the United States. It has taken on popularity here with the influence of English television on BBC America.
The writers of Doctor Who set out from the beginning to stretch the imagination of their viewers. With the ability to travel in time, questions are raised the provoke much thought. For instance, since you have a time traveling ship you now have the ability to go back in time. Would you go back and kill Hitler before he came to power or would you stop the assassination of JFK? If you did these things, what would be the consequences? How would future events be changed? What if killing Hilter somehow made time travel impossible, would you still exist? In science fiction stories we see that advanced technology can be used for good or evil. The writers of the Doctor Who series wrestle with these types of ideas and force the viewer to consider more possibilities than simply defeating the monster of the week.
In conclusion I have a quote to show the Doctor’s humility and how the show’s writers make us think. One of the most beautiful episodes is called “Vincent and the Doctor” where The Doctor goes back in time, meets up with Vincent Van Gogh and transports the famous painter to 2010 :
“[The Doctor has taken Vincent forward in time to the van Gogh exhibition in Musée d’Orsay, 2010]
The Doctor: “Dr Black? We met a few days ago; I asked you about The Church at Auvers. [steering Dr Black into Vincent’s vicinity] But I just wondered between you and me in 100 words where do you think Van Gogh rates in the history of art?”
Dr Black (Museum Curator): “Well… big question, but to me, van Gogh is the finest painter of them all; certainly the most popular great painter of all time: The most beloved; his command of colour; the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world… no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind that strange wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.”
[Vincent, already in shock, starts breaking down in tears]
The Doctor: “Oh, Vincent, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, is it too much?”
Vincent Van Gogh: “No, they are tears of joy! Thank you sir, thank you! [kisses Dr Black in gratitude] Sorry about the beard.”
The Doctor: “The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things.”
From this brief scene, we can see that the Doctor Who writers have gone far beyond simply dealing with aliens or monsters to real emotions and the human need for validation. Van Gogh was an artist struggling with inner demons and he questioned whether his work was any good or not. By transporting Van Gogh to the future, The Doctor was able to show Van Gogh that yes, he was a success. By doing this, The Doctor was able to relieve some of the painter’s torment. By challenging conventional thinking and opening story lines to any types of possibilities, the writers of Doctor Who have inspired the imaginations of some of the most beloved TV and movie makers of our time. This inspiration has gone on to influence our popular culture as a whole. I am sure you will agree that Doctor Who’s influence has truly changed the world of television and movies.
The TARDIS Adventures 
What affect has the Doctor Who TV series had on British culture? You might also want to discuss Doctor Who’s Fans, their clubs and culture. Do they have conventions and their own website, fan films etc.?
Yes, they have conventions about doctor who. for example GallifreyONE in LA, california is a major convetion. There was a genre of music created called “Timelordrock” one of the major bands is “Chameleon Circuit” i will gather more information and attach more to this comment.
Darling, first, understand how proud of you that I am, and how much I think that your efforts here are well thought out and enjoyable. Also, understand that I can’t agree with you because making you press your points with research, reason and commitment will only make them stronger. I am not and have never been a fan of Dr. Who. I am a huge fan of Star Trek, and relatively versed in Star Wars and other works for Science Fiction, on that ground, we share a mutual enjoyment.
I’m going to put forward other aspects that I feel weaken your thoughts of how influencial Dr. Who has been on the Science Fiction genre and culture. First, I think that you will agree that HG Wells pretty much brought the ideas of time travel to the modern forefront. That was in 1895. Before that we can argue that Ebenezer Scrouge traveled with the Ghost of Christmas Past, Rip Van Winkle traveled through time by sleeping for 20 years in 1819. Several cultures have stories of time travel that you can look up, Urashima Taro, Courtiers Trifles and my personal favorite, the 1962 “A wrinkle in Time”. While Dr. Who used the concept, it was pretty well thought out before he came along.
I will agree with you that the Borg were influenced with the line “Resistance is useless”, but while the line can be attributed to Dr. Who, it can also be attributed to the Vogons in the Hitchhiker’s Guide the the Universe and Marvel Comics The New Teen Titans, Issue 3 from 1984. But while the line is there, I think that you are missing the point. Most, if not all Star Trek was a comment on life in the late 20th Century. Roddenbery was a product of the 60’s where he questions status quo, and emphasised individualism. His ideas behind the Borg were his protest against the culture being “absorbed” by the mainstream ideas of the masses. His protests against capitolism manifested with the Ferengi. Yes, he borrowed from the line, but just looking at that loses the meaning of his intentions. It’s ok to be yourself, to express yourself and question the status quo.
I guess two of the reasons that I didn’t enjoy Dr. Who nearly as much as other works of Science Fiction is that there were so many actors (and actresses? I don’t know) that played the Doctor, and what I thought were the quirkiness of British logic. When I remember Capt Kirk dashing off to save the endangered planet from total destruction, no one else could play that beside Willaim Shatner. When it came time to reinvent the series in the 1980’s, it was brought together in the future of the forebearers….it made sense. We needed new charactors, the plots needed to be more relavent to society in the 1980’s and 90’s, and their ideas really contributed to society. What was science fiction in the 1960’s became medical devices, the study of quantum physics and…the cell phone in your purse. I would even put forward that the hologram in Deep Space Nine and Voyager became the Tupac Shakur Hologram entertaining audiences earlier this year. To me, Dr. Who never gave us a Capt. Kirk, a Jean Luc Picard, a Data or a EMH Mark 1. And it never made Dr. Sheldon Cooper look for Higgs Boson’s Particles to help build a real life transporter.
Ok, now that I’ve totally bashed the TV series that you love and admire, show me where I’m wrong. The opinions that I have cited here are my own, and I backed them up with research whereever I could. My intent here is to challenge your intellect, but not to say the stories that I admire are better (or worse) than the ones that you admire. The mark of a good student, a good debater and a logical person is to be able to express themselves with reason, and fact. In the end, it doesn’t matter that we disagree on the better story, movie or TV show, in the end, it matters that we appreciate the same thing. Neither of us are right or wrong, but the essence of the entertainment, is the prize that we both appreciate.
i accept the fact our opinion differs and really appreciate that you took the time to read the whole essay. thank you Chris!
To Chris: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (not universe) was written by a Douglas Adams who wrote for a period of time for Doctor Who. He wrote Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy after writing for Doctor Who. Other than that I agree that there was basically no clear facts presented that give any evidence of Doctor Who’s effect of science fiction. To original writer: as a fan of Doctor Who, I was greatly disappointed in this article. Your crazy fangirl exploded a few paragraphs in and made it hard to even read this. You started repeating yourself, and saying random things that had no relevance to your argument. I understand giving a background to the show, but give it a better structure. You repeat that the Doctor has a fondness for humans within a few sentences of each other. You really in the end rambled about how much you love the show while trying to throw comparisons to other shows or movies. The bit about someone using the Cybermen as a template was good, but how about more facts. Also, you mainly discuss the new series, which leaves out the classic series which has more importance to your argument. Here’s a suggestion, write first about the classic series and how it has affected Star Wars and Star Trek and other popular science fiction, then evolve to the new series and how it is currently changing sci-fi.