Doctor Who
May. 22nd, 2007 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOK, so seriously, someone designed a ship with:
1. A room in the middle of the shop full of lava
2. A corridor connecting the other end of the ship to the emergency engines with thirty doors, each controlled by a general knowledge question
3. A large digital countdown reading "seconds until impacting sun"
And people actually flew on this sucker? Words fail me.
The setup is actually fairly good. Doomed spacecraft, fine. Living sun, implausible but cool. Tension wracked grimy crewpeople. The idea of a real time episode is actually pretty good.
Somehow it's not really that interesting though.
There's a few absurdities that you can't exactly pin on *this* episode because they're staples of the genre, but nonetheless make me grind my teeth when the rest of the episode doesn't hold my attention.
1. Maybe the doctor could fix everything by going back in time afterwards. In fact, that's pretty much ALWAYS my objection. I do know it doesn't work like that (and there's a decent but not exactly watertight rationalisation thereof).
2. Seconds until impacting a sun. Riiiight. It was my impression that the upper surfaces of suns were gaseous, and hence diffuse, leaving no rigidly defined boundary outside of which you were not broiled (COME ON PEOPLE, MERCURY IS BOILED, AND THAT'S NOT INSIDE THE SUN, RIGHT?), and inside of which you died instantly. Only if you're going insanely fast would your death not depend how long you spent in the vicinity (with closer heating you up quicker), right?
3. And if you ARE falling toward a sun, you're probably going at some speed, you'd think. And if I recall correctly, TURNING ROUND ISN'T AS EASY AS THAT. You're going pretty fast, you have to cancel out that momentum AGAINST gravity. Lifting off a planet is pretty gruelling, a sun is A LOT BIGGER (tm).
4. Of course, it helps if you can slingshot, and use your momentum to help you. That works if (a) you're far enough out to steer round the sun or (b) you can deploy wings to bank. Except that B DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE YOU'RE IN A VACUUM! If you're not in a vacuum you're DEAD IN THE SUN. The most advanced spacecraft in the universe is a box for a reason WINGS DON'T HELP.
5. What else?
1. A room in the middle of the shop full of lava
2. A corridor connecting the other end of the ship to the emergency engines with thirty doors, each controlled by a general knowledge question
3. A large digital countdown reading "seconds until impacting sun"
And people actually flew on this sucker? Words fail me.
The setup is actually fairly good. Doomed spacecraft, fine. Living sun, implausible but cool. Tension wracked grimy crewpeople. The idea of a real time episode is actually pretty good.
Somehow it's not really that interesting though.
There's a few absurdities that you can't exactly pin on *this* episode because they're staples of the genre, but nonetheless make me grind my teeth when the rest of the episode doesn't hold my attention.
1. Maybe the doctor could fix everything by going back in time afterwards. In fact, that's pretty much ALWAYS my objection. I do know it doesn't work like that (and there's a decent but not exactly watertight rationalisation thereof).
2. Seconds until impacting a sun. Riiiight. It was my impression that the upper surfaces of suns were gaseous, and hence diffuse, leaving no rigidly defined boundary outside of which you were not broiled (COME ON PEOPLE, MERCURY IS BOILED, AND THAT'S NOT INSIDE THE SUN, RIGHT?), and inside of which you died instantly. Only if you're going insanely fast would your death not depend how long you spent in the vicinity (with closer heating you up quicker), right?
3. And if you ARE falling toward a sun, you're probably going at some speed, you'd think. And if I recall correctly, TURNING ROUND ISN'T AS EASY AS THAT. You're going pretty fast, you have to cancel out that momentum AGAINST gravity. Lifting off a planet is pretty gruelling, a sun is A LOT BIGGER (tm).
4. Of course, it helps if you can slingshot, and use your momentum to help you. That works if (a) you're far enough out to steer round the sun or (b) you can deploy wings to bank. Except that B DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE YOU'RE IN A VACUUM! If you're not in a vacuum you're DEAD IN THE SUN. The most advanced spacecraft in the universe is a box for a reason WINGS DON'T HELP.
5. What else?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 03:34 pm (UTC)Much of the sun is a pretty good vacuum, yes. Not the core...
Oh yes. But you have to be trying really hard to crash into the core of the sun, I do not think that was their primary problem :)