Moderator's Note: thread originally entitled 'Actors who've appeared in Doctor Who and Star Trek':
There is a select few of actors who have appeared in both Doctor Who AND Star Trek. Here are three of them.
Simon Pegg: Played the Editor in The Long Game and played Scotty in the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie.
Olaf Pooley: Played Professor Stahlman in Inferno and played a tutor to a ruler on the Star Trek Voyager episode Blink Of An Eye.
Guy Siner: Played General Ravon in Genesis Of The Daleks and played Malcolm Reed's father in the Star Trek Enterprise episode Silent Enemy.
Anyone know of any of the other actors who have appeared in both franchises?
I saw production subs that said one of the actors was one of the few who had been on both. Androzani maybe?
How long before Emily comes along and says something about people appearing on inferior shows, or something similar? ;)
The biggest problem is that most of the DW actors are British, whilst most ST actors are American, so there's not really much chance for them to appear on both (in fact, I think Equity might well have something to say about US actors taking roles from British actors, and vice versa for SAG).
Anyway, one to add to the list, Daphne Ashbrook (Grace from the TVM) appeared in DS9 (Melora).
How long before Emily comes along and says something about people appearing on inferior shows, or something similar? ;)
I am struggling REALLY REALLY hard not to be that predictable...but it's obviously a losing battle...
I may eventually remove this offensive subject from my sight by amalgamating it with the 'Good Places To See People Who've Been in Doctor Who' thread, though obviously Trek hardly qualifies as a GOOD place...
Maurice Roeves was Stotz in Caves Of Androzani & an episode of ST:TNG.
Maurice Roeves was Stotz in a an episode of ST? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
He played a Romulan captain in the TNG episode, The Chase.
According to IMDB, the other actors are Alan Dale, John Franklyn-Robbins, Barrie Ingham, Christopher Neame and Deep Roy. I removed the ones we already listed.
Alan Dale was only in Torchwood.
David Soul, who's in 'Death Comes to Time', is in TOS where he's the one who gets to say "Tell me about this Earth thing you call 'love'".
W. Morgan Sheppard and his son, Mark, can be added to this list now. Both father and son made several appearences on Trek, and both were in the Impossible Astronaut on Who.
I don't know if it belongs here--but my fifth season set of New Who had an ad for a ne version of Hamlet. It had David Tennant as Hamlet, and Patrick Stewart as the ghost of his father iirc(he was that or the king).
Patrick Stewart also appeared in Hamlet with Lala Ward.
JEP- It's based on a production that toured England and is absolutely brilliant. A wonderful interpretation of it.
Yeah - David Tennant was riveting. VERY Doctorish. (I think the bald Trekkie played his uncle AND his dead dad.)
Tennant's Hamlet was very Doctorish? You're kidding, right?
Looks more like his upcoming Fright Night will be more Doctory to me.
Emily is right- there were moments where it was like The Doctor was playing Hamlet.... It was BRILLIANT!
Nana Vistor played Major Kira on Deep Space Nine, appeared in Miracle Day. Okay, it's not Who, but a spin off of Who (got this info from Wikipedia).
And John de Lancie - Q in TNG, DS9 and Voyager.
Odd they should show up in the same series at the same time.
We can add Noel Clarke (Mickey) to this list. Apparently, he's gonna be in the upcoming Star Trek movie.
They've STOLEN our very own Mickey-the-idiot?? How DARE they!
I like these links between my two favourite Sci-Fi franchises
Well, in that case ISN'T IT A SHAME that Benedict Cumberbatch turned down being THE DOCTOR but is going to appear in some Trek movie...(Yes, I'm even MORE annoyed at Trekkies than ever now.)
Benedict Cumberbatch
Who??
Oh look out Tim- Callie's coming after you now...
Good. It's about time Callie got lured back to OUR board instead of obsessing about this Sherlock nonsense...
Tim, I regret to inform you that Steven Moffat is PROSTITUTING his time and talents on a non-Who programme, viz, updating Sherlock Holmes for the modern day. The eponymous hero is played by one Benedict Cumberbatch. I took one look at him and decided he'd make a FANTASTIC Doctor. As it happens, Moffat was of course way ahead of me, and, according to Cumberbatch anyway, offered him the job but he turned it down because...because...he didn't want his face on sandwich boxes.
As you can imagine, he's not exactly my favourite human being. But GOD he's make a good Doctor. His 'high-functioning sociopath' Sherlock practically IS the Doctor, occasionally...
I think Cumberbatch would be a Hartnell-style Doctor, not really caring about oppressed civilizations, barely caring about his companions, mostly just looking for something to relieve the boredom.
I think he'd make an excellent Master in the style of Delgado (instead of the maniacal Ainley or Simm Masters)
Looked him up on Wiki
Tim is now dead to me - although he has redeemed himself a little by looking up the Pretty One! I have three fellow Sherlock fic writers staying at my house this weekend and if this wasn't a suitable-for-children discussion board I could link you to the cupcakes we got one of them for her birthday yesterday ... I just hope nobody ever sends the picture to Ben ...
If he hadn't chosen to do Sherlock instead, he would definitely have been a superb Doctor or Master.
I think Cumberbatch would be a Hartnell-style Doctor, not really caring about oppressed civilizations, barely caring about his companions, mostly just looking for something to relieve the boredom.
Yes, and wouldn't it be fantastic? Hartnell done PROPERLY, in the way that 'You stupid ape!' Eccy was Colin done properly. And if they REALLY had the guts, they wouldn't have him humanised AT ALL by his Companions. (Though as Watson already seems to be making Sherlock go a bit soft, they probably wouldn't have the guts.)
I think he'd make an excellent Master in the style of Delgado (instead of the maniacal Ainley or Simm Masters)
Yeah, that would DO, I suppose. No one's gonna put the MASTER'S face on a lunch box...
If he hadn't chosen to do Sherlock instead, he would definitely have been a superb Doctor or Master.
Well, with any luck this'll be the last series of Sherlock (come on...why else would they be doing Baskerville AND Scandal AND Falls? ALL the big stories in one fell swoop) and Cumberbatch will be on the dole queue BEGGING to reconsider his blasphemous refusal by the time Matt feels like betraying n'abandoning us.
I think he'd make an excellent Master in the style of Delgado (instead of the maniacal Ainley or Simm Masters)
Oooo, I like it! Perhaps he'd be more interested in that than the Doctor role.
Sorry, Callie, but I don't think any of his stuff has aired in Canada yet, so that is why I was unfamliar with him.
The Sherlock Holmes series does (or at least did) run on Showcase
Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't think Showcase ran British shows anymore (they used to early on, but then began buying U.S. cable shows like Rescue Me instead).
Yeah, that would DO, I suppose. No one's gonna put the MASTER'S face on a lunch box...
A good vilain would totally make it on a lunch box. Darth Vader did, and the Master is worth ten of him (at least) any day.
Original Trilogy Vader, nope, sorry not even against Delgado's Master.
On the other hand the Telemovie's Master is worth a thousand of the Prequel Trilogy's whining mamma's boy "Vader".
That being said Troughton didn't want his face plastered all over lunch boxes & they didn't so why couldn't Cumberbatch say no to such uses of his image?
McGann also kept marketing control over his face.
Anyway, I don't think Cumberbatch would make a good Doctor NOW. Before Sherlock, absolutely, but now he'd have to play it completely differently.
I guess it was the git's way of saying he didn't want to become a cult figure. How's that working out for you, Sherlock?
Yes, Ben rather failed on the "I don't want to be so hugely well-known that I've got fangirls squeeing at my every move" front. *shuffles feet in embarrassment* But it's not just me!
But if he let his hair revert to its natural colour, as he does when he's not in a role that demands another shade, you'd get your first ginger Doctor ...
So this guy doesn't want to be a "cult figure", yet he's playing Sherlock Holmes!? That's one of the most iconic characters in the English language!
From what I read on Wiki, he's gonna play the bad guy in the Trek movie.
Daphne Ashbrook, who played Grace Holloway in the 1996 TV movie, appeared on an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, called Melora (her character was the same name as the episode title).
Apparently, Matt Smith would like William Shatner to guest star on Doctor Who. I must admit, it would be cool to see Captain James T. Kirk visit the TARDIS.
It most certainly would NOT!
Speak for yourself, I for one would welcome it.
Ideally Shatner would have appeared in the US TV series with Paul McGann. They could have spent 50 minutes complimenting each other on the naturalness of their hair.
Shatner would not appear as Kirk of course, and I'd be very interested to see what type of character he would come up with. He could even play himself, he is the host of a show called Weird or What and the Doctor would fit right into that.
A police box that is bigger on the inside than the outside. Is that weird or what?
Speak for yourself, I for one would welcome it.
WHY? The Whoniverse and, um, the Sad-Trekkie-Verse are CLEARLY different universes - leaving aside the fact that ONE OF THEM IS REAL and the other one is clearly some rubbish American fiction - why attempt to force them together? I mean, I get the impression they both (plus the Blake's 7 universe that was unsuccessfully mashed together with the Whoniverse in the Kaldor City spin-off audios and the Corpse Marker PDA) have a Federation, but isn't that the ONLY thing they have in common, and isn't it a blatantly DIFFERENT Federation??
Ideally Shatner would have appeared in the US TV series with Paul McGann. They could have spent 50 minutes complimenting each other on the naturalness of their hair.
Isn't he bald? Or am I thinking of ANOTHER one of those interminable Trekkie Captains?
Shatner would not appear as Kirk of course
In which case I couldn't care less whether he was in Who or not - I obviously wouldn't recognise him and it wouldn't involve the collision of two drastically different universes. But Tim was strongly implying he wanted THE TREKKIE CAPTAIN to appear.
A police box that is bigger on the inside than the outside. Is that weird or what?
No it isn't! It's TOTALLY NATURAL! About the only time I've empathised with the Fifth Doctor in my life is over his puzzlement that the aeroplane in Time-Flight was smaller on the inside...
There are some links between Doctor Who and another British produced science fiction show, Gerry Anderson's Space: 1999. Most involve actors.
One regular cast member of Space: 1999, Zienia Merton, played date analist Sandra Benes. She appeared on Doctor Who as Ping-Cho, in the now lost Marco Polo story. More recently, she appeared on the SJA episode The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith.
Julian Glover, who played the Jaggeroth Scaroth in City Of Death, appeared on the 1999 episode Alpha Child as an alien named Jarek.
Michael Sheard, who made numerous appearences on Who (one of his charater being the doomed Lawrence Scarman in Pyramids Of Mars) appeared on the 1999 episode Dragon's Domaine. Like many of his Who characters, he gets killed off here too.
Kevin Stoney played Mavic Chen in The Daleks' Master Plan, Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion, and Tyrum in Revenge of the Cybermen. He appeared on the 1999 episode, The Last Enemy, playing an alien military commander called Talos.
There are also behind the scenes links too.
Writer Johnny Byrne, who among other things on Who, created Nysaa, worked on Space: 1999. His episode are regarded by 1999 fans as some of the best of the series.
Terrence Dicks penned a S2 1999 episode called the Lambda Factor.
Can anyone think of any others I may have missed?
Model maker Martin Bower worked on both 1999 & Who, unfortunately my reference book doesn't say which episode(s) of Who or what models he made for the show.
Catherine Schell, who played Maya in S2 of 1999, played Countess Scarlioni in City Of Death.
Wasn't Brian Blessed on both shows?
Wasn't Brian Blessed on both shows?
Indeed he was. He played King Ycranos in Mindwarp, part of Trial Of a Time Lord.
He guest starred in two episodes of 1999, but as two different characters. The first was as Dr. Cabot Rowland in the S1 episode Death's Other Dominion. The second was as Mentor, Maya's father, in the S2 season premier, The Metamorph.
Just thought of another one.
Philip Madoc, who made multiple appearences on Doctor Who (the War Lord and Solon among them) appeared in the Space: 1999 pilot Breakaway. He played Anton Gorsky, who preceeded John Koenig as Commander of Moonbase Alpha.
Can't believe I missed this one.
Prentis Hancock, who made multiple appearences on Doctor Who (Salamar on Planet Of Evil, was one), was a regular on the first season of 1999. He played a character named Paul Morrow.
The final episode of 1999, the Dorcons, features a character called the Archon. The Archon was played by Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton.
A science-fiction show had aliens called the Dorcons and it wasn't a parody?
No, it wasn't. Yeah, they could have come up with a better name.
Bernard Cribbins, who played Wilf, appeared in the Space: 1999 episode Brian the Brain, as a doomed space mission captain.
Roy Boyd, who played Eldrad victim Driscoll in Hand Of Fear, appeared in the 1999 episode, The Immunity Syndrome as an Alphan named Lustig (who died fairly early on in the episode).
We can now add David Warner to the Star Trek list. He played Professor Grisenko in Cold War.
He played three different characters in Star Trek. A human named St. John Talbot in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, the Klingon Chancellor, Gorkon, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and Gul Madred, a sadistic Cardassian in the TNG two parter, Chain Of Attack.
He is a great actor, and his talents felt a bit wasted on that professor role.
Still, he did a good job here.
Benedict Cumberbatch, played Khan in the newest Star Trek film (which also had Who veterans Noel Clarke and Deep Roy in it).
While Mr. Cumberbatch has not yet appeared on Doctor Who, his mother, Wanda Ventham has done so three times (among her roles was the ill fated Thea Ransome in Image Of The Fendahl).
Another connection between these two great franchises.
His MUM is a FENDAHL?
That's just WEIRD.
Yep, the Fendahl Priestess gave birth to Khan Noonien Singh.
Does this count?
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/karen-gillans-hair-to-star-in-star-wars-episode-7-9267233.html
Well, maybe is ALL of Karen Gillan appeared in Star Wars episode 7 ...
My, my, my, Amelia!
Why, why, why, Amelia?!
There is also a link between Doctor Who and the 1970's series I Claudius. As Kate pointed out, most of the actors who played a Caeser in this series later appeared on Doctor Who.
Brian Blessed: Played Augustus on IC, played Ycranos on Doctor Who (Mindwarp).
George Baker: Played Tiberius on IC, played Decider Login on Doctor Who (Full Circle).
John Hurt: Played Caligula on IC, played the War Doctor in Doctor Who (Day Of The Doctor).
Sir Derek Jacobi: Played the title role of Claudius in IC, played Professor Yana AKA the Master in Doctor Who (Utopia).
Plus many many other acting links (including Renu Setna who basically played the same character in both IC and 'The Hand of Fear', broadcast just a fortnight apart). I Claudius's producer Martin Lisemore was also the production assistant on 'The Enemy of the World'.
Kevin McNally was Castor in IC, & Hugo Lang in The Twin Dilemma.
Couple of connections between Doctor Who and the Alien movie series.
Future War Doctor, John Hurt, played Kane in the 1979 first Alien movie. His character was the first to die at the hands of an Alien.
Future Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, played a character named Golic in Alien3 (1992). However, much of his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
So, no love for Brian Glover, Ricco Ross, Tip Tipping or Danny Webb*?
* Who of course was in the Doctor Who story that was basically a rip-off of the rip-off of the rip-offs that ripped off Alien.
the Doctor Who story that was basically a rip-off of the rip-off of the rip-offs that ripped off Alien.
And this was...?
The Impossible Pit Planet of Satan.
Troughton and Pertwee chewed the scenery in separate episodes of The Goodies and they were GLORIOUS
What irritates me is just how small the world of Narnia is. Small and petty.
In Narnia, the time from the creation of the world in The Magician's Nephew to the Apocalypse in The Last Battle is a bit over two thousand years. Just two thousand years. It's barely anything! Compared to our universe's age it's barely a blip. Even by creationists' standards it's only about a third as long as they think our world exists.
In our universe, space stretches out into infinity. There are countless star systems, with planets, moons, breathtaking phenomena, and quite possibly infinite varieties of life. In Narnia... there is one world. One flat world, with a dome sky, and the stars above are just glowy people. But it's totes special because the animals talk.
In our world, the human race can learn and grow and develop, raise our standard of living, increase our understanding of the world around us, and at least have a chance of making our own decisions for ourselves. In Narnia, it's wall-to-wall absolute monarchies anointed by Lion!Jesus, technology never really changes, and the culture is so anti-development that even bridges are considered to be terrible.
Uh and this relates how to Doctor Who?
Tom Baker played Puddlegum in The Silver Chair, the third episode of BBC's adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia.
Oh yeah, he did
After three nights sitting up very late reading Stephen King's epic post-apocalypse novel The Stand, I was pleasantly surprised to go out this morning and find that people were still alive. It was a fairly long novel when it was published in 1978, but the publishers made King cut it severely. The kindle version has all the deleted sections restored, making it the equivalent of about 1300 pages. Plus parts of it have been updated, so it's really a whole new novel. It's not meant to be a horror novel, but of course King can't help himself, so it's a post-apocalypse science fiction epic with horror undertones. I could have done without the supernatural elements, but they work in the context. The premise - an engineered super-flu virus escapes from a secret military lab and kills 99% of the population - is not very original, but the novel is really about the fate of the surviving 1%, and the forces that draw them together under the leadership of the oldest woman in America. It's very engrossing, very scary and very well done.
Moderator's Note: moved from the Doctors: Fourth Doctor thread:
If he's well enough to go prancing round beaming people up Scottie then he's well enough to give us a few episodes of Curatory goodness.
Don't put Star Wars and Star Trek people in the same boat, just...don't.
You're getting Star Trek and Star Wars mixed up, Emily. Aside from having the word "Star" in their titles, they are nothing alike.
And it's Scotty, not Scottie.
Sorry, Star Wars fans, the insult was unintentional. I was so busy trying to ignore the whole Tom-degrading-himself-in-lesser-programmes thing that I actually succeeded in not noticing WHAT exactly he was degrading himself in...
Star Wars is space opera.
Star Trek was morality plays.
Admittedly some confusion is inevitable since Star Wars started the flashy special effect summer blockbuster movie, and since rebooting the series in 2009, Star Trek has become a flashy special effect summer blockbuster movie, and the guy responsible for that is also in charge of the new Star Wars films.
Beam me up, Obi-Wan.
At least we never saw Yoda from Star Wars as a p*rn star like that Zygons fan film.
Star Trek is just as much space opera as Star Wars - and conversely 'Wars is just as much of a morality play as 'Trek.
Off the top of my head I can't recall which one of them turns your brains to bat guano, but Harlan Ellison - in his famous speech championing Tom-era Who as the best meeja sf ever - wasn't particularly complimentary about the other one either...
I have very little use for Harlan Ellison. I mean take his reaction to the Classic Trek episode, City On The Edge Of Forever. He wrote it, but Gene Roddenberry changed it.
For almost half-a-century now, Harlan Ellison has moaned, whined, and bleated about how they changed his script. It I could, I would say one or all of the following to him:
"Mr. Ellison, surely you must know how Hollywood works. Once you sell a script to a movie or tv show, that's the moment you lose sole ownership of it. The producers can change it as they see fit."
Or:
"Mr. Ellison, in my honest opinion, I don't think your original idea would have been so well embraced by the fans as the televised story was. Can't you take some comfort in that this episode is always regard as one of the best, if not THE best episode of Classic Trek."
Or finally:
"Mr. Ellison, it's been almost fifty years: GET OVER IT!!"
Yes, Ellison is a Who fan, but he's still a hack and a crybaby IMO.
Fortunately Ellison's reputation as a writer rests on a body of work considerably more substantial than one script he wrote for a flop TV show fifty years ago.
I think someone needs ointment for that burn...
...considerably more substantial than one script he wrote for a flop TV show fifty years ago.
It was not a flop, it was just a slow starter. It's been doing quite well since.
Hmmmm, maybe we should stop talking about Star Trek before Emily gives us all a swift kick in the butt
Judibug - At least we never saw Yoda from Star Wars as a p*rn star like that Zygons fan film.
Although there are fan artists who have drawn such stuff.
Kitten - Star Trek is just as much space opera as Star Wars - and conversely 'Wars is just as much of a morality play as 'Trek.
Well, a couple of Encyclopedias of Science Fiction is where I got the Star Trek as morality play definition, and thinking about Classic Trek I tend to think of the stories before I think of the special effects, whereas the reverse is true of Star Wars.
I like both, but TV writers like to use shows as soapboxes, and Star Trek was no different, whereas Lucas was trying to bring back the feeling of the old Saturday afternoon movie serials and this gives them different feels and results in different one-sentence descriptions even though they use a lot of the same elements.
Fortunately Ellison's reputation as a writer rests on a body of work considerably more substantial than one script he wrote for a flop TV show fifty years ago.
That's a terrible thing to say about The Flying Nun. ;-)
Star Trek has spawned five television series, 12 feature films, and countless media tie in such as novels and comics.
Not bad for a "flop" TV show.
And you would think that the fact that City On The Edge Of Forever is a fan favourite would get Ellison to shut his pie hole, but nope. The crybaby will still tell anyone who'll listen about how they ruined his script.
Get over it, Harlan, it's been nearly fifty smegging years!
I wonder how long before Emily orders us back on topic
Colin Baker joins the ranks of those that have appeared in both Doctor Who and Star Trek.
See the Doctor Who In Unlikely Places thread for further details.
I was just thinking.......
I think it's been pointed out that Biff Tannen from the "Hell Valley" 1985 in Back to the Future II must have paid off a number of unsavory people to keep himself alive given his reckless use of the sports almanac.
It would be easy for a hypothetical time traveler to disappear if certain people think he knows too much.
i couldn't stand Star Trek Voyager. Specially after it became the Naomi Wildman and the Borg with Silicone **** show.
Actually, Jeri Ryan's chest is 100% natural.
Which does nothing to mitigate the Naomi Wildman aspect of the final season of course.
Someone on rec.arts.drwho comparing Star Trek with Blake's Seven said that they preferred the "hunted man" approach to "we are all a shiny happy utopia in the future which is oddly barren of homosexual people". This was after the infamous remark by a Trek showrunner that they didn't need to show gay people on Trek "sashaying down the corridors".
Well, assuming that sexual orientation is no longer a problem in Star Trek's future, how would we know that the people we see are or are not gay, unless we see them in their bedrooms with their partners? It's not like they would conveniently write it on their foreheads, or something.
It's important for visibility and diversity. USA president James Buchanan was probably gay but he was never *openly* gay.
Well, assuming that sexual orientation is no longer a problem in Star Trek's future, how would we know that the people we see are or are not gay, unless we see them in their bedrooms with their partners? It's not like they would conveniently write it on their foreheads, or something.
Possibly in the same way that we've seen dozens and dozens of heterosexual relationships in 'Trek' without the series ever - despite Roddenbery's efforts to the contrary - featuring hardcore hetero sex scenes?
There's also the less palatable possibility that having identified all the genetic and developmental paths leading to homosexuality, they "correct" those tendencies in utero and people are no longer born gay in their world. However, several episodes firmly establish that their society has a very strong aversion against this type of genetic manipulations, so I don't think this is what's happening.
Never mind this Trekkie nonsense.
Does homosexuality exist in Old Who?
What exactly are we supposed to assume about all those societies with only one female...?
That the males of the species are very protective and keep their women away from the front lines and from danger? 
I'm surprised that more people don't point out that Star Trek is the Happiness Patrol. If you are not heterosexual or eurocentrically cultured, they don't want you in the Star Trek universe.
I think I would have qualified as an Enid Blyton villain or at least in need of a visit from the brownies, because when i was 10, i was at a local fete and a guy in a costume was handing out lolly bags to kids who put 20 cents into the hole in the costume. Well, i didn't have 20 c so i picked up tiny stones and put them in. i got a couple of lolly bags before he twigged.
Time, Unincorporated: 'In 1996 we know [William Hartnell] was paid more than the combined salaries of the entire regular cast of Blakes 7 would be during their first season, more than a decade later' - bwahaha!
A Blake's 7 / Doctor Who connection
Here’s a random bit of speculation.
Blake’s 7 – 2nd season finale, Star One. Blake goes to the edge of the Federation, to find the hidden control center, known as Star One. It’s the nerve center of the Federation, controlling travel, transshipment, all sorts of systems. It’s surrounded by a mine field. Once Blake and Avon get there, however, they discover that Star One has been taken over by Aliens.
The Aliens are never named. They’re called the Andromedans, because the thinking is that they’re from the Andromedan Galaxy, or maybe just from that direction. They’re definitely not human in thought or inclination, and they’re out to wipe us out. We never learn what they call themselves, or anything else about their thoughts or motivations.
Even their appearance is mysterious. In their true form, they’re basically green jellyfish blobs, but are able to take or morph human forms to infiltrate and kill.
Now, there’s a bit of lore. Blake’s 7, was Terry Nation’s brainchild. It was the second of his three big hits: The Daleks, Blake’s 7, and Survivors.
So, there was apparently actually discussion in the BBC as to who or what the aliens that attack Star One was going to be. One of the ideas pitched was the Daleks. A move that would have decisively united the Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 Universes. For whatever reasons, they decided not to go for that. Well enough.
But here’s a thought… What if Chris Boucher, the writer, snuck something else in there….
Take a look at Chris Boucher. Not only was he one of the main writers for Blake’s 7, and the script Editor, but he had before then, also been writing for Doctor Who. He’d written the Face of Evil and Robots of Death and had created the character of Leela. He was a good friend of Robert Holmes, then the script editor of Doctor Who, and actually had three of his scripts accepted under Holmes. It was Holmes that recommended Boucher as script editor for Blake’s 7. And in a return of the favour, Boucher hired Holmes for four scripts for Blake’s 7, including two on the second season, for the Star One arc.
In fact, the Face of Evil and Robots of Death were back to back shows in 1977, followed by the Talons of Weng Chiang, Robert Holmes own story, and Terrance Dicks The Horror of Fang Rock, both of which featured Boucher’s creation, Leela. After that was The Invisible Enemy, and then another Boucher script, Image of the Fendahl. Given that these shows were in the same filming block as his own, he was probably very familiar with them.
So…. familiar with Horror of Fang Rock, solid friends with Bob Holmes….
Why am I dwelling on Horror of Fang Rock, you ask? Interesting question.
Let’s back it up a little. Bob Holmes created a few parts of the Doctor Who universe himself. Notably, he created the Sontarans and the Rutans. Now, the Sontarans we know every well – they had four and a half appearances in the classic series, four legitimate appearances in between the series, and have been a part of the new series under Tennant, Smith and Sarah Jane.
The Sontarans are engaged in a fierce life and death war with their enemies, the Rutans, or Rutan Host. But Holmes never actually wrote the Rutans himself.
Instead, Terrance Dicks wrote the defining Rutan story…. The Horror of Fang Rock. We assume that he got the Rutans right, and either expressed whatever Robert Holmes had in mind, or persuaded him, because Holmes was script editing the show.
So, what about these Rutans? Turns out, they’re green, jellyfish blobs, that can shift into human shape or take over human bodies, are entirely murderous, and have a space fleet with which they’re engaged in a ceaseless war with their enemy. The war goes back and forth, but they’re entirely willing to wipe out Earth – no affection for bystanders.
Hmmm…. amorphous green, shapeshifting jellyfish blobs with murder on their minds and spacefleets in their pockets.
Remind you of anything? The Aliens (race carefully left unnamed) in Star One?
Maybe Boucher pulled a subtle one on us all. Maybe the aliens at Star One were intended to be the Rutans of Doctor Who.
He’s the script editor for Blake’s 7, so he’s got a high degree of creative control and input. He’s writing the script. No one is looking over his shoulder. So what are the odds he accidentally made his Andromedans resemble the Rutans? Is it a complete coincidence?
Was it simply a matter of mechanics – Star One needed to be the flash point of an alien attack. Ergo, there needed to be aliens. That’s not hard.
If there were aliens… they needed to either be functionally human, monsters masquerade as humans, replace humans with simulations/robots, or control humans. One of those had to be the option. Boucher could have gone in all sorts of directions. But he picked a very specific direction – monsters masquerading as humans.
Then he had to pick another specific direction – what were the monsters going to look like? He picked green jellyfish. He could have picked anything. He could have selected some hideous rubber suited thing, or anything, rod puppets, glowy effects. Choosing an amorphous jellyfish green blob wasn’t necessarily even the most opportune choice from a storytelling point of view – better to use something that could growl, lunge, slash, scare, roar, and do all sorts of crazy stuff.
So … no, the Andromedans are not the inevitable product of story mechanics. Boucher had to exercise some creative choices to take them down the path he did.
To be able to discount completely the affinity between Andromedans and Rutans, you have to accept one of two things:
1) Chris Boucher never saw Horror of Fang Rock, never read the scripts, never watched the episodes, never discussed or heard it discussed with Robert Holmes, his good friend, or the writers he was hanging out with. Somehow, he was completely oblivious to and ignorant of it.
2) Chris Boucher completely forgot about the Rutans, the Horror of Fang Rock, all of it. It vanished from his mind. Disappeared completely. Faded into the gray mists. …. In less than two years. Just forgot all about it. One of Bob Holmes great creations, slipped his mind completely. I’ll point out again that Holmes wrote two episodes of that season, whose running arc was the search for Star One… So he would have probably discussed the plot with Holmes. But no… forgot about it.
Given Boucher’s involvement with Doctor Who in the season that the Horror of Fang Rock comes out … he’s writing shows before and after it, and his new character is the co-star in Horror, and he’s a damned good friend and owes a big favour to Bob Holmes…. It seems really unlikely that Chris Boucher would have been ignorant of or oblivious to the or forgotten about them Rutans. He had to know what they were and how they were portrayed. No chance of him being out of that loop.
It may have been a sly joke. Or even some level of overt choice that got quashed ‘ I can see Boucher going ‘We’ll call them Rutans.’ And budget office going ‘If you call them Rutans, we have to pay Bob Holmes a royalty, they’re fine the way they are… just don’t use the name.’
But I think that on some level, it was almost certainly deliberate.
Or maybe Murderous, Green Jellyfish, shapeshifting, aliens piloting around in genocidal warfleets is a common, generic sci fi thing.
What do you think?
Green and shape-shifting are two science fiction cliches.
Nicola Bryant appears in the latest episode of the web series Star Trek Continues.
At first I didn't recognize her, because here she's using her natural British accent.
"In Search Of" might be the best show of its kind. It was often imitated, but it was never duplicated. It stressed substance over style, and that became a foreign concept. It remains the gold standard of speculative series that deal with mysterious events and paranormal subjects.
And this relates how to Doctor Who?
Just that Tim's recommendation to watch it on you tube was a good idea.
How would the Doctor fare against Palpatine?
Which Doctor? The later 7th would have some overly-complicated cunning plan and the 3rd would be all, "Why it's my old chum, Palpy! How are you?"
;-)
Whereas if it was the Fourth, Palpy arcing him with Force lightening would be like that scene with Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars - which actual predates Force lightening!
Tom could trip him into the bottomless shaft using the scarf, Colin could 'accidentally' knock him in. McCoy could always use the Hand of Omega... or get Ace to hit him with her bat. Troughton could 'bung a rock at him'. Tennant or Jodie might set something up so that Palpatine's lightning backfires on him. Hartnell would probably have a single-adventure companion sacrifice themselves by grabbing Palps and leaping to their death.
Quite a few actors associated with Hammer Films appeared on Doctor Who: Patrick Troughton, Michael Gough, and Barbara Shelley come to mind here.
And, while he never appeared on Doctor Who proper, Peter Cushing played the alternate reality Doctor in the two movies. Mr. Cushing was well known for his Hammer roles of Victor Frankenstein and Van Helsing (plus a certain science fiction film made in 19770.
The only one missing from Who rosters is Christopher Lee.
It's quite appropriate that the most recent incarnation of the Master is now appearing in the latest TV adaptation of 'Sabrina, the Teenage Witch', given that previous versions of both are famous for hanging out with awesomely terrible animatronic cats.
The Silurians yields this exchange:
DOCTOR: You're not exactly a little Sherlock Holmes yourself, are you?
(The air conditioning goes quiet and the lights dim.)
DOCTOR: What the devil's that?
BRIGADIER: It's another power failure. Come on, Doctor Watson.
The synopsis of Super Ted suggests a particularly drug-induced revamp of Doctor Who:
A defective children's toy becomes animate and sapient when a spotted alien sprinkles him with magic powder, and then the alien takes him to Mother Nature, who turns him into a superhero. He then trots the globe with the alien in tow, fighting an evil cowboy whose minions are a dimwitted giant and a living skeleton.
quote:there is an excellent DVD set, The Quatermass Collection, that features all existing BBC episodes (The Pit is remastered and looks amazing). There were Hammer movie adaptations that weren't quite as good (a drunken, shouty American Quatermass being a notable feature in the first two, although the third is much better) and there was a four part serial in the late 70s with John Mills on top form as an ageing Quatermass, which was just called Quatermass in the UK and The Quatermass Conclusion in the US. It's a bit darker and more pessimistic than the others but still a great watch. Doesn't feature in that DVD set, though, because it wasn't made by the BBC. Definitely worth looking out for.
At least the Doctor isn't called upon for child-birthing as when people get Dr. Spock and Mr. Spock mixed up
I suspect the Doctor's child-birthing skills of waving his hands underneath a woman while looking extremely panicked - as demonstrated in Amy's Choice - would soon alert the morons to their mistake.
These days, the Doc could just keep out of the way and let Graham deal with it all. He watches Call the Midwife.
Jodie-Doctor: I wanted a natural birth with Chloe. Then about half way through I shouted to Graham "Give me all the drugs you got, you bastard!"
the Doctor wouldn't be happy about Bill and Ted "borrowing" people from various times and setting them loose in a modern-day mall!
Nor would anyone else.
Does Doctor Who really matter when it takes place in Tommy Westphall's dream?
Uh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall
The truth is, British sci-fi doesn’t need Captain Kirk - even a criminal, rebel version of Kirk - it needs The Doctor.
And yet, Captain Jack's sex drive seems like a parody of Kirk (okay, there's a bit of James Bond as well).
there's a bit of James Bond as well
The name's Harkness, Jack Harkness.
I'll take my martini shaken, not stirred!
Sean Connery turned 90 the other day.
Ha! Bet he isn't still being James Bond the way Tom Baker's still being the Doctor...
Irish actress Orla Brady played Tasha Lem in The Time Of The Doctor.
She's playing a Romulan woman, called Laris, in the current season of Star Trek: Picard.
Add Christina Chong to the list of those who have appeared in both Who and Trek.
Back in 2011, she played Lorna Bucket in A Good Man Goes To War.
She now plays La'an Noonien-Singh on the latest Trek show, Strange New Worlds (a Modern Trek show I actually like, believe it or not).