Okay, so, with your help, I totally derailed this thread with talk of major events in Doctor Who history. It seems some nutters among you want more of the same, so I'm clearly going to need some more help. This time, in a thread reserved for the purpose!

This is what I've got so far.






As you can see, I've been riffing on other people's questions and ideas, so if you want more answers, I need more questions!

I've got a few questions of my own, for those of you more knowledgeable about Shadowrun history than I am, to give me some framework.

1) I assume that the BBC is run by one of the megacorps now. Is there a canon answer to "which megacorp owns the BBC, and as of when?" If not, best guesses?

2) The trid. When did it replace regular TV? Knowledge or best guess?

I'm working tonight, but my relative weekend starts after that, and I'll do some writing then. Until then, FEED ME!

EDIT: To clarify, I'm going to avoid making a whole lot of direct mention of the canon of the show itself, looking primarily at casting and production, and related implications.

1: The BBC might still be working for the Crown.

2: No idea is given, I think.

"You're talking about that American show about the alien mage from outer space cybered by Ares who fights robots with his sonic gun? Do yourself a favor and watch the anime it's based on. Much better."

If Dr Who still exists in 2070 that's what I expect it to be.

Likely, but unsatisfying to us fans. We like to think that something with as much inertia as Doctor Who has will continue on for the next sixty years.

This is what I managed to tap out tonight. Criticism? Comments? Happy thoughts?



To date, the BBC remains independent of corporate ownership. This has a number of influences on the Doctor Who series. First and foremost, of course, is the budget. Doctor Who has been relatively low-budget for a lot of its history, but the transition to 3D and the associated production costs really stretched the budget.

One of the things the BBC has done to bring in more revenue to cover costs is aggressive product placement. You see this a lot on the trid anyway, but Doctor Who pioneered certain approaches, and is famous for including products and logos in creative ways without disrupting the viewing experience. It’s often easy to tell when a major clothing brand is releasing new lines based on historical or cultural themes, for instance – there’s often an episode of Doctor Who set in an appropriate time and place, and the Doctor and his Companion are always dressed terribly well, and a number of the extras look suspiciously like runway models.

What this means, of course, is that the BBC has to be very careful of the themes that it explores, because today’s ideological stance might offend tomorrow’s sponsor. To make matters worse, there’s always the prospect of legal trouble, clever financial attacks, or punitive shadowruns that the BBC really lacks the resources to address. Therefore, you won’t find any generally anti-corp themes, and care is taken to avoid stepping on any megacorp’s toes directly.

That doesn’t mean, though, that the creators are in lockstep with the megacorps. There are certain differences in approach that tweak the collective nose of the rest of the entertainment industry. The Doctor Who approach to casting, by industry standards, shouldn’t work. The BBC prefers a natural look. While everyone else is focused on artificially idealized actors that all look vaguely like each other, the Doctor Who casting team has a policy of recruiting people with unique, natural features. Not a month goes by that some celeb or “news” source from another company doesn't remind us of the “ugly” people Doctor Who hires, but the audience loves it.

Not that the main Doctor Who cast is ever actually ugly. The fashion portion of the product placement revenue guarantees that. Sometimes the actor playing the Doctor is slim, sometimes muscular, but always tall and popular with the ladies. The Companions usually alternate, from pretty-and-wholesome-looking to pretty-and-edgy and back again.

For example, there’s the current Companion, played by Victoria Long. She’s a tall, blonde human with green eyes, fitting the ages-old stereotype of sidekick to the action movie style Doctor of James Andrews. The writing staff seems split on whether she should be the helpless, incompetent type constantly in need of rescue, or the plucky adventurer sidekick, and which one she is in a given episode varies by the specific writer. The fans didn’t like her at all. The actress, though, managed to do the impossible at a recent convention – she made jokes about her character’s inconsistency, funny and witty enough that she won the fans over, but not nasty enough to alienate the writers. Her character will be leaving the show in two more episodes, but she’s managed to secure a lot of popularity for herself.

Her replacement has already been cast, a twenty-year-old human by the name of Tanica Boot. She’s of spectacularly mixed heritage. Not much Native American to her, though she might convince you otherwise without saying a word – she’s covered in tribal tattoos and ornamentation, an updated look of the fashions of yesteryear. The only obvious ‘ware is an ornamented datajack behind her left ear. It looks like they’re definitely going action-heavy with this one, because rumor has that the character is going to be – get this – a shadowrunner. Might we hope for a serious, credible treatment of the subject? Early behind-the-scenes reports describe a lot of outdated slang and references to some of the more, ah, “cinematic” interpretations of the profession. So, no.

Fitting in when she travels to the past won’t be a problem, of course, because years ago the TARDIS gained the ability to make people ignore little things like a time-travelling elf or dwarf, or obvious cyberware in situations where such things are unknown. Body art, obviously, is even easier.

Of particular interest to some is Boot’s character’s relationship with her godfather, a troll mechanic and chop shop operator, presented as a sympathetic character. Doctor Who isn’t terribly popular with the Humanis Policlub crowd. One of the issues addressed most frequently in the show is metahuman rights, which it has been firmly supporting for decades. The one instance of the Doctor not being a human wasn’t received well, but the Companion being an elf isn’t uncommon any more, and on a few occasions, she’s been a dwarf. Orks and trolls are less well represented in the central cast, but they’re common in the supporting roles, almost always sympathetic and interesting. There have even been episodes centered on intelligent ghouls as tragic figures, but the fans don’t seem ready to embrace the rights-for-undead sentiment, and the producers aren’t pushing.

Speaking of casting and things the fans won’t accept, the casting of the Doctor is a sensitive issue. The ork Doctor, played by Victor Appleton, was an uncharacteristically bold move. The Doctor is usually British. Over the years, the fans have even bowed to the inevitable and accepted actors from the UCAS, CFS, even one from the CAS ended up winning everyone over… but when an actor from Brisbane was suggested for the role in ‘46, there was a literal riot in London.

I just have to jump in and say:

Have you ever actually watched the 1960s stuff? The TARDIS has been doing that for decades.

Marco Polo (left), Susan, the Doctor, and Ian (right, wearing a flannel shirt).

At this point in the series, this function of the TARDIS is explicit, instead of seeming to be a result of simple laziness in wardrobe.

There's a lot of stuff the TARDIS does that people don't realize.

And once in a while, they're reference it.

He is a Centaur:
http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Whooves

I could correct it, but honestly, the ability hasn't been mentioned in a number of years, and I'm not acting as an omniscient narrator. The ability was present in the early days, but had been forgotten, but now it's been regained. If somebody adds this to their personal wikis, like the previous material, feel free to add a correction via Shadowtalk.



I didn't know of this, and I'm not sure why.

Fair enough



I didn't either. And in some respect, I'm ok with that.

mwahahaha ^^

The Dr. Who/MLP crossover is still a major debate and debacle in crossover fiction that's been allowed as canon in fictional universes the world over. Even in the 2070s you have people arguing over it. Which just goes to show that people on the Matrix really do have way too much time on their hands.

The More Things Change, eh?