Did Star Wars Change Doctor Who?

I’m up against a deadline, and since all the focus this week was sociopolitical I have nothing to discuss here. Well, nothing fun to end the week with. I try to keep Friday’s fun and…well, check tomorrow’s weekly article link to see what we could have, and possibly still will, discussed instead. I’m not convinced I won’t just yet but I’d rather end on something that doesn’t make me rage.

Instead, in the name of having a post, here’s an interesting video by Taylord Vision on YouTube. Battlestar Galactica was originally going to be Adam’s Ark, about Earth refugees seeing salvation in the stars after they screw up the planet. However, due to the surprise success of Star Wars in 1979, ABC asked for a bunch of changes to better fit the idea of human-like aliens and taking cues from that movie. Because no matter the time, network executives still don’t waste time understanding why things work. They just order it to work and think they did good.

Well, according to the host of the following video, Doctor Who, an existing sci-fi show at the time, wasn’t immune from network meddling inspired by the galaxy far, far away…by not trying to be Star Wars. Since this is a more pleasant discussion than what I have available, let’s check it out.

I don’t know about you, but even today with computers, I don’t expect the special effects of a low budget TV show to have the level of a theatrical movie with multiple times the budget. I also find it interesting how many people complained about the budget to the point that one guy tried for years to cancel it, and nobody even considered DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE BUDGET!!!! I know it’s easier said than done, but they didn’t try is my point. The show at this time was gaining international appeal. You’d think they’d try to make it work when there were plenty of people who wanted to make it work but didn’t want to fight the BBC and the snobs in the wrong position who tried to end it.

I don’t understand the push against action sci-fi like Star Wars. I have nothing against a science fiction production having something to say. Sci-fi is good for that because it can still be entertaining and not be so on the nose (unlike modern Doctor Who and it’s inability to be anything other than “Earth but the people have funny names”) when done right. On the other hand, sometimes you just really want to see two guys with laser swords fight each other and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s room in this genre for both. One of the things I love about science fiction is that it can imitate other genres, but nobody demands swashbuckling naval stories to have a message.

On the other hand, deconstructing yourself is a bad idea. There’s nothing wrong with embracing the sillier aspects of your series, and it’s possibly one of the reasons the Tom Baker era is so beloved. It definitely played to Baker’s strengths, or perhaps the opposite is true. Baker isn’t the most serious of the performers of the Doctor as seen in interviews and other projects. When you’re the reason the Daleks are as scary as they used to be, you made a mistake. I don’t care what Mary Winehouse thought. In the states we’ve suffered Fredrick Wertham and Jack Thompson, the former seriously damaging comic books in public perception while the latter all but failed to do the same with video games. There is a point where you have to keep yourself in check as a kids show but also a point to push back and realize kids are smarter than you think. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers had its detractors, and that might have affected the direction of Masked Rider and the two Beetleborgs series, plus why VR Troopers went to  first-run syndication.

Going too far the other way may calm your critics (and it didn’t in Whinehouse’s case–misspell on purpose) but what does it matter if it costs you your audience? By pointing out your sillier nature, however, you break the immersion and thus you are no longer in the world of Doctor Who, you’re at home watching Doctor Who and that connection is broken. Oddly that doesn’t include the fourth wall breaks mentioned because it simply acknowledges the Doctor knows you’re there watching him, while the First Doctor wishing everyone a Merry Christmas was an outright shatter of the illusion to send good tidings to the audience.

As for Davies’ return with Ncuti Gatwa…that hasn’t gone well, has it?

So did Star Wars actually influence Doctor Who? I’m not sure he made that point. This seemed to be more about Graham Williams’ influence on the show rather than George Lucas’ movie. K9 debuted a few years before the movie. The show seemed to be doing what it needed to in order to work in the current public consciousness of its native territory, not push back against something else. The Jedi and the Time Lords have nothing in common, but at least the video itself was informative even if it didn’t quite make the intended case to me.