So I have this professor named John, and today he was telling us that his name is John, not Dr. John because he doesn't have a doctorate yet. Well, someone expressed concern that calling him by his first name was a little too informal for her, and so he sat there and thought for a bit, and then told us that since he does have a Master's Degree, we could call him Master.

Hey kids,

I'm currently in the process of preparing a worksheet for a GCSE Religious Studies lesson on views regarding Creationism & Evolution using episode 1 of Ghost Light¹. I don't suppose anyone with the time would mind looking over the questions/tasks I've come up with and letting me know if there's anything more obvious that I've missed?:

( Spoilers - if you live before 1989! )

Thanks!

E
x


¹ The evolutionary theme is more explicit in later episodes in the serial, but I want to show the first episode as it means I don't have to explain the background story!

I've just come back from my final GCSE Physics exam. I think it went OK. *fingers crossed*

This was one ot the questions on the paper:

Two students see a film in which people on a spaceship hear an explosion on another spaceship. The students think that this is not possible. What scientific evidence supports their opinion?

I just grinned when I saw it because, whenever they blow up a spaceship in Doctor Who, somebody always points out that you wouldn't be able to hear it go boom. So a combination a Doctor Who and you guys gave me the answer. It was only one mark but *meh*.

Sometimes it rocks to be in such a knowledgeable fandom!

So a couple weeks back I posted a topic requesting for information about Doctor Who. As I was writing an essay as my End Of Course project in my English class. So here's the final product, I hope that will entertain someone for a little while. :D


An essay in which I discovered that Ten is basically a miserable old sod with some serious personality issues, among other things.

As part of a class assignment, I’ve briefly detailed the roles of response to moral evil – victim, executioner, suicide, madness, spectator, and participant – and talked a little about how they pertain to the Doctor’s response to the Time War.

Mostly I’m looking for other peoples’ opinions on how the Doctor is dealing with genocide (both the Daleks’ and his own.) I’d love to hear any thoughts. Thanks!

Edit: Please post comments to the linked post over at my LJ. Again, thank you!

Hello all Doctor Who Fans,

I’m a second year Communication & Media Studies student and I currently have an assignment entitled ‘Film & Television and their Online Life’ and I’ve chosen the current incarnation of Doctor Who as my subject matter.

So what’s the relevance to you? I really need your help & input on the subject of Doctor Who & the series online presence/how it is re-presented online.  Under the cut are a series of 13 questions, there’s no limit on how brief or long your answers can be, or the amount of answers I require, but please know that I may quote you in my report.

Also included are some fairly random observations of my own to fulfil the ‘online participation’ requirement of the assignment, if you want to comment, respond, agree or dispute any of these (they basically follow the question structure), please feel free to do so!

Thank you so so much – any help is greatly appreciated!

 

p.s. I have sought mod approval before posting this, but if there’s a problem with it, let me know please.

p.p.s. This has been cross-posted to three Doctor Who communities, so I apologise if you see this more than once.

 

I loved the new episode and wondered if there was anyone else who watched it who used to study latin at school, and picked up on the wicked in-joke with Caecilius Quintus et al?

EDIT - for those enjoying reminiscing, I just found this on Google in the course of replying to a post:- http://drippinglatin.livejournal.com/

Did anyone other than me fall in love with the Cambridge Latin Course books and understand why I squeed my brains out at "Fires of Pompeii?"

Hello! I believe this is my first post here, but I was just procrastinating getting some real work done when I had the realization that there are many, many things that the tenth Doctor and Peter Pan have in common, what that means about the Doctor, and that it might imply something about events of the fourth series (slight spoilers if you haven't seen episode one). Without further ado:

Why Ten = Peter Pan (or why Johnno needs a life)

So I'm reading one of my Veterinary Assistant study guides and imagine my amusement when I come across a certain term...

( Well, if you don't know the name of the little fatty things, then I guess it's a spoiler... )

Second one down. ^^

Edit: Put it this way...now the term will be easy to remember (not that it isn't, but still).

After watching the entirely of the Whoverse in the last eight months I've decided that it needs a proper visualization and analysis. Luckily I have those tools at work. So I decided to plug in al the information into this program and start analyzing the Doctor's universe.

The first part is the connexions between various persons (The Doctor, the companions, and the recurring villians). These I have put up in a A Picasa web album for people to view. Below is a small example of how the ten Doctors are connected to all the companions. The Picasa pictures are much larger and easier to view.



But a project of this magnitude will be difficult without some help. And since I figure his is the best place to go to get good feedback, please indulge me.

And when I finish up with the data input part of the project I'll start running the analysis part which will give detailed analysis like (get ready for technical jargon) centrality degree, closeness, exclusivity, emergent leader, boundry spanners, simmelian ties, and, and, and... a whole bunch more.

The software I'm using is an ever-evolving, social networking tool used by various government agencies. I just happen to be privy to it as I work with the thing. So taking it for a test run on my favorite subject is a good thing, right? Besides - the entire help file is filled with examples of Stargate SG-1 on the Summit/Last Stand mission.

So please look at the initial screen shots and give me some feedback.

Questions:
1) Do I include the Children in Need special, Dimensions in Time as canon for the connexions? - I'm making this canon for the database...
2) Which Shada do I use. The one with Four and Romana 2 or the one with Eight and Romana 2?
ETA-1:
3) Should Mickey be listed as a companion in all the episodes he "actively" did something?
ETA-2:
4) This is a "weighted" system and I allot a value of one for each story characters interacted together. I think that in stories like "The Enpty Child/The Doctor Dances" are worth only "1" because it's only one story.
ETA-3:
5) Do I count the Shalka Doctor? And if so, what number do I use and where does he fit in?
ETA-4:
6) Does Jackie get special dispensation to be a part-time companion for Army of Ghosts/Doomsday?

Thanx in advance

I usually just lurk, but I spotted this article and just thought it was too interesting not to pass along:
The Big Question: Is time travel possible, and is there any chance that it will ever take place?

I find the last few comments to be particularly funny, because it's like they've been stolen right out of Doctor Who scripts.

* The practical problems with time travel are too immense to solve, and even if you could, who would want to?
HMMM. Let's see, we've got the ambitious scientists, the meglomaniacal leaders, the military, the bumbling idiots, etc.... Haven't they ever watched an episode of Doctor Who?

* You might travel back in time and kill one of your grandparents by accident. Then where would you be?
Quoth the Doctor: "You're not planning to (kill your own grandfather), are you?"

* If time travel is possible, why are we still waiting to welcome our first visitors from the future?
1. Who'd believe them?
2. Hello paradox.
3. My tinfoil hat says "they" wouldn't want us to know.
4. Yeah, let's think about this one. If someone went to pop back to WW2 to get a picture with Mussolini, dontcha think that *IF* they believed said time traveller, they'd instantly be taken prisoner and made to give up the goods. Yeesh.
5. Reality mocks art and they can't get their time machine to work either. XD

All that being said, we'd best keep an eye out for any salt granules from the future, eh?

Hey I'm a final year student at the University of Stirling, doing a dissertation on Doctor Who and fandom and wondering if you can help me at all? My dissertation focuses on how the internet has revolutionalised fandom, and is being set against the programme. For this reason Iw as wondering if anyone could spare some time to message me/ comment this post? I would like to do some email interviews to back up my arguements and would be great if any of you were willing to participate. Terms of participation etc will of course be discussed at your discretion.


Thankyou!!!!

*01/02/08) Thanks for so many replies!!! I really appreciate it. Just removing comments for the sake of your own email addresses being online! Have copied them all down and will be in touch soon. If anyone else wants to participate the offer is still open!

Hello everyone! I'm currently studying Popular Literature, and as part of that I'm writing an essay where I'm comparing Doctor Who het romance fanfiction to romance novels. As part of my essay I've made a poll, and it would be a great help to me if you'd answer it – it'll only take about a minute or so. Thanks! :~)

(The poll)

X-posted everywhere. (Sorry!)

Greetings!

My name is Melissa Beattie, and I'm the chairperson of a committee organising a postgraduate academic conference for all the series in the Whoniverse; that is to say, Doctor Who (both Classic and the Revival), Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, PROBE and K-9 and Company. We're tentatively planning to hold the conference at Cardiff University late next Octover or November, in anticipation of the 45th anniversary of Doctor Who.

At the moment, we are trying to both gauge interest and also to promote the idea. To that end, we have created an official community on LJ for news and information: http://community.livejournal.com/whoniverse_conf/ . This site currently has a more detailed breakdown of the concept for our conference. We are hoping for feedback and comments, and are happy to take questions, though an official call for papers will come out early next year.

In addition to this, we are also posting on LJ comms, newsgroups and blogs to try and get the word out. We are engaged in attempts to contact both the BBC and the various production teams for Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, but have so far met with little success.

We are asking that anyone who is interested in this project, and feels it is worthy of promotion, to please help us. Please link to our community, mention it on other comms and blogs, and discuss it at Cons. Feel free to link to this post, or copy it onto other comms.

We would appreciate any help you might be able to give. All of us on the committee are ardent fans of these series, and we all know how powerful fandom can be when it comes across a good idea. I'm hoping that, with your help, we can make this academic conference a worthwhile experience.

Thank you very much,
Melissa Beattie, Ph.D candidate
School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University

Hello all.

I'm currently taking a class called Television Criticism (very fun class, by the by) and I have to write an analysis on a text (read: television series) of my choosing.  As you may have guessed, I've chosen to write about Doctor Who.  My general argument/thesis statement is "humans as aliens," and a large chunk of my argument hinges on "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood," though I am not necessarily focusing exclusively on that.  Specifically, I'm focusing on how we humans must seem through the Doctor's eyes and why he seems to like us so much, and the delicious irony that comes with the Doctor himself becoming human.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good scholarly articles about the series in general that are online, or can be with the help of a scanner and/or transcription.  I will admit that I am more familiar with new Who, but I'm not picky and I catch on pretty quick.  The paper is due Thursday, but it is neither required to be long nor full of citations.  I'd especially like any articles on the impact of the series on the British identity/imagination/culture, etc., because I have to discuss the series' intended audience.

I've got a couple leads, but I thought I'd ask just in case there's something I'm not finding that would be of help to me.  Thanks in advance!  And, of course, I'll post the finished paper if anyone's interested.

I've a pal who wants to do a study on how biology relates to identity, and he wants to centre it on our lovable Doctor(s). He seems to be interested in how the Doctor remains essentially the same Time Lord despite changing his body personality with each regeneration. It's a topic that has me piqued too. Are there any published works that study the philosophy of Who?

Rose, it's me! It's - honestly, it's me! I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body - every single cell, but... still me.

I'm taking a class right now called "Utopias, Dystopias and Other Related Places and Spaces," otherwise known as "the SciFi class."  It's awesome and fantastic, but one of the best parts is that I get to write a critical essay about dystopia and the influence of the individual in Doctor Who!  Hurrah!  (The essay's not due until November, but with a topic like this, I don't want to wait that long!)

That being said, I need a little help.  I'm going to focus my essay on the outsider's role in a utopia or dystopia, and use the Doctor and his involvement to show how the role plays out.  However, I've decided to restrict myself to the main body of work, the TV series, just to keep things focused.  But that means that I can't use those lovely McGann audioplays that I wanted to (rabbits!), which is too, too bad.

So!  This is where I need your help.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen that many Classic Who episodes, but I'd like another example from that era.  I already picked "The Happiness Patrol," because that's a prime example of a utopia-gone-horribly-wrong, and I was thinking of using "Gridlock," but a lot of the elements in that episode rely on coincidence, so I might not.  I was also wondering if one of the Gallifrey episodes could work as showing a "utopic" society that isn't as perfect as it thinks it is, but I haven't seen any yet.  Apart from that, I am a blank slate.

What episodes, Classic or Nu, would you suggest that demonstrate a utopic (seemingly perfect and orderly with no social evils) or dystopic (totalitarian government that oppresses and exploits its citizens) society?

Hi everyone, my name's Adam and I'm currently writing both of my university theses (one for my English major, the other for my Film Studies major) of the new Doctor Who series, and I'm looking for all the books and articles concerning the show I can accumulate for analysis and criticism and all that. Because there's nothing of the sort available in this country about Doctor Who, I would like to ask for your help in selecting the books I will have to order from abroad, because to have books brought here is expensive so I have to be picky, and many books don't have many reviews so I don't know how good they are. Every little bit of help is appreciated.

( Fake cut to the list of books I would like to hear your opinion about )

Thanks in advance to everyone!

I have something of a strange request.

I'm doing a presentation on synthetic biology for my molecular bio class this Thursday. The presentation's at nine in the morning, everyone's going to be in stupor, and I thought I'd liven my presentation up a bit. I figured, Hey synthetic biology sounds like scifi, let's put in a scifi clip at the beginning of the presentation as a sort of introduction to synthetic biology. I've already asked some of my Trekkie friends for help, but I'm curious to see if there's anything in Doctor Who.

So my question is: Is there anything in Doctor Who that deals with or discusses synthetic biology, defined as:

"The design and build biological parts, devices, and integrated biological systems." Basically, building organisms or biological systems from scratch, from basic chemical components, adn these can be pre-existing organisms or systems. This isn't like genetic engineering, where existing DNA is altered (think Human-Dalek hybrids).

Is there anything in Doctor Who relating to this? If there is, could you direct me to a YouTube link of the clip? Thanks guys!

--j

Every year Aberdeen University's Student Charities Campaign has a parade through the city centre. I was organising and on the Doctor Who themed float this year and I just thought you might like to have a look at our efforts which are Over at my Journal.

Yes, hello, I'm the nerd that's doing her philosophy/ethics coursework on Doctor Who. (I know, I still haven't finished it).

I need your help again - I'm not overly familiar with Old School Doctor Who but I've heard there's an episode or two where the devil is mentioned/portrayed. Can anyone give me a brief outline of which episode/s this occurs in and what happens? Are they most closely related to the Christian version of the devil like in "The Satan Pit" or are they completely different?

Thanks a bunch guys!

I forgot to mention this stuff in my Shakespeare Code post.

( Spoilers )

Got linked to this earlier, and thought I ought to share it, because it is very possibly my all time favourite newspaper article written about Doctor Who.

(Note: has spoilers for something revealed at the press screening)

The Telegraph on the inherant tragedy of the Doctor

I thought it was just an utterly gorgeous piece of character analysis - and this in an actual paper, rather than just floating around online.

An Unearthly Child began / In nineteen sixty-three / (which was rather early for me) / Between a death in the Kennedy clan / And the end of TW3.

Don't mind me, I'm just larkin' about. Some linkage for you:

• One of the inhabitants of the TARDIS Rebuilders forum has built a rather impressive MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) console inside a TARDIS.
  
  
• In the interests of equipping the next generation for their adult lives, Red Scharlach's devised a new syllabus: Fandom Studies.
  
  
• It's come to my attention that one of Virgin Trains' Class 221 Super Voyager Diesel Units is named Doctor Who. I can't tell you how heartening it is to know Virgin and DW remain linked via an endeavour of excellence almost approaching that of the NAs.
  
  
• Oh, and to finish, an actual news story -- one of the fourth Doctor's outfits has been sold for £24,600 at Bonhams. There wasn't quite as much demand for the seventh Doctor's, which went for a mere £1000 before premium and tax, a little behind Weng Chiang's robe (or as Bonhams spells it, 'Weng Chainag').

Sunday's Bodlines:

• Ebay's Matrimonial services: $1.93 will get you a keyring emblazoned with 'Mrs David Tennant'. To think such things exist. (And to think someone from here might buy -- thehornedgod, probably.)
  
  
• 'Through the brickwork he sounded like he was just saying "Hugo Hugo Hugo".': Paul Cornell continues his report from Gallifrey 2007.
  
  
• BSc Who: student does dissertation on lupine wavelength haemovariforms. Sort of.
  
  
• How to speak Worzelese: the mighty Pert sings.
  
  
• Man who thinks he's a car: gammal YouTube of Sylv's days on Tiswas.

Earlier this week, people who read OG News will have learnt that some madman wants to name a Cardiff shopping centre after Torchwood, bringing to mind various other places that look as if their appellations were inspired by some aspect of the Whoniverse₁ (cf. Padbury, Bernice, Elishaw, Drax, Sarn, Kemble and Hanging Langford₂). Well, I say 'some madman' but I can't exactly claim to be innocent of geeky tendencies in such matters; I am, after all, the reason there have been dogs called Cally (Blake's 7) and Ben Grimm, and cats named Spike, Merry & Pippin, and Mrs Miggins. Moreover, I recall a Usenet acquaintance called his cat Oscar Telos, and even set up a web page to celebrate the fact.

So, I was wondering: has anyone else in this community allowed their Whovian/fannish tendencies to influence the naming of something? It needn't be a pet -- it could be a car, laptop, anything. (In fact, if anyone's named their kid after a companion, they probably should win a prize; I'm sure thehornedgod has some spare cash for such.)

[Edit: I've just been reminded of the University of Edinburgh's Tardis Project, a student-run lab set up to give informatics spods hands on experience of administering various computing services. And of course, it was most remiss of me not to mention Prof Morgan's Nitro9 web o'links.]

[Edit2: And it's vespurrs for the win. Scroll down to see why.]


[1] My apologies for this. 'Twas either this or the 'Who franchise', and I judged the latter to be an even greater crime against the English language. (Though I seem to have used 'Whovian' as well. Tsk.)

[2] On a tangential note, a former tutor of mine used to trot out the same giant spiders joke each time he taught Metabelian groups. He wasn't half put out when I pointed out there's no 'a' in Metebelis.

...while doing searches of the academic literature.

I was going through academic journal databases tonight, looking for articles to support my research proposal, and I stumbled across this. Unfortunately I couldn't use it for my research, but I had to share!

Gregg, Peter B. (2004) "England Looks to the Future: The Cultural Forum Model and Doctor Who." Journal of Popular Culture, 37(4) 648-661

This article focuses on The Ark in Space, a four-part television serial created by producer Philip Hinchcliffe script editor Robert Holmes, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor. Borrowing from Newcomb and Hirsch's cultural forum model of television rhetoric. Newcomb and Hirsch argue that a cultural focus as basis for the analysis and criticism of television is the bridge between a concern for television as a communications medium, central to contemporary society, and television as an aesthetic object, the expressive medium that unites and examines a culture. When viewing a television show as a cultural forum, the historical and cultural context plays an essential role. The future as demonstrated by The Ark in Space has room for British culture, a fear probably arising from England's European Union entrance. Instead of American or continental voices, all characters, including the future prime minister of the planet, have an English accent. The narrative allows a viewer to imagine that no matter how difficult the situation in the present, the English way can still survive if it can develop unfettered by outside, un-British, or alien forces. The key differences between The Ark in Space and other shows of the science fiction genre help to make it more successful than the competing discourses. The Ark in Space willingly uses humor to defuse dramatic situations, unlike Space: 1999 or Star Trek. The cultural forum model illuminates The Ark in Space as a text rich in meaning deriving from and responding to the needs of its viewers.


Academic geekery. Hee!

After a breif exchange in reponse to my last post I thought I'd make some statment as to what DW means to me. Although, of course, I did this a few years ago in the brochure for Panopticon 40. But still, some of you weren't into all this then, and anyway - that was in the last days of The Interegnum.

I'd would say that RTD has maintained the ethos I trace running through DW from day one. I take issues with certain matters of execution, most notably in the last two weeks. Here I repost (for it was posted here a couple of years ago) and invite your take on it all - do you see this broad liberal* agenda as articulated for popular consumption?

And remember - when this was first drafted the plans of wicked Uncle RTD hadn't been announced, although we all knew about them by the time it was published. But it saw only mild rewrites during that time.

(Oh - not sure this is the version as finally published, but it'll be close)

*Note for American chums - when I say "Liberal" I mean liberal. This has nothing to do with the way you have bastardised the meaning of the word into something derogatory. For which, incidently, you ought by rights to hang your heads in shame for all eternity.

( <B )

Ooh - look! A can of worms!!

Let's open it!

( <B>The Power of Memory</B> )