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by Rick Norwood
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TV Reviews | |
"He's everywhere! He's everywhere!"
No, not Chicken Man. Dr. Who, and the Dr. Who spinoffs. The new
season of Dr. Who starts Friday, April 18. I blinked and failed to list it last issue
in "SF on TV in April". I did list Torchwood, a Dr. Who spinoff. And
now the SciFi Channel has picked up a half hour Dr. Who spinoff for children, The
Sarah Jane Adventures. Sarah Jane was one of the Doctor's companions, who made a touching
reappearance in the new Dr. Who Season Two, (which sounds like the title of a book by Dr. Seuss).
The Dr. Who universe has a lot in common with one of my favorite fantasy universes,
Dark Shadows. Both have more than a thousand episodes -- that's almost twice as many as
the Star Trek universe. Both have a complex internal chronology, recomplicated by time travel
and parallel universes, and both have some episodes so bad that they are a hurtle that most newcomers shy
away from, along with some episodes so good that old fans stay fans for life.
The difference in my case is that I watched Dark Shadows in my misspent youth, and have now watched
every single episode at least once, most more than once. On the other hand, I came to Dr. Who too late,
and will never watch every episode. But every now and then, I'm tempted.
So, here are the Dr. Who related shows in April.
Coming this Fall, new shows by Ronald D. Moore and by Joss Whedon on Fox.
Moore has Virtuality, about characters on a starship who start to have trouble telling the
holodeck from reality. Didn't Star Trek already do that? Not to mention Chris
Carter's Harsh Realm? Shows with this premise always run up against a problem that none
of them has successfully solved. Either the hologram characters are just images, in which case who cares,
or they have feelings, in which case it would be immoral to turn them off. Of all the programs that have
tackled this problem, Star Trek Voyager took it most seriously.
Whedon has Dollhouse, about secret agents who can be imprinted with special personalities and
abilities particular to each mission. That idea sounds a lot more interesting than Virtuality.
Smallville for Thursday, April 27 has major mythos events. Don't miss it.
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Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon. |
Saturday, April 5
There haven't been that many new shows set in a single fantasy universe on American television in
one month since Dark Shadows went off the air.
 
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