Viewing posts tagged image of the fendahl
Posted by:
Jack Graham
7 years, 9 months ago
From the October 2011 issue of Panic Moon
. As ever, lightly edited and titivated... 'cos I just can't help tinkering.When
Doctor Who talks about evolution, it doesn’t usually bother getting the facts right. 'Evolution of the Daleks', for instance, seems to think species change when genes mutate morally because of lightning bolts. Such ideas go right back to 'The Daleks', in which the two races on Skaro have changed totally in mere “hundreds of years” of mutation, with the warrior Thals becoming natural pacifists in the process. (Incidentally, it’s ironic that this supposedly anti-Nazi parable speaks of blonde, blue-eyed, athletic specimens as “refined” and “perfect”.)
Real evolution does involve mutations, but they’re not sudden and drastic as depicted in, to pick another example, 'The Mutants'. Instead we’re talking about tiny replication errors in genetic code which are preserved or rejected by natural selection, leading to big changes over very long periods. This creates staggering variety on our planet alone. However, most aliens in the
Doctor Who universe look like British actors, which (accidentally) implies that the humanoid shape is a universal pinnacle or goal of evolution. ...
Posted by:
Jack Graham
9 years, 10 months ago
The greatness and uniqueness of 'Image of the Fendahl' is shown in the scene where the Doctor "explains" what's going on to Adam Colby. Of course, he doesn't actually do any such thing. He suggests two possible explanations. He favours the first but his listener is sceptical so the Doctor offers an alternative which his listener finds more plausible. The Doctor also says that it might all be a coincidence. His tone is flippant but there is no real reason to suppose that he isn't being serious. It is clear that the Doctor is theorising and that he doesn't have the final answer.
This is fascinating and, as far as I can recall, unique in classic
Doctor Who. The Doctor has often been seen to behave superficially like a scientist (mucking about with test tubes, talking about oscillators, etc.) but this is the first and only real occasion when he really acts like one (like an idealised, Baconian one, that is). The Doctor is admitting that he doesn’t know and doing his best to come up with workable explanations which fit the facts. Moreover, the person the Doctor is speaking to is a scientist who ...
