Saturday 2 December 2017

Regeneration

Currently on British television, the Doctor is about to regenerate for the twelfth time. A character who can periodically change script writers and actors can continue indefinitely. In British culture, the two principal time travellers are HG Wells' Time Traveller and the Doctor.

Readers of prose sf acknowledge the Time Traveller and add a few more like Poul Anderson's Manse Everard. Unfortunately, neither Wells' nor Anderson's characters can continue in the way that the Doctor does although a few sequels have been written. But Everard does not need to "regenerate" since he is a beneficiary of the Time Patrol's longevity treatment. We know that he must have vacated his New York apartment by about 2000 but would then have moved elsewhere/when and continued to work for the Patrol. The Time Patrol series, although long, filling two thick volumes, cannot match Doctor Who for quantity, number of instalments, but greatly exceeds it in quality. I have to accept that I will never read any more about the Patrol written by Anderson - but will probably not watch the Doctor's regeneration in his Christmas Day Special.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

As you know I'm not a fan of most TV and movie SF, finding it for the most part pretty dreadful stuff. But your comments here makes me wish someone would try to make a movie version of some of Anderson's Time Patrol Stories. It might actually be easier to do, in some ways, than filmed versions of some of the Nicholas van Rijn or Dominic Flandry stories. I mean those of the Time Patrol stories set in the past with minimal use of futuristic technology. One example I thought of being "Brave To Be A King."

Sean