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Gothic Influences

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« on: July 24, 2011, 09:44:45 am »

Upon watching the Brain of Morbius it struck me that one of the things that categorised the Hinchcliffe/Holmes tenure on the show was the clear gothic influences that ran throughout the stories. The Deadly Assassin, The Pyramids of Mars, The Talons of Weng Chiang all referenced this, but nowhere is the gothic horror motif more apparent than in The Brain of Morbius (which essentially gave us Frankenstein with a Doctor Who twist).

I thought this worked really well for the show at the time and I wonder if anyone else thinks that this is a style of writing that lends itself well to Doctor Who? I also wonder if we will ever see its like again - has Doctor Who changed too much to ever really embrace the more gothic style (with a desire for action and romance trumping everything else).
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« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2011, 12:46:05 pm »

The thing I fine with this story is that it really shouldn't work. It borrows elements from so many films and books that it should just fall flat and fail, but they managed to make it all seem really fresh and relevent to the Doctor's world and travels. I think, given the right writer that something like this, particularly the gothic horror elements, could work well in NuWho. Especially under Moff who likes the darker tones in a story
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« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2011, 02:59:07 pm »

One thing the show has never been scared of is taking risks. They don't always work, but they always give it a go. A story like this would have been a big risk in the 70's but it paid off and is wonderful. Likewise, it would be a risk to do it again today, but I really do think that in the right hands it could be brilliant and we could have an excellent story out of it. I love the darker themes that the H/H era explored and I think it could work very well in todays television landscape
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« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2011, 10:26:06 am »

As I said in another thread, at first I thought it was just a bit of a blatent copy rather than a homage or something like that, but the more I watched the more I liked what they were doing with the gothic side of things and the better the story felt. I am not sure something like that would work today though. I think it could, but I don't think they would try it for risk of it falling flat
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« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2011, 09:47:17 pm »

I loved what they did with the story and I thought it worked perfectly. The gothic-ness of it worked so well, but I am not sure they could pull it off now and on top of that I don't know if they even should. This story was done so well that they should leave it and try something new. It's not that I wouldn't like to see them try, but there are loads of other barriers they could be breaking down instead of treading old ground Smiley
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« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2011, 12:17:07 pm »

I loved what they did with the story and I thought it worked perfectly. The gothic-ness of it worked so well, but I am not sure they could pull it off now and on top of that I don't know if they even should. This story was done so well that they should leave it and try something new. It's not that I wouldn't like to see them try, but there are loads of other barriers they could be breaking down instead of treading old ground Smiley

I don't think it would really be like treading old ground. In any show certain themes and plots are bound to get reused, especially ones that have been around as long as DW. The good thing about this is that it isn't something that has been overused so it would at least feel fresh if they decided to do something similar again
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« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2011, 09:38:10 am »

I loved what they did with the story and I thought it worked perfectly. The gothic-ness of it worked so well, but I am not sure they could pull it off now and on top of that I don't know if they even should. This story was done so well that they should leave it and try something new. It's not that I wouldn't like to see them try, but there are loads of other barriers they could be breaking down instead of treading old ground Smiley

I don't think it would really be like treading old ground. In any show certain themes and plots are bound to get reused, especially ones that have been around as long as DW. The good thing about this is that it isn't something that has been overused so it would at least feel fresh if they decided to do something similar again

Exactly. If they chose to do something similar these days I don't think they would really be accused of rehashing old stories. Whether it would work in these times though is anyones guess
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