Pratchett Attacks Doctor Who

Terry Pratchett may write about magic and space turtles, but he doesn’t think that Doctor Who should be able to just make stuff up.

Discworld creator Terry Pratchett has taken umbrage at the storytelling of Doctor Who, calling it “ludicrous”, and saying that it “breaks most of the laws of narrative”.

“[A] god from the machine is what the Doctor now is,” he said, writing in the magazine SFX. “A decent detective story provides you with enough tantalizing information to allow you to make a stab at a solution before the famous detective struts his stuff in the library.”

“Doctor Who replaces this with speed, fast talking, and what appears to be that wonderful element ‘makeitupasyougalongeum’. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I would dare try to jump-start a spaceship that looks like the Titanic by diving it into the atmosphere.”

Pratchett also isn’t particularly fond of the rather loose definition of science on the show, calling it “pixel thin”:

“I’m sorry about this, but I just don’t think that you can instantly transport a whole hospital onto the moon without all of the windows blowing out. Oh! You use a force field, do you?! And there’s the trouble; one sentence makes it all OK.”

“I just wish that it was not classified as science fiction,” he added.

Pratchett did admit that he still watched the show however, despite his grievances: “[it’s]pure professionally-written entertainment, even if it helps sometimes if you leave your brain on a hook by the door … I might shout at the screen again, but I will be watching on Saturday,” he admitted. “After all, when you’ve had your moan you have to admit that it is very, very entertaining, with its heart in the right place, even if its head is often in orbit around Jupiter.”

Source: The Guardian