Who Stuff

[major_clanger]

A couple of thoughts on Dr Who in a short break from my currently rather busy and stressful life.

Last night's episode looked very much like the end of UNIT, or at least the Doctor's relationship with it. It was suggested that most of its key staff were killed by the Slitheen and that the virus that the Doctor gave Mickey will expunge all records of him. If UNIT does reconstitute itself, it will be without any knowledge of the Doctor.

Are the writers trying to close a door that was opened with the introduction of UNIT in 1970 or so? I can see that after a while it becomes hard to set any story on Earth in the remotely current era without having to either bring UNIT into the picture or explain their absence. It felt a bit to me as if we were being told 'that era of Dr Who is behind us' and that the show is moving on to being based much more around the Doctor as an individual. We've already been told (although not told how or why) that he is now the last Time Lord; there is no help coming to him from Gallifrey, and now none from UNIT. In fact, it feels very like the show is being rebooted back to the Hartnell or Troughton era, with the Doctor as a solitary agent answerable only to himself.

On a separate point, I wonder if that was a conscious nod to the new Battlestar Galactica when our feisty back-bencher asserted her position as senior surviving elected representative? Incidentally, I wonder what party she was meant to be from? She came across as awfully Home Counties Tory to me...

Utter Nit-Pick: UGM-84A is the Harpoon anti-ship missile (and an old version at that). Too short a range to reach London from Western end of the Channel, and not capable of homing in on a precision land target. Now, there is a version that can - SLAM, the Stand-off Land Attack Missile - but that's the AGM-84E, and there isn't so far as I know a sub-launched version. Since the RN does have Tomahawk, which is designed for the sort of mission shown, why not use that? Hmm, perhaps I could volunteer as the series military adviser. Or not, if my theory above is correct...

MC

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Have you see the U.N.I.T website?

I think analysing that episode is of little use, as SO much procedural stuff was wrong. Giving the Nuclear access codes to the UN for example!

[pmcray.livejournal.com]

I thought the first part was the best episode of the series so far. But the second half was a let down. Why not use a Tomahawk? Why does the UN have the codes for Britain's *independent* nuclear deterrent? But it I was 7, I'd have enjoyed it just for the farting I suppose (of course, in the 1970s, fart would have been considered as obscene as another four letter word in the Cray household). I do think RTD could have done something that was a *bit* more credible though in military terms.

The Doctor is the last of the Time Lords in the books after Gallifrey is destroyed, so the series does carry on with their continuity.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Indeed - how did the UN get that control away from the US... ;)

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

There have been reports in fairly respectable newspapers that Trident isn't indepedent: it needs US approval for launch.

[pmcray.livejournal.com]

Do you have any information about this? I've always understood (with respect to "The Archers" scenario) that the Captain and second-in-command can launch the missiles of their own volition if necessary. This might no longer be the case given that the state of readiness of the nuclear forces is supposed to lower than it was in the Cold War in order to reduce the risk of some kind of accident. It might be that as a double check, the UK has to obtain codes from the US. The US after all maintain the missiles and, presumably, much of the launch system at Kings Bay in Georgia. The warheads are manufactured in the UK although probably to a US design.

The UK "independent" nuclear deterrent has always merely been an adjunct to the three prongs of the the US strategic deterrent. It puts another boat in the North Atlantic increasing the number of boats in the Atlantic from three to four. These numbers would have been roughly doubled had the Vanguard-class boats gone into service during the Cold War as they were designed to spend half of their 25 year lifespan at sea. If we were going to have a nuclear deterrent, we should at least have had a truly independent one like the French. It would have helped our rocket industry.

[flick.livejournal.com]

(Broken link, btw: you need to include the http://, else it goes all odd.)

[drplokta]

By your failure to pick another nit, are you sugesting that it is in fact possible to hack into the launch systems on a Royal Navy submarine over the Internet using only a single password (which is an English word), and launch missiles with no manual intervention from any of the submarine's crew?

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Bugger, you weren't supposed to know that...

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

In story-telling terms it's a quick-and-easy solution.

What might be more plausible would be, with access to the Protocols and the hardened communication links that ought to be in a bomb-shelter Cabinet Room, giving the correct orders, with authorising codewords, to the submarine's captain. It would take longer, but I just can't see a nuclear boat having a live internet connection.

But how many of those people were UNIT? We know one was, but they seemed to come from a variety of outfits.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

She's likely Labour, from the "not one of the babes" line last week. Upper middle class Old Labour IMO; a rare breed these days :)

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

She could be Plaid Cymru!

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

"Flydale North" doesn't sound Welsh...

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I was wondering why that missile went from Plymouth to London by way of the White Cliffs of Dover (or thereabouts). Wouldn't cross-country have been more direct?

Also, don't you need to aim those things?

That UNIT site is fun, though. I seem to have just wiped out Western Civilisation.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

The Galactica comparison occurred to me too...

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

But would RTD have been able to draw on anything from the new Battlestar Galactica, given that it would have been in production at about the same time as this series of Dr Who?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

The scene in question was in the 2003 mini-series that introduced New BG, so presumably yes.

Having been loaned the mini-series I've now bought the DVD of series 1. More substantial review and comments to follow once we've seen more, but so far I think it's fantastic but that it does risk forgetting that it's sf amidst all the remorseless grim realism.

MC