The Rings of Akhaten
I'm hoping reggietate was pleased. She has been bemoaning for a while the total absence of NuWho stories set entirely within alien cultures. I liked it. Though, as with much of NuWho, I felt slightly short-changed, as if the story was over before it had really begun.
I hear that certain portions of fandom were offended by the singing. To which my first reaction is oh fandom! and my second is odd flashbacks to the reception of the book, Transit. Transit was Doctor Who meets Cyberpunk and there was a fair bit of pearl-clutching about the possibility that the Doctor might ever be in the same general vicinity as people who were having sex or might, gasp, meet a prostitute in the course of his adventures. It was also, stylistically, very different from anything that came before it (in Doctor Who, though not in Cyberpunk) and although the style wasn't criticised to nearly the same extent as the content, I've often wondered if part of the adverse reception was because a lot of Dr Who fandom wasn't, perhaps, as SF-literate as it liked to think it was.
However, while Transit's reception was, I think, quite illuminating in terms of the make-up and assumptions of Who fandom at the time, a kick-back against the existence of singing in Dr Who is mostly rather odd. If it had been a "musical" episode I might have understood it (though I'm personally very fond of musicals and would love to see Dr Who attempt one) but since the singing was absolutely part and parcel of the story itself it seems strange to object to it in a "Doctor Who can't contain..." kind of a way.
Russell Davies always resisted the production of a Doctor Who episode set entirely among aliens on the grounds that viewers could not relate to it. His insistence was always that there had to be humans at the heart of every story. The fan reaction to The Rings of Akhaten makes me wonder if he was right. After all the singing was intimately part of an attempt to portray an alien culture and a reaction against the singing is, perhaps, indicative of a more general reaction against the strangeness of it all. I'll confess I've not read any reviews criticising the singing, but I have seen a couple of bemused "I did not understand" kind of reviews which does suggest that the story was struggling to convey the alien culture.
I also wonder if my own reaction, that the story seemed kind of slight, was because the time required to actually portray an alien culture ate into too much of the time that could be used to tell a story. I think the jury is out on that one since, as I said above, I've had similar reactions to a number of NuWho episodes.
Other than that I liked it. I liked the aliens and their culture. I liked the singing, though I think I'd have liked it better if more effort had gone into making it sound actually alien. I'll be very interested to see if the wider reception of the story can convince the production team to attempt this kind of thing more often.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/95060.html.
I hear that certain portions of fandom were offended by the singing. To which my first reaction is oh fandom! and my second is odd flashbacks to the reception of the book, Transit. Transit was Doctor Who meets Cyberpunk and there was a fair bit of pearl-clutching about the possibility that the Doctor might ever be in the same general vicinity as people who were having sex or might, gasp, meet a prostitute in the course of his adventures. It was also, stylistically, very different from anything that came before it (in Doctor Who, though not in Cyberpunk) and although the style wasn't criticised to nearly the same extent as the content, I've often wondered if part of the adverse reception was because a lot of Dr Who fandom wasn't, perhaps, as SF-literate as it liked to think it was.
However, while Transit's reception was, I think, quite illuminating in terms of the make-up and assumptions of Who fandom at the time, a kick-back against the existence of singing in Dr Who is mostly rather odd. If it had been a "musical" episode I might have understood it (though I'm personally very fond of musicals and would love to see Dr Who attempt one) but since the singing was absolutely part and parcel of the story itself it seems strange to object to it in a "Doctor Who can't contain..." kind of a way.
Russell Davies always resisted the production of a Doctor Who episode set entirely among aliens on the grounds that viewers could not relate to it. His insistence was always that there had to be humans at the heart of every story. The fan reaction to The Rings of Akhaten makes me wonder if he was right. After all the singing was intimately part of an attempt to portray an alien culture and a reaction against the singing is, perhaps, indicative of a more general reaction against the strangeness of it all. I'll confess I've not read any reviews criticising the singing, but I have seen a couple of bemused "I did not understand" kind of reviews which does suggest that the story was struggling to convey the alien culture.
I also wonder if my own reaction, that the story seemed kind of slight, was because the time required to actually portray an alien culture ate into too much of the time that could be used to tell a story. I think the jury is out on that one since, as I said above, I've had similar reactions to a number of NuWho episodes.
Other than that I liked it. I liked the aliens and their culture. I liked the singing, though I think I'd have liked it better if more effort had gone into making it sound actually alien. I'll be very interested to see if the wider reception of the story can convince the production team to attempt this kind of thing more often.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/95060.html.