Needless to say, I was super pleased with the success of the Doctor Who revival last year. A second series was commissioned on the strength of the first episode’s ratings; a third off the back of the critical acclaim the series received. People stopped laughing at me. Instead I laughed at them as I poked them with sticks. Things were great.
I hoped this would lead to a revival of science fiction in general – sadly missed in the UK since BBC2 decided to show shite in their 6pm slot instead of the good stuff – and home-grown British science fiction in particular, which hasn’t known great success since Blake’s 7. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be disappointed, because Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood is due to be screened next year.
It sounds like Doctor Who for grown-ups, in other words people exactly like writer Russell T Davies who grew up with the series and now want something a little more substantial. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, here’s a man who knows what he’s doing. His series is going to be ace.
And it’s going to be a “British crime/sci-fi paranoid thriller cop show”. How good is that? If it even approaches being anywhere near as good as The X Files before it went a bit trousers, I am going to explode.
Comment By: elTee
Wednesday 19th October 2005 | 21:28
Bah, alien technology. Aliens are a terrible crutch for Science Fiction to constantly lean on – in my opinion the best Science Fiction deals purely with human endeavour. Sure, H.G. Wells spins a good yarn, but as far as I’m concerned aliens come under the fantasy section in the library.
Aliens ruined the X-Files! The best X-Files episodes (apart from that one that was set in the Artic and totally wasn’t a copy of John Carpenters The Thing) were about weird stuff on Earth. The Outer Limits, which was generally better than The X-Files anyway (oh shut up, it was) didn’t rely on aliens too much either.
And for saddo conspiracy theorists like me, aliens are a lame excuse to explain away holes in peoples theories. “Aliens built the pyramids!!” BAH.