Closed Circuits and Monitored Lives: Television as Power in Doctor Who

Layton, David. "Closed Circuits and Monitored Lives: Television as Power in Doctor Who." Extrapolation 35.3 (Fall 1994): 241-51. "Hypothetically, any number of small electronic devices can be added to any television, particularly as they get more complicated and perform more functions, which can monitor visually or aurally anything happening within reception range and can keep track of telephone calls. Two stories from the television show Doctor Who explore" these possibilities of TV ([241]). The first episode is "Revelation of the Daleks"—a "look into the posssibilities of one-person control of audio-visual systems" at "how events and people can be manipulated and controlled by such systems," at "how electronis systems are destroying the realm of the private"; the second it "Vengeance on Varios," an examination of "the ways a government can use television to control the populace and subdue subversion and yet itself become slave to the audio-visual system (242-43).

(RDE, 01/XI/94. 3Jan15)