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Main Inspector Spacetime Discussion
There's a looming problem as Inspector Spacetime's TV Tropes main page nears a milestone: Its Wall Of Text is almost as long as its inspiration's entry. While it's terrific that so many tropers have contributed so much, IS's main page has expanded beyond the original concept and is outgrowing the space as originally formatted. At this point the trope version of Archive Panic threatens to overwhelm the joke(s).
Back in 2011 when Inspector Spacetime began on TV Tropes, readers could quickly take in the few introductory paragraphs and then move on to the selected trope entries. From these they could piece together the rest of the story from allusions, references, and trope definitions. Reading between the lines, they could make out - or, with a bit of imagination, make up - the plots of serials and story arcs, the history of the programme, the character(s) of the Inspector(s), etc. This narrative effect, when it went well, was TV Tropes' answer to meta-fiction such as J. G. Ballard's experimental short story "The Index"
, Mark Danielewski's post-modern novel House Of Leaves, or the factitious ''Dictionary of the Khazars''. As more was added to the main page, however, related entries and recurrent themes grew farther apart, repetitive or extraneous notes built up like static interference, and adjacent jokes and running gags were broken up or stretched too far. Although there's been a lot of expansion on related subpages for everything from Awesome to YMMV, the main page is outgrowing its current formatting as it becomes harder to and harder to browse.
To restore Inspector Spacetime's TV Tropes main page to something less intimidating, we can take a leaf out of That Ripoff's book. First, the organizational method for tropes on Doctor Who's main page breaks down the trope list into four folder groups (alphabetically) of workable sizes. This can be adapted for IS by categorizing In-Universe Tropes according to whether they appear in the classic series, new series, or both, as strictly alphabetic sections would only break up the flow of the meta-narrative.
Next, to keep its main page at a manageable length, DW's tropers there have been curating it diligently. Zero Context Examples are either pruned or revised. Overly specific examples are quickly moved to the appropriate subpages, such as Characters, Nightmare Fuel, and Trivia. (IS unfortunately doesn't really have individual recap pages for story-specific examples, though, so other topical subpages will have to do.) As IS's main page already has breadth, other attractive options are to add depth and polish or to fill out the comparatively neglected subpages. And most of all, there's still much fun to be had collaborating on the Inspectrum.
With the 50th-anniversary series of Doctor Who about to begin in less than two weeks and Community well into its fourth season, Inspector Spacetime still has a lot of potential to tap, whether as a parody/pastiche or as a celebration of fan-favorite shows. While some have complained (unfairly) that Inspectators have run the gag into the ground, it has far more possibilities than less ambitious Just For Fun projects such as Disneys Anne Frank or The Ugly Barnacle. Where Community pushes the boundaries of meta-TV and Doctor Who uses science fiction to explore numerous other genres, this imaginary programme has the best of both worlds when it comes to playing with tropes and the wiki - provided we can keep it accessible.
, Mark Danielewski's post-modern novel House Of Leaves, or the factitious ''Dictionary of the Khazars''. As more was added to the main page, however, related entries and recurrent themes grew farther apart, repetitive or extraneous notes built up like static interference, and adjacent jokes and running gags were broken up or stretched too far. Although there's been a lot of expansion on related subpages for everything from Awesome to YMMV, the main page is outgrowing its current formatting as it becomes harder to and harder to browse.
To restore Inspector Spacetime's TV Tropes main page to something less intimidating, we can take a leaf out of That Ripoff's book. First, the organizational method for tropes on Doctor Who's main page breaks down the trope list into four folder groups (alphabetically) of workable sizes. This can be adapted for IS by categorizing In-Universe Tropes according to whether they appear in the classic series, new series, or both, as strictly alphabetic sections would only break up the flow of the meta-narrative.
Next, to keep its main page at a manageable length, DW's tropers there have been curating it diligently. Zero Context Examples are either pruned or revised. Overly specific examples are quickly moved to the appropriate subpages, such as Characters, Nightmare Fuel, and Trivia. (IS unfortunately doesn't really have individual recap pages for story-specific examples, though, so other topical subpages will have to do.) As IS's main page already has breadth, other attractive options are to add depth and polish or to fill out the comparatively neglected subpages. And most of all, there's still much fun to be had collaborating on the Inspectrum.
With the 50th-anniversary series of Doctor Who about to begin in less than two weeks and Community well into its fourth season, Inspector Spacetime still has a lot of potential to tap, whether as a parody/pastiche or as a celebration of fan-favorite shows. While some have complained (unfairly) that Inspectators have run the gag into the ground, it has far more possibilities than less ambitious Just For Fun projects such as Disneys Anne Frank or The Ugly Barnacle. Where Community pushes the boundaries of meta-TV and Doctor Who uses science fiction to explore numerous other genres, this imaginary programme has the best of both worlds when it comes to playing with tropes and the wiki - provided we can keep it accessible.
Okay, the Crowning Moments seem to have disappeared from the main page. The pages still exist, but you have to search "Inspector Spacetime Tearjerkers," for instance, rather than seeing the little teardrop button when you click on the main page. Thoughts?
Anthony Pease is the creator of Inspector Spacetime, as revealed in the Community writers' Reddit AMA. We'll see how they build the IS canon in the episodes to come for this season. One of their official villains is apparently named "The Almighty Umlaut" and another is "Thoraxis".
. We'll see how they build the IS canon in the episodes to come for this season. One of their official villains is apparently named "The Almighty Umlaut" and another is "Thoraxis".
Community writer Tim Saccardaco has tweeted a batch of set pix from the InspecTiCon: the InspecTiCon schedule, Sir Anthony Bonham-Pease, Baron von Morbidor, Inspector Minerva, Ümlaütsøn the Terrible, and "the star of Inspector Spacetime episode #472 (Wait, 472? There's little chance that IS could have that many episodes on a UK series schedule, even if it had been shown continuously for that entire time. At a certain point, we just have to admit that the 'net IS fans care more about the supposed 50-year history of the show than Community's gag writers…)
, Sir Anthony Bonham-Pease, Baron von Morbidor, Inspector Minerva, Ümlaütsøn the Terrible, and "the star of Inspector Spacetime episode #472 (Wait, 472? There's little chance that IS could have that many episodes on a UK series schedule, even if it had been shown continuously for that entire time. At a certain point, we just have to admit that the 'net IS fans care more about the supposed 50-year history of the show than Community's gag writers…)
Just as an aside, in Neil Gaiman's Hugo acceptance speech for his teleplay "The Doctor's Wife", he referred to Community as "a spin-off of the Doctor Who-inspired show Inspector Spacetime"—a joke that appears to have originated here on TV Tropes!
While TV Tropes' main pages for IS are pretty well fleshed out by this point and its canon has settled down into internal consistency, there's plenty of room for contributions to other existing categories:
FanFic Recommendations; Heartwarming Moments; Image Links; Quotations; and Tearjerkers
And for those feeling especially creative, some categories are awaiting their first entries (as of this writing):
Drinking Game; Haiku; Headscratchers; Oh Crap; and Under the Radar
Community's “Virtual Systems Analysis” episode presents us with a bit of a sticky wicket that we may or may not have to give tuppence about. Abed's IS adventure in the Dreamatorium has some pieces of information that seem canonically sound (e.g. the Inspector's transport is typically an X7 Dimensioniser, except for one little-loved season when it was the HMS Spacetime 12) but others that may be his own version of fanfic (e.g. Blogon means thank you in Blorgon or the status of the quantum spanner as the adventure's Swiss army knife). What do people think about ways to incorporate all this into the TV Trope page?
presents us with a bit of a sticky wicket that we may or may not have to give tuppence about. Abed's IS adventure in the Dreamatorium has some pieces of information that seem canonically sound (e.g. the Inspector's transport is typically an X7 Dimensioniser, except for one little-loved season when it was the HMS Spacetime 12) but others that may be his own version of fanfic (e.g. Blogon means thank you in Blorgon or the status of the quantum spanner as the adventure's Swiss army knife). What do people think about ways to incorporate all this into the TV Trope page?
Very well—BOOTH has been replaced throughout by X7 Dimensioniser (or the X7 or Dimesioniser, depending on the context) and the "Booth" is now the established fan nickname for it.
Next up, shoehorning in the HMS Spacetime 12 and Constable Rosamund from season five (whether the new or classic series, we don't know).
Edit: Oh FFS, now the NBC-Universal store is selling IS t-shirts with the phone box clearly labelled DARSIT.
with the phone box clearly labelled DARSIT.
Moffat learns of Inspector Spacetime, declares, "Let's take the rip out of THEM on OUR show."
It turns out◊ that Inspector Spacetime is a "production of Boogatron Media Distribution" and a "British Television serial starring several TV celebrities from Britain". (No idea what the JBV logo could mean, though.)
◊ that Inspector Spacetime is a "production of Boogatron Media Distribution" and a "British Television serial starring several TV celebrities from Britain". (No idea what the JBV logo could mean, though.)
Travis Richey, who plays/played the Inspector on Community, is trying to put together web-series of the show. If you want to contribute, there's a Kickstarter page.
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I couldn't find this on here, but has anyone come up with a term for fans of Inspector Spacetime?
Found this on Inspector Spacetime Confessions: http://inspectorspacetimeconfessions.tumblr.com/post/16721866557
It uses the term "Inspectator" ... which I'm guessing is a compound of "Inspector" and "spectator."
Thoughts?
It uses the term "Inspectator" ... which I'm guessing is a compound of "Inspector" and "spectator."
Thoughts?
What of other Inspectors cited as tropes? Inspector Lestrade is obviously the Superintendent, but are there any candidates for an Inspector Javert or an Inspector Zenigata?
"You spell it Blorgons, I spell it Blogons": Blorgons is Word of God, but it was mispronounced as Blogons in their first appearance in Community's "Biology 101". Could we please stick to the official spelling, even though Google returns more results for the technically incorrect one?
With all the spin-off media, however, is there an opportunity for a running gag about Blorgons/Blogons, since the Daleks had some wildly differing interpretations from the original TV show in other incarnations, such as the multi-colored ones in the Peter Cushing movies, the weird variant types in comic strips, appearances in Doctor Who stage plays, expanded universe novels, and radio stories, etc.?
I changed all mentions of DARSIT to B.O.O.T.H.. It makes more sense to start referring to it as the B.O.O.T.H. now rather than accommodate the change later if it is ever named in the show. DARSIT isn't different enough from TARDIS to be considered, plus Travis likes the B.O.O.T.H. as a name. Neither Travis nor the Community people really like DARSIT. So if it will probably be changed if it is in Community, why keep it DARSIT? I admit, DARSIT is really unique and definitely refers to the Inspector's machine while B.O.O.T.H. might get confused for the word booth, but it is probably the better option at this point.
Plus a fun thing that we can do is have the Inspector change it every time he explains what it means instead of having one meaning for it. I thought that would be cute. I would check who said that, but the forum is blocked on the computer I am on.
I'm generally in favor of things that move Inspector Spacetime away from "direct Doctor Who parody with a very large number of direct points of correspondence" to being more it's own thing that can parody all sorts of stuff.
Like, for instance, the Inspector Spacetime Holiday Special, which is more about The Star Wars Holiday Special than anything Whovian.
We really should account for and expand upon what Community has told us about this episode, btw.
, which is more about The Star Wars Holiday Special than anything Whovian.
We really should account for and expand upon what Community has told us about this episode, btw.
I agree that it seems like it's parodying the 80s Who in some respects but that's really not all that changeable now (moving Richey out of the Eleventh Inspector spot is just futile IMO) plus there are elements of New Who in there as well. It's not all that changeable now anyway. But I stand behind changing the name to BOOTH now anyway. Travis mentioned here that we should have a different name because it almost definitely will never be named on Community as DARSIT. It's just too similar to TARDIS. He is fine with BOOTH, though, as shown here. I haven't heard anything from Dan, but I don't think he's really getting involved with all this.
It's going to be a problem to change over from DARSIT to BOOTH, yes, but it's better than being retconned later. We could always make a note on the page or something about it.
that we should have a different name because it almost definitely will never be named on Community as DARSIT. It's just too similar to TARDIS. He is fine with BOOTH, though, as shown here. I haven't heard anything from Dan, but I don't think he's really getting involved with all this.
It's going to be a problem to change over from DARSIT to BOOTH, yes, but it's better than being retconned later. We could always make a note on the page or something about it.
Love this, but...
The joke has already been done in the 90's within DW itself as a show was called "Professor X".
So, I suggest you guys add another level of insanity by replacing the link to "Doctor Who" with a link to "Professor X" as the imitator show.
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Professor_X
http://web.archive.org/web/19990203054134/http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~dma/ProfX/
And, there is more! When DW vanished from TV fans created some actual alternative shows. The best were "The Stranger" and "Shakedown". There are lots of clips of these on You Tube that you could (mis)attribute.
http://web.archive.org/web/19990203054134/http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~dma/ProfX/
And, there is more! When DW vanished from TV fans created some actual alternative shows. The best were "The Stranger" and "Shakedown". There are lots of clips of these on You Tube that you could (mis)attribute.
Shouldn't the Inspectors have Letters instead of ordinal numbers? (And they don't have to be Latin, e.g. Inspector Lambda)
I think that a lot of this would make more sense if Doctor Who and Inspector Spacetime began at the same time, and after the initial similarities, the later parallel plotlines and characters are a good-natured game between the staffs of the two series, rather than a vicious battle between them.
So this is about Associates. First of all, I love this little project, it's great, but the characters page is bothering me. The "more recent Associates include [...] and Rory Williams" really made me laugh. Just the whole deadpan including of Rory at the end against the list of expies really cracked me up, but I think the characters page has murdered the joke badly. First it seems to have another alternate Rory in "Aidan Davies" (unless he's supposed to be someone else) confusing the issue and by making explicit reference to Rory from Doctor who, which has the duel effect of killing the joke about Rory and the joke about Doctor Who being a rip-off of Inspector Spacetime by pushing it way too far.
I think this joke would be funnier if Spacetime Rory was just described to be absolutely identical to Who Rory (possibly even copy over some stuff from the Who tvtropes page word for word, changing names where needed) and having a general rule of making no explicit reference between Who Rory and Spacetime Rory.
Also there has been a version of Martha invented called Joanna Martin but I think it would work better to make Constable Wigglesworth the stand-in for Martha. Think about it, Martha is training to become a doctor making for a nice little thing in the show about the Doctor and Doctor Jones. Could Constable Wigglesworth be said to have the goal of becoming an inspector, therefore allowing a similar thing for Martha and the Doctor and Wigglesworth and the Inspector. As for Martha's love for the Doctor, when did tvtropes not love shoving huge Ho Yay entries into every article?
So, since it looks like Inspector Spacetime is going to be a recurring thing,if we get Jossed by Community do we accommodate it or ignore it??
Far too late to implement this, but personally I think a better Regeneration parody (and more obvious opposite) would be to have the Inspector be imperfectly cloned every time he dies, so you end up with a series of different characters all played by the same actor. It would also mean that each incarnation is older than the last one, whereas the Doctor is generally going the other way.
Just felt I had to at least mention the idea.
Let's loose the Doctor Who as a Ripoff thing. It's not funny and it brings up more questions than answers. Why not just have Doctor Who never exist? I get what Dan said, but he didn't see this project coming.
Regarding the episode list. We're going to have decide, do we ruthlessly keep it a one-to-one match with Doctor Who, with different titles, or do we add on extra episodes wherever we feel like it? (Someone just added a whole bunch.)
The IS Pro Boards also abandonned the idea of an extra Ninth Inspector series and kept the one-to-one correspondence of IS:DW seasons, so the Recap page can revert to the original version.
Meanwhile, the Great Endings audio plays' Expanded Universe adventures are still a blank slate: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Radio/InspectorSpacetime?action=edit. We've mentioned the Second and Eighth Inspectors' audio plays, but there's no reason the Ninth or any of the surviving others wouldn't have some as well.
. We've mentioned the Second and Eighth Inspectors' audio plays, but there's no reason the Ninth or any of the surviving others wouldn't have some as well.
WRT Hey Its That Guy and the Terry Pratchett example, I think it's actually even more important that the Inspector Spacetime page adhere to TV Tropes standards and practices, because it's likely to be the first page a lot of people see. If they see a page full of Natter, bad Example Indentation, misplaced YMMV and Trivia, then that's what they'll emulate.
In any case, I'm thinking we have some more appropriate trope than HITG for writers, don't we?
It seems we've been handling the number of Inspectors as parallel to the number of Doctors in that other show. Might it be more absurd and funnier to have some larger number of inspectors? ("The Twenty-Eighth Inspector debuted in 2011 after....")
Comic exaggeration of the show's longevity, and it'd also allow more "space" for funny bits.
I don't know why "Blogons" was changed to "Blorgons," but I changed it back. "Blogons" comes from the original Community episode, thus it shouldn't be changed.
Kind of made the Madame Kovarian Expy an old lady who likes to knit and drink tea. Her name is Ms. Patch.
Right so this is becoming a real thing now! I wanna say if anything gets deleted it's not out of spite! It's just that now that there's a lot of consistent information, people are just trying to adjust all of this into a workable canon. If something gets erased it's probably because it conflicts with something already established. If you want to help establish more canon, you can also come over here.
http://inspectorspacetime.proboards.com
We are planning to write episodes. TV Tropes is our go-to for plot material but we also pull some things from tumblr and whatever ailelie finds around and posts on her Dreamwidth.
ailelie.dreamwidth.org/299947.html
We're trying to keep as many people's ideas as possible in the canon in some way! After all, this is a group effort. And it's a big group. :)
We are planning to write episodes. TV Tropes is our go-to for plot material but we also pull some things from tumblr and whatever ailelie finds around and posts on her Dreamwidth.
ailelie.dreamwidth.org/299947.html
We're trying to keep as many people's ideas as possible in the canon in some way! After all, this is a group effort. And it's a big group. :)
About Brooke. She's gonna kill the Inspector, but in a totally different way. Any ideas. She also has a big hammer that destroyed part of the universe.
Ladies and gentlemen...we're on io9.
http://io9.com/5844151/it-only-took-a-few-days-for-communitys-doctor-who-spoof-to-become-a-full+blown-internet-meme/gallery/1
I find this gratifying on a personal scale (I was the first one who typed up "quiet will rise"), but also to the community. We've done it, ladies and gentlemen. WE'VE CREATED A MEME!
I find this gratifying on a personal scale (I was the first one who typed up "quiet will rise"), but also to the community. We've done it, ladies and gentlemen. WE'VE CREATED A MEME!
General Question Upon Which to Ponder: Who produced Inspector Spacetime? It shouldn't be the BBC, since it produced the competing series Doctor Who. ITV? In my own silly examples, I attributed the show to "BTV" as an ersatz ITV, but maybe it should just be the Real Life independent British channel?
Regarding Doctor Who: Should we treat this like a sort of Alternate Universe thingy where this is the other version, or should we keep the page as it is (where it says DW is a poorly done spin-off)?
OK, I can see why some of the stuff I added got trimmed, but if someone could explain to my why the Terry Pratchett reference got the axe, I'd appreciate it. Douglas Adams wrote for Doctor Who back in the day, and since we seem to be doing parallels, that seemed appropriate and entertaining. Thoughts?
According to Dan Harmon, we will see more of Inspector Spacetime. http://chief-inspector-spacetime.tumblr.com/post/10721691963/this-would-be-a-scream-of-excitement-i-really
Because this TV Tropes page inspired me, I just started a sprock band. Space Master rock, obv. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMSyIgydYfs
I wrote a Sprock song, too! :D That's so awesome! Great minds think alike, no?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w21_rIvnlI
Should we list the Expy names here, so that people won't get confused and make new ones? So far we have:
Villains:
Blogons = The Daleks (of course)
The Sargeant = The Master (with Henry Anglo = Harry Saxon)
Space Masters = Time Lords
Snarling Lions = Weeping Angels
However, it looks like we have two names for the Cybermen: the Cymbals and the Metalguys
Companions / Associates:
Angelica "Angie" Lake = Amy Pond
Rory Williams = Rory Williams (I love this one!)
Mona Virtue = Donna Noble
Yorke = ???
Joanna Martin = ???
Captain James Haggard = Captain Jack Harkness
Minnie Smythe = Martha Jones (I confused this one with Mickey Smith at first)
Lily Taylor = Rose Tyler
Mary Sue Brown = Sarah Jane Smith
FE-Line = K-9
Anything I'm missing? Besides all the other companions I don't want to list?
Blogons = The Daleks (of course)
The Sargeant = The Master (with Henry Anglo = Harry Saxon)
Space Masters = Time Lords
Snarling Lions = Weeping Angels
However, it looks like we have two names for the Cybermen: the Cymbals and the Metalguys
Companions / Associates:
Angelica "Angie" Lake = Amy Pond
Rory Williams = Rory Williams (I love this one!)
Mona Virtue = Donna Noble
Yorke = ???
Joanna Martin = ???
Captain James Haggard = Captain Jack Harkness
Minnie Smythe = Martha Jones (I confused this one with Mickey Smith at first)
Lily Taylor = Rose Tyler
Mary Sue Brown = Sarah Jane Smith
FE-Line = K-9
Anything I'm missing? Besides all the other companions I don't want to list?
I've been trying to make things a bit more Captain Ersatz-y, so I changed the Catch Phrase to "We must normalize the alignment of the electron stream!" and the Timey Wimey Ball to the Spacey Wacey Cube. The last one was just because it sounded funnier to me, but it's okay if it's changed back.
I also added a bunch more episodes and changed ones that just sounded weird (what was [Quiet]? I changed that to "Night of the Sun.")
Someone needs to decide whether the Torchwood-like spinoff is "Peacemist" (which I like better) or "Flashtrees" (seen on the Crowning Moment of Heartwarming page).
Hey guys, someone on Tumblr brought up a good point - maybe we should try to make Inspector Spacetime more of its "own" thing, instead of making everything in it a blatant Doctor Who parody. We've got the more obvious references like James Haggard, the Snarling Lions, and the Inspector himself, but it might be fun to just... take that and run in a completely new direction than Who ever took it. T Houghts?
I can't wait. You already know about this, but for everyone else, there is an effort being made to get actual episodes written and we need fans to do it:
http://inspectorspacetime.proboards.com/index.cgi
Okay, so, I added folders to the main page separating the "canon" tropes and adding a section for "fandom" tropes (pointing out the Memetic Mutation of the show, its origin as an Affectionate Parody parody on Community, etc) and it was quickly deleted by another user. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to restore the folders? Due to earlier complaints about Fan Myopia I figured it might be best if we make it pretty clear that IS is not a real show; and the fandom itself is pretty troperiffic as it is. Any thoughts?
Okay, I hate to ruin the joke, but this page has a tragic case of Fan Myopia. Please link back to Community or stick a short explanation in a hottip so that people who aren't familiar at all with Community (eg, myself) aren't completely lost and confused.
Do you prefer the 10th Inspector (played by Daniel Landlord) or the 11th (Travis Richey)? And why?
Also, it should be noted that some of the ideas here like the DARSIT and the Sonic Crowbar came from other parts of Tumblr:
http://iaminspectorspacetime.tumblr.com
http://vondell-swain.tumblr.com/post/10581766885/inspector-spacetime
http://vondell-swain.tumblr.com/post/10581766885/inspector-spacetime
Naturally we're using "that wonderful element 'makeitupasyougalongeum'", which Terry Prachett claims is powering the new series of Doctor Who.
", which Terry Prachett claims is powering the new series of Doctor Who.