Monday, August 25, 2014

The problem of Doctor Who: Deep Breath and its Tyrannosaurus

4 comments:

  1. They never actually mention the species, and they address the size right at the start:

    Jenny: "Big fella, isn't he".
    Vastra: "Dinosaurs were mostly this size, I do believe it's a she".
    Jenny: "No they weren't, I've seen fossils".
    Vastra: "I was there"

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    Replies
    1. You're right that the species isn't named on-screen, but I don't think that's a big deal. If the show presents us with an ostrich, we don't need a character to say "Wow! Look at that ostrich!" to know what we're looking at. But, if we're generous and assume that this isn't a Tyrannosaurus, now we have the problem of an animal built and proportioned just the same way as a much smaller creature, although it's 20 times the size and therefore 8,000 times the mass.

      To me, lampshading that in dialogue doesn't make the problem go away any more than it would make a 100-metre-tall ostrich more credible! :)

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  2. The doctor calls it a "giant dinosaur" so its obviously not meant to be an ordinary dinosaur

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  3. I'm willing to chalk it up to Silurian generic engineering. Hard to imagine a species this large existing in the wild. It'd wipe out entire ecosystems.

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