I don't even know if this is a confession or perfectly par for the course but Harlan Ellison is not a figure I've ever had any awareness of at all. That said, I'm pretty confident wikipedia is fair in attributing him an 'outspoken, combative personality' (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison) based on 'Introducing Doctor Who', the introduction he wrote for Pinnacle's releases of Doctor Who novelisations in the US, which seems largely concerned with picking a fight. 'Star Wars is adolescent nonsense', its fans 'kids' in 'Luke Skywalker pajamas [sic]' and 'retarded adults' in Darth Vader masks; 'Close Encounters is obscurist drivel'; Star Trek, for which he wrote, turns 'your brains into puree of bat guano'; he even ends his dismissal of the competition by promising to 'take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch' if anyone wishes to disagree.
Fortunately, his argument isn't simply "Doctor Who is best because everything else is even shitter", though he does feel the need to make clear it's not 'Dickens or Mark Twain or Kafka', just in case his American audience's ignorance of the show might lead to any confusion. Unfortunately, his argument is based on a few misconceptions, such as the idea that the Doctor has engaged on a crusade 'in the name of justice' following years of studying 'the interplay of great forces in the cosmos' and that his enemies include 'the android clone Kraals' and 'the robot threat of the Daleks'. His inclusion among the villains worthy of particular note of 'the virus swarm', 'the Tong of the Black Scorpion' and 'the Oracle' (I presume from 'Underworld'?) might also suggest his knowledge of the show doesn't extend much beyond a few books and episodes here and there.
There are some nice bits though. Most notable, but perhaps least relevant, is his tale of how he first encountered the show
I wish you the same delight I felt when Michael Moorcock, the finest fantasist in the English-speaking world, sat me down in front of his set in London, turned on the telly, and said, "Now be quiet and just watch."
which is a lovely insight into a night round at Moorcock's.
More pertinently, in linking the series with other 'elegant trash' like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan and Uncle Wiggly (me neither), he salutes it as instructive 'about courage and truth and ethic and, in twice focusing in on the 'humanism' of the adventures, he suggests this isn't just a matter of
cultivating a sense of good and evil in its audience, but of insisting 'You, like the Doctor, can stand up for that which is bright and bold and true. You can shape the world, if you'll only go and try'. This feels very new series - it's basically the point of Series One - and, in tune with his shaky grasp of some of the basics of the show above, might say more about the quality of his imaginative response to the programme than its own active concerns at the time.
None-the-less, his celebration of the show does boil down to something I rather like. Once you get past the fact that it's 'the greatest science fiction series of all time' thanks to not being adolescent and not being arty, and past the insistence that it's also not as good as things that are very good, his praise seems to stem from the idea that viewing (or reading) Who is not passive, which at once is a great defense of a children's series and casts into irrelevance the detail that the show he seems to be picturing and the one actually being produced are precisely the same thing.
Anyway, read his introduction for yourself at reddit.com/r/logopolys/comments/3o990v/harlan_ellisons_introducing_doctor_who and, since it's actually what this blog post is for, read about Doctor Who and the Android Invasion here.
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