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Doctor Who, Space Opera, Star Trek: Picard

Evocative Nostalgia

By NeilA

I just discovered that one of my 90s friends has passed. Lucy Zinkiewicz (1968-2018) was an incredible force in Australian science fiction fandom. I had the privilege of sharing a few events with her. (Trivia: We also share the acknowledgements page in the Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide.) There seemed to be nothing she couldn’t do, and she set an amazing example for up-and-coming fans on how to participate in conventions, panels and how to make any fan experience worthwhile. She will be greatly missed.

A post could never really do justice in honouring anyone. Nothing less than an in-person speech and a statue would be close to being acceptable. So, with that in mind, I’m dedicating this quite humble post to her, focusing on one of Lucy’s interests – psychology.

So, let’s talk about nostalgia. If you’re a writer, and you’re lucky enough to be able to write something for a long running series, absolutely include as much canon tweaking and nostalgia firing that you can.

In 2017, Doctor Who released the generally average story The Empress of Mars. But, BUT, right near the end, there was an unbelievable nostalgic reference that had me gasping in shock, all my hair on end, even in places I’d forgotten it existed, crying with disbelief. A character from the show in the 70s reappeared filling in a history gap that only classic fans like myself would be aware of. This had me rocketing Empress of Mars from a mundane, just another Ice Warrior story, to the gold annals of space opera in my book. Not only did it feature Alpha Centauri, the producers also got the original actress back, at the age of 91, to voice the character again. I recognised her instantly. To go to that much trouble for fans, for the voice actress to still be alive, for the writer to actually add that missing page to the future history books – I think I went to another dimension for a moment. Certainly, I finally knew what hyperventilating felt like.

Some backstory for those who’ve only ever watched widescreen Doctor Who. In the Seeds of Death, (1969) the Ice Warriors were ‘evil.’ In the Curse of Peladon, (1972), the Ice Warriors were ‘good’. What the hell happened in between?! The Empress of Mars, in 2017, answered that question. For new fans it was a non event. For classic fans it was the WTF moment of the century. Ysanne Churchman returned to Doctor Who to reprise her role as Alpha Centuari and invite the Ice Warriors into the Galactic Federation. In 2020 Churchman is 95. Wouldn’t it be awesome if she could return again? Still, that return was such a mind blowing, unexpected moment, it would be hard to top it.

If you’re a writer on a long running TV show, you just have to bring back old characters for the fans. It is such a unique psychological shock that can only be done in long running series. It’s like Bones McCoy appearing on Star Trek: The Next Generation, or Yoda appearing in the Mandalorian. It is such a legendary thing to do. Even better if you can do it without anyone knowing before the screening. Getting John Simm to reprise his role as the Master in Doctor Who when the series already had a new Master was a stroke of genius. Bringing Nicholas Courtney back as the Brigadier in the Sarah Jane Adventures served the fans of Doctor Who on a less intensive show while protecting Courtney’s health. If the producers had known his time was limited, I’m sure they would have written him into the main series asap. Having Captain Jack Harkness played by John Barrowman suddenly appear in an episode of Doctor Who in 2019 when he hadn’t been in Doctor Who since 2010 is trading on new fan nostalgia. Probably not hyperventilation level but close.

Why do we react to this familiarity? If enemies reappear like the Cybermen in Doctor Who or the Borg in Star Trek, there’s that frission of recognition, and a seratonin hit that adds pleasure to the viewing, keeping you watching. But if an old character reappears, like Scotty in ST:TNG Relics in 1992, there’s that emotional connection, too. A character you might have grown up with, or connected with in some way, played even better by the original actor, now older and wiser, directed by even more respectful directors. It’s why multi Doctor stories in Doctor Who are so good. (I think I’ve watched the 50th anniversary Doctor Who episode 20 times now, and cried every time.) Star Trek: Picard was awesome in bringing back Data, Seven of Nine, Riker and Troi, and I’m so looking forward to seeing Guinan next year, but the series was really about giving Jean Luc Picard a completely new, away from ST: TNG, series. In this sense it didn’t have the frission that additional episodes of ST: TNG might have. Even so, it was an amazing series and just having Patrick Stewart back as Picard was amazing for me.

Which brings me to my main point. Star Trek: Lower Decks is a naff, poorly executed, ribbing of Star Trek fans that should absolutely be denigrated and hated on and I’m calling for it to be cancelled forthw…. What, they referenced a ‘bird of the galaxy’? No, wait, John deLancey reprised his role as Q? What, Riker and Troi are played by Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis? Oh, my God, it’s actually good???

I almost hyperventilated when Riker said “I’m sorry I’m late. I was watching the first Enterprise on the Holodeck.” For those who watched the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, you know what I’m talking about. Lower Decks is so for the fans that pointing at the screen in recognition is probably de rigueur.

Star Trek: Lower Decks – I’m now a huge fan. Hit me with some more Gorn! Looking forward to the next season.

This post is dedicated to the late and great Lucy Zinkiewicz who loved science fiction in all its forms, and introduced me to Monty Python, amongst other things. R.I.P.

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Avenue 5, Doctor Who, Rant, Science Fiction News, Science Fiction Weekly, Star Trek: Picard

Updates

By NeilA

So, I’ve taken a break from Science Fiction Weekly for awhile. This weekend was spent working on both Fantasy Short Stories Book Four and Alien Dimensions #19, as well as a short story that has been running around in my head for awhile. I’ll make a separate post for it soon.

Yes, finally back to writing. It feels great! But a bit difficult to keep ploughing on with it when there’re bushfires, flooding, a coronavirus, and other personal issues happening.

For those freaking out about the coronavirus, just to put things in perspective, Malaria kills half a million people every year. If we’re talking diseases generally, 10 million people die from heart attacks every year. Almost 100,000 people die from the flu just in the USA every year. With 327 million people, that’s about 0.0003%. Extrapolating that, at least 2 million people die of the flu every year on the planet. Probably a lot more than that in less healthy areas. That’s on top of all the other diseases. So, unless we start getting figures of the coronavirus killing more than 2 million people a year, it isn’t worthy of the panic and stress and racism that it seems to be creating. (Update July 2020. At 600,000 deaths worldwide, 6 months later. So, it’s overtaken malaria, and the USA’s COVID-19 death toll has exceeded its usual flu death toll. Thanks to health care professionals world wide, it could have been a lot worse. Having said that, this has now been confirmed to be a bit stronger than your average flu, targeting anyone with poor health, smoking or vaping, or living in a highly polluted area. Still, you’re more likely to die in a car crash. The average is 1.35 million deaths a year.)

We just need to be alert, not alarmed.

For those of us who’ve heard this all before, this is just another SARS / Bird Flu / Swine Flu / media advertising revenue generator. Exercise, eat healthily (Mediterranean diet?), stay positive, and if you get it and you don’t have any other underlying health conditions, (and you’re in a first world country with access to a good health system if you do), it’ll just be another flu for you.

Of course, if you get any kind of symptoms that could be related to the coronavirus you should get medical advice from a trained professional! Don’t trust the ramblings of a depressed science fiction writer!

I’m getting out of my slump thanks to Doctor Who, Avenue 5 and Star Trek: Picard. How wonderful that 2020 is going to be the golden year for science fiction streaming. Loved the spy eps, Tesla ep, and the black Doctor ep of Doctor Who, the satire of Avenue 5, and the heartbreaking nostalgia of Star Trek: Picard. Definitely looking forward to all the shows coming out this year. (July update. Wow. So much for that idea. Many shows and movies have been delayed.)

Not sure if everyone is going to get Avenue 5’s humour though. One of my favourite scenes:

Mia: “What are you so happy about?”
Matt: “I’m a nihilist”
Mia: “No you’re not.”
Matt: “Whatever!”
Mia: “Oh my God.”

Improves with repeated viewing.

In any case, there’s been some great writing in these series and I can see some Hugo nominations happening in early 2021, if everyone remembers!

In other news, I’ve come to the painful conclusion that I’ll have to delay writing the Robots of Atlantis for a while. I might have time to do a bit more of it in May with the plan to finish it by October. We’ll see.

Update July 2020 – Due to the COVID-19 situation having got a lot worse than most were expecting in January, and my city being under lockdown for months, I haven’t had any chance to focus on the book, what with worrying about where my income is going to come from, and being in a one bedroom apartment with my family 24/7. Lucky we’re introverts, but not being able to go to a cafe and have a couple of hours every day in silence to write has meant there’s been no progress on the Robots of Atlantis since February.

I’m really sorry to let everyone down about this. I’ll just have to delay it until 2021.

I hope you’re all safe and well, and hope the rest of the year will be better for you.

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Doctor Who, Science Fiction Ebooks, Science Fiction Weekly, SF Books, Short Science Fiction Stories, Short SF Stories

Tutor Who Heaven Cent. Science Fiction Weekly #30

By NeilA

On the  28th November 2015, the BBC broadcast an episode of Doctor Who called Heaven Sent, starring Peter Capaldi. It was a very different kind of Doctor Who story in that it was almost completely carried by Capaldi, apart from a wraith-like creature that silently chased him the entire episode. Not only was it a mystery, a horror, a convoluted time conundrum tied up in a shifting puzzle box maze, it was well shot, well executed with amazing detail that kept you not only guessing while watching it, but rewatching it in your head long after the episode had finished.

So taken with this story, I not only watched it about twenty times, (on ABC iView, among other places), but I also wrote a short story as a homage to it about the underlying cycles across time that we sometimes end up in. I released this in issue two of Alien Dimensions in November 2016. I don’t know whether it was this story, or simply a coincidence of timing, but that issue shot to the bestseller list on Amazon for two weeks.

But I didn’t want to stop there.

Once the creative bug had been born, I wanted to do other things in relation to Heaven Sent, so I then downloaded and rewrote Stephen Moffat’s script and put together a short video starring myself, emulating as much as I could. I also hired Genelyn Javier, who did many of the illustrations for my Alien Characters series, to create an animated theme tune and a wraith-like image for my character to run away from. It’s called Tutor Who Heaven Cent, and you can watch it online here:

For the full effect, you should watch Doctor Who: Heaven Sent first before watching my embarrassing fan video.

When watching Tutor Who Heaven Cent, please use headphones and have your hand on the sound control. As it took me two years to make, each time I added a scene in Movie Maker I had trouble getting the previous sound levels to match, so apologies in advance.

In 2019, I reviewed the written Tutor Who Heaven Cent story and realized that an almost completely new story was needed. One based on the video. The new version is now available from Amazon, and closely follows my script, the final video being a cut down version.

If you’d like to read the original version, you can find it in the Alien Dimensions Boxed Set

And, if you’re a Doctor Who fan, then I challenge you to find over 37 Easter eggs that I wove into the video, and over 50 that I included in the new written version.

Many thanks for your interest.

Neil A. Hogan

23rd November 2019

Doctor Who’s 56th anniversary