Swapped World-Builds

The BBC has recently begun uploading classic-era Doctor Who stories to YouTube under their Doctor Who: Classic channel. Despite being a Who fan going back to the 1980s*, I've only seen a smattering of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton stories so I've been going through to catch up on some of these stories that I was only nominally familiar with. While there are definitely some interesting stories here, I quickly noted that some of them stand out as being particularly... well, not "bad" exactly (or at least no worse than anything else from the same period) but not enjoyable for me. Mainly those in which the Doctor finds himself in situations that are effectively outside the scope of the show.

In any sort of fiction, and certainly in science fiction and fantasy, the creators have to establish the "rules" of the world they're introducing their audience to. Are dragons real? Does time travel exist? Has Earth made contact with aliens? That kind of thing. The creators can make up whatever rules they want, but as a general rule, they should remain consistent so the audience feels like there's some coherence to the story. If you establish that shape=shifting aliens are a thing but then turn around and say that intersteller space travel isn't possible, you're going to causing confusion and frustration among your audience who are trying to process your story. The characters established in the story work within the framework of how their universe is set up. So it doesn't make sense if you drop Spider-Man into a One Piece adventure because, despite One Piece having a range of characters with literal super powers, the notion of putting on a costume and saving people just to save them doesn't fit the mindset of anyone in that world.

This is why a lot of IP crossover stories don't really work. A character like Superman doesn't really work in a world-view like what you'd see in Marvel; there's top much inherent skepticism for a Marvel resident to fully accept someone like Superman. How does a group like Starfleet come up if you've got a galaxy that includes people who can wield the Force? What happens to Fred Flinstone's job at the quarry if you introduce someone like Devil Dinosaur to the story? The characters themselves might be interesting to play off one another, but the environments they come from are generally different enough that any sort of story beyond just that cursory interaction starts to break down quickly. That's why it can be fun to think about Judge Dredd versus Deadpool, but a full story with the two of them won't hold up well.

The reason why I introduced this piece with Doctor Who is because I watched "The Mind Robber" story for the first time. In the story, the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companions have an accident with the TARDIS and are transported into a world of fiction. They encounter Rapunzel and Gulliver and Captain Karkus, a fictional comic book superhero from one of the companions' time period. And I thought it was a lousy story. The "rules" of Doctor Who were thrown out the window and the protagonists were thrust into what was effectively a bunch of nonsense. All the world-building that had been going on for the previous five years' worth of stories were tossed aside for bizarre face-swap puzzles and giant wind-up soliders and Captain Karkus spontaneously showing up in a nick of time because the Doctor wished him to. "The Celestial Toymaker" story is similar, as is its much later sequel "The Giggle." Those don't occur in the Doctor's world, and therefore are not stories the Doctor should be used in.

Whether or not you watch or even are familiar with Doctor Who, the same idea applies to all stories, I feel. Sure, it makes sense for Alice to fall into Wonderland and deal with all sorts of whimsical nonsense, but that's because she was designed as a character specifically to deal with said nonsene. Shazam was not meant for that world. Nor Captain Carrot or Peter Pan or Santa Claus or any of a hundred other characters that have been thrust into it in one story or another.

I've pointed out before that I rather enjoy the "archeology" aspect of long-running stories as are often found in comics. This notion of world-building, while complimentary to it, is a little distinct. I want to see that not only what came before matters, but how the characters' entire world is sturctured matters. They act the way they do, in part, because of their environment and whether that includes dragons or aliens or whatever else helped to shape who they are. That strikes me as something many people don't think about when they say they want to see a team-up between John Wick and Deathstroke.

* The first story I saw was "The Masque of Mandragora" from the 1976-77 season, but that was likely not until 1987. Our local PBS station where I first discovered the show didn't begin airing Doctor Who at all until late 1980. Going through some old broadcast schedules, my guess is that I didn't start watching until 1987 even though the Mandragora story had already aired a few times before then. I know I never watched the show during the week, only on weekends, so I would've missed everything prior to 1984 and I certainly wouldn't have been allowed to stay up to watch the 11:30pm timeslot when it did run in '84. The only two other times they broadcast the Mandragora story was in 1987 and then again in 1991, but that latter date was after I left for college. Honestly, I could've sworn I'd been watching Who going back several years earlier, but I don't see how that's possible if these broadcast schedules I'm looking at are accurate. That would also explain how I missed seeing almost all of the first three Doctors, since the station didn't air any of the pre-Tom Baker episodes between 1986 and 1989.

Related Items craft