More cliches!

[thisbluespirit]

I just had a thought.  I loved ghost2's thread about the clichefic challenge and thinking up some.  (I'd read more than I thought).

Writing about Terry Nation cliches made me think though.  Wouldn't it be priceless to take classic Who writers' cliches and apply them randomly a la the other challenge?  It's probably already been done, but hey, it would be funny.

Malcolm Hulke: Everyone has backgrounds and angsts about moral issues (and can be allowed a relationship).

Terry Nation: Oh where do you start?

David Whitaker: Radiation and electricity are fundamentally the same and the Doctor's companions are in love.  (Again, passing characters are allowed genuine backgrounds etc and anyone can have a romance).  If the Daleks appear, they are wonderfully sneaky.  Historicals permitted and even blank verse.  Multicultural space stations are permitted & they will include females.

Robert Holmes: Outright horror (or just deviousness and corruption and having a go at the tax system) plus a comedy double-act.

Eric Saward: I'll try not to be too mean...  Lots of random references to the past tied together in unlikely ways.  Most people are grim and unpleasant and the majority of them die.  But there are good cliffhangers.

Christopher H Bidmead: The plot will be impenetrable.  (Okay, that's a bit unfair: I like all three of his stories, especially Frontios).

Douglas Adams: There will be witty dialogue to die for and lots of Hitchhiker's in-jokes...

Donald Cotton: Historical hilarity ensues.  The Doctor will probably be mistaken for someone else.

Terry Nation:  All right: swamps, jungles, radiation, horrible mutations, consequences of big bad wars, Nazi-like baddies, people twisting ankles, pacifist leaders who get wiped out (you wimps), slightly obvious romance allowed (especially by loyal, self-sacrificing alien for female companion), tunnels; ugly creatures can be good, too; recklessness = death...

Pip n Jane Baker: Everyone has just swallowed a dictionary, but we can have some jollification if we're fortuitous.

John Lucarotti: History is interesting - it's not all black and white.

Bob Baker & Dave Martin: You can blow up a nuclear reactor and it's okay!  (To be fair, there will probably be an energy-absorbing alien / megalomaniac around, most likely played by Stephen Thorne.)  There will be a catchprase.  And very likely a tin dog.  Nice-looking aliens LIE!

Gerry Davis & Kit Pedler - The Cybermen are tragic creatures, no match for Polly.  (Or anything else much).  Multicultural space stations are mandatory, but there will be no women (except for Polly).

Chris Boucher: There will be clever ideas (very likely taken from something else) and lots of entertaining arguing.  Romance is imaginable but rarely directly referred to.

Terrance Dicks: This is weird.  I can't think of anything for Terrance Dicks.  That's just ... wrong.

Dennis Spooner: More historical hilarity and mistaken identities, but some torture / darker elements allowed.

Ian Briggs: The past has caught up with everyone.  Avoid old enemies / work colleagues / school friends before it's too late.

Graeme Curry & Stephen Briggs: Life is a metaphor.

Philip Martin: Media studies 101.  With extra reptiles and violence.

Christopher Bailey & Barry Letts: There's a subtext here, somewhere...

Johnny Byrne: Writer of sci-fi fables and fairy tales, violence added by Eric Saward, gratuitous references to the past by JNT. (So he says, but he's not bitter...)

Peter Grimwade: I'm sure there was a plot here somewhere...  In fact there are several.  Some of them are pretty good & Turlough gets a background.  Ask for something impossible to realise on the BBC budget and see what happens.

Terence Dudley: There will be shape-shifting and / or doubles and there will be time for tea.  And cricket.

There ought to be ones for David Fisher, Brian Hayles, Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln and others, too.  I'll have a think.  What you do with those wonderfully, bizarrely crazy one-off writers I don't know.  (I mean, what do you say about someone when the only evidence you have is The Underwater Menace or The Twin Dilemma?

I'm running out of steam and also am probably just needing to go find a life and possibly sanity.   I'm not being mean, you understand.  I love classic Who dearly and many of the writers, too.  I'll admit to a particular love for David Whitaker, as an unsung hero of Doctor Who.

Comments

[ghost2.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really thought about any of this, but you're right. It would be fun to mix and match some of these cliches.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh. Well, I think it might. It was fun just to think of them anyway.

Oh, and I finally worked out one for Terrance Dicks - Dark Towers. With optional temporary blindness for the companion and lots of soldiers if wanted. :-)