Friday, November 09, 2007

Harlan Ellison on Doctor Who


In the back of an old Pinnacle paperback, I found this introduction to its then upcoming Doctor Who books--

"They could not have been more offended, confused, enraged and startled. . . . There was a moment of stunned silence . . . and then an eruption of angry voices from all over the fifteen-hundred-person audience. The kids in their Luke Skywalker pajamas (cobbled up from older brother's castoff karate gi) and the retarded adults spot-welded into their Darth Vader fright-masks howled with fury. But I stood my ground, there on the lecture platform of the World Science Fiction Convention, and I repeated the words that had sent them into animal hysterics:

'Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; 'Star Trek' can turn your brains to purée of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is 'Doctor Who!' And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or in a bunch to back it up!'"

--Harlan Ellison 1979

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