Doctor Who

[armb]

Parallel worlds might be a neat way of re-inventing Cybermen without fans complaining that they aren't the same as they used to be (are the original Cybermen still around in our universe too?), but if there are billions where the Doctor wins and billions of worlds where he doesn't, how much can we as external viewers really care? (Though we haven't actually been told this is an "all possible outcomes" multiverse model, just that there are billions of universes.)

From the Doctor's point of view the obvious question is is here a universe where the Time Lords survive, but since he hasn't asked it, maybe he knows there can't be.

(I've just tried searching (unsuccessfully) for a interview where Russell Davies said something along the lines of "if the stories aren't about [Earth] humans, viewers won't really care", which presumably explains in part why both most of the series one Daleks and now the Cybermen were created from humans.)

Though the newly arrived Daleks are presumably originals, whether they originally came from another universe, or punched holes between them while escaping from the Time Wars in this one

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

SFX and DWMag over the past year and a bit are full of those quotes. Personally, I think he's talking through something not usually utilised for that purpose outside the Houses of Parliament, but he's entitled to his blinkered opinion, I suppose.

It is a problem with the "all possible outcomes" model, isn't it? The probable answer re the Time Lords is yes, there are loads, but they aren't *his* Time Lords and they wouldn't recognise him as one of them. And the general answer is: forget the big picture. We care when someone dies. We care every time the Doctor loses, and an infinity of victories in other universes doesn't make even one defeat acceptable. And in the end, we have to focus on one universe, not because our minds are too puny to grasp the immensity of creation (they're not) but because the total perspective is simply not useful to us. It conveys no useful information that looking at one universe doesn't, and in the end, it makes us less human, and not in a good way. If God sees all that, it makes it much harder to believe that S/He cares about sparrows...

[armb.livejournal.com]

Yes, I should have said that I think he's wrong about that. This, from Ansible might be the interview I was thinking of, though not the relevent bit:

As Doctor Who Sees Itself. Journalist Nick Griffiths interviews Russell T Davies (Radio Times, 4-10 June). NG: `Why do you think the show has been a success?' RTD: `... Our greatest decision was not to "science fiction" it too much.' [HS] Thus, with austere understatement, Earth is attacked by mere millions of Daleks rather than billions of talking squid from outer space.

(Sort of connected, I think this Doctor Who is more obviously not set in our world than older ones - things happen on a much bigger scale that can't possibly be hushed up (mostly because CGI is now involved).)