Dr Who – Alien meets 24

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Another pretty good Dr Who episode tonight.

Visually, Dr Who is getting better and better. There was better rendering (a good space ship and a bubbling sun) and more interesting lighting (red and blue on the face close-ups) than we’d expect from normally cash-short British tv.

Altogether, it had the look and feel of “proper” sci-fi. Racing headlong into the sun is par for the course. (Solaris, and the film where Bruce Willis has to destroy an asteroid.) So is being trapped on a space ship with an unknown evil entity. (Alien, 2001.) As well as being stalked by a mechanical humanoid figure. (Predator, Terminator, Judge Dredd.) The computer female voice that keeps giving out unemotional messages of the pressure of time (can’t think of a reference sorry, but it seems standard…)

The main visual influence seemed to be the Alien movies (with a nod to Das Boot, but maybe that’s just me.) Both male and female technicians looked like the crew of Alien (vests, combat suits, artfully arranged sweat) . The ship also had the same sort of look and there was an intense claustrophobic feel to the plot, as well as to the sets.

This episode was called “42”, with a nod to Douglas Adams (the “answer to the universe”) and to “24” (the episode was supposed to be in real-time and there was a 42 minute timer countdown providing constant pressure).

So, a bit of an art-house-for-nerds episode. This series is shaping up to be the best one ever. Although this is from someone who loves sci-fi clich̩s. And who thinks that the very first Dr Who series Рwith that weird Quatermassy feel and the old man with long white hair Рand the mainly-played for laughs Tom Baker Dr Who were the only really good bits, out of what was often dire.

[tags]42, dr-who, episode, rave, sci-fi, sci-fi-cliches, television, tv, BBC, Douglas Adams[/tags]

11 thoughts on “Dr Who – Alien meets 24”

  1. The female computer voice is another one from Alien – after Ripley sets the ship to self-destruct ‘Mother’ periodically announces how long the crew have left in which to cheese it. It also features in the recent sci-fi ‘Sunshine’, where the possibility of plunging headlong into the sun is ever present, which brings us back in a neat, if admittedly pointless, circle to tonight’s Who, which was most enjoyable.

  3. I was going to say what Ben said: “Mother” from Alien certainly was first in line to pop into my head as the impersonal-countdown-to-certain-DOOM-on-a-spaceship voice, although I’ve yet to see Sunshine.

    Tonight’s episode was definitely one of the better ones (aside from the obviously dodgy wire-workphysics as opposed to the usual suspension of disbelief stuff) when compared to the likes of the (IMO) very poor “motorway” episode, even within the universe of Dr Who.

    Thought I’d pop by and say “hi” too, seeing as I’ve quite quiet for the past couple of weeks. Erm, so, “hi!” 🙂

  5. Tom Baker and William Hartnell defined Dr. Who for me, prior to the current series, with Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy as runner’s up. I must admit, that I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of the Tennant Doctor … he seems to have the character down, IMO. I mentioned in a recent blog post, once of the fascinating aspects of Dr Who is how much of it has seeped into the rest of SF imagery without attribution. I can’t watch (or more accurately, LISTEN to) the Borg from Star Trek without hearing and seeing Daleks, right down with the human/machine hybrid horror aspect of. And who can truly look at Storm Troopers or classic Cylons the same after seeing the venerable Dr of William Hartnell do battle with the dreaded Cybermen? Makes the copyright infringement lawsuit by Lucas against the makers of Battlestar Gallactica a bit silly in perspective … BBC shoulda been suing both their asses, lol.
    Nice to see another fan of the Good Doctor 🙂

  7. For some reason Lyle’s post is not showing up properly. I dont know why, but the blog wont show the text when the hyperlink is made active. It read:

    Tom Baker and William Hartnell defined Dr. Who for me, prior to the current series, with Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy as runner’s up. I must admit, that I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of the Tennant Doctor … he seems to have the character down, IMO. I mentioned in a recent blog post (http://blog.globalparadigms.com/2007/01/23/the-good-doctor/) once of the fascinating aspects of Dr Who is how much of it has seeped into the rest of SF imagery without attribution. I can’t watch (or more accurately, LISTEN to) the Borg from Star Trek without hearing and seeing Daleks, right down with the human/machine hybrid horror aspect of. And who can truly look at Storm Troopers or classic Cylons the same after seeing the venerable Dr of William Hartnell do battle with the dreaded Cybermen? Makes the copyright infringement lawsuit by Lucas against the makers of Battlestar Gallactica a bit silly in perspective … BBC shoulda been suing both their asses, lol.
    Nice to see another fan of the Good Doctor 🙂

  10. I don’t know why it doesn’t work in your post. It didn’t work when I copied your post, but when I put the link in on its own, it worked. Madness.

    Normally there is no problems with links going into posts, so this is confusing.

    http://www.example.com/ should work – for example 🙂

  11. Pingback: Why Dont You Blog? » Sci-fi cliches

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