Howling:Too many humans?

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Think about the fact that basically all the new series stories have happened on earth or have had humans involved somehow. In fact, where there any classic series stories where there were no humans at all, just aliens species (this excludes the doctors companions, althought that itself is another issue).

I can't think of any and it just seems ridiculous that humans seem to be everywhere the doctor goes. --Coop3 ☎ 18:58, October 5, 2013 (UTC)

This hasn't really bothered me, but I guess today's audience has no imagination and constantly needs characters they can relate to. Or something. 87.102.91.126^{talk to me} 19:36, October 7, 2013 (UTC)

It really depends a lot on whether you consider substitute-humans here (characters who appear to be human, but who are technically not human due to being native to another world). The Doctor has been to plenty of planets that didn't have humans, but which nonetheless had an indigenous race which resembled humans. In fact the Doctor's first trip off Earth, when he first went to Skaro, there were a race of substitute-humans called the Thals, and this has happened in nearly every occasion where Earth and actual humans aren't used at all.

The reason for this is two-fold: firstly it's much cheaper and easier to feature humans, or aliens that look like humans. The second is because in the event the show features an extremely popular guest-star, it would be a waste to have him/her hidden behind a latex mask.

I don't think there's been an episode that (besides the Doctor and companions) didn't feature characters that are either human or substitute-human. Darren.pobatti ☎ 17:41, November 16, 2013 (UTC)

The Web Planet (Season 2, Feb - Mar 1965) had no humanoid characters except the First Doctor & his companions. There have been a few stories whose only characters were members of the TARDIS crew (The Edge of Destruction, for example) but The Web Planet had a large number of other characters, almost all of them insectoid. 89.241.212.51^{talk to me} 12:54, November 19, 2013 (UTC)

Though, admittedly, some of these "insectoid" characters were bipedal upright figures with hands. —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 14:30, November 19, 2013 (UTC)

Are you trying to say that any "bipedal upright figures with hands" are substitute-humans, no matter what their other characteristics might be? The bipedal upright figures with hands in The Web Planet had exoskeletons, 6 limbs & compound eyes. The Menoptera also had wings & could fly. None of these are notably human characteristics.

The Velociraptors in Jurassic Park were bipedal upright figures with hands. So was the Tyrannosaur & several other dinosaurs. Does that make all of them substitute-humans, too?

If you use a broad enough definition of substitute-humans, any & all possible characters are substitute-humans. At the extreme, you can say that, because humans have existence, any character that has any kind of existence is a substitute-human. That would even include hallucinations: They have an existence of some kind in the minds of those who perceive them & humans also have an existence of some kind in the minds of those who perceive them. So broad a definition, though, would only be adopted by someone seeking to ensure that he/she could always describe any character of any kind as "either human or substitute-human". It is (as I expect you know) pure mischief-making -- "Let's see how much this winds people up!" --89.243.203.110^{talk to me} 22:41, November 19, 2013 (UTC)

I was merely pointing out the minor detail that, because many of Doctor Who's aliens are, during filming, people in costumes, many of them gain at least some vague air of 'humanness', regardless of what they "would have looked like" had they been encountered instead of enacted. —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 02:06, November 20, 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough & especially the case in the mid-1960s, before CGI &c were available. The brevity of your comment did make it seem (to me, anyway) as if you were indulging in a humorous wind-up. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

That misunderstanding does at least have the value of raising the general point that the meaning of the term "substitute-human" is subjective. It really depends on how different from a human the individual viewer wants a character to be.

Also, any character in a story has to have enough in common with humans, at least psychologically, for there to be the possibility of us understanding the character. That even applies to the sentient stars in 42 & The Rings of Akhaten. Without that understandability, the character simply can't work as a character.

In The Web Planet, the intention certainly was that the only human or humanoid characters would be the TARDIS crew. The implementation of that intention was, as you point out, limited by practical factors -- but the programme-makers did try & deserve credit for having done so. That, though, only emphasises the fact that their successors, with access to far better technology, have not tried. Not so far, anyway. (I was 89 earlier but have been demoted to 80.) --80.42.15.176^{talk to me} 19:24, November 20, 2013 (UTC)

My reply earlier which invoked the whole substitute-humans issue was intended to apply only to characters or races that could easily have been off-world humans, examples of which would include the Thals and Gallifreyans. It's not intended to also apply to other more creative monsters (such as the Ice Warriors, Silurians and the like) which retain some semblance of humanity merely as a by-product of the historical difficulties and expense that would have limited how "alien" an alien could actually be.

I can see why people are including those sort of things in the discussion, but since the OP raised the issue of humans featuring so frequently we can't simply rope in every vaguely humanoid race or monster since those are usually visibly alien enough that they wouldn't give the impression that they're human in the first place. Darren.pobatti ☎ 20:55, November 20, 2013 (UTC)

Darren: By those (entirely reasonable) criteria, The Web Planet does qualify as a story in which the only human/substitute-human characters were the TARDIS crew & that's what Coop3 was originally asking about.

What seems to me a legitimate complaint is that we need to go all the way back to 1965 & the First Doctor to find an example of such a story, despite the radical improvements in technology that ought to make such stories easier to produce. It looks as if the programme-makers in 1965 were more adventurous -- & trusted the audience more -- than the programme-makers in 2013. (I'm back to being 89, again.) --89.241.215.44^{talk to me} 10:07, November 22, 2013 (UTC)