Story with the highest body count? - Doctor Who (1963) Discussion

[–] ant-mac 8 years ago

LOGOPOLIS would be my guess.

However, it might also have been THE PANDORICA OPENS / THE BIG BANG, before all of creation was rebooted. After all, if all of existence ended, surely that would mean a greater loss of life than a section of just one universe...

And to think, they managed to reboot everything without the help of JJ Abrams. Amazing... 

ant-mac

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[–] Dr Wily 8 years ago

I toyed with that NuWho story, too, because of the whole collapse of the universe thing. Then, I thought, though I should have said it :) I'd limit myself to Classic Who.

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[–] timmdoolen 8 years ago

When we talk about 'body count' -- do we really include dialogue referring to something that happens off-screen and is never ever mentioned again?

For me, I think if you want to talk about body count, you should only count on-screen deaths.

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[–] ant-mac 8 years ago

If dialogue doesn't count, then nothing does.

It's all part of the same fictional reality.

ant-mac

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[–] timmdoolen 8 years ago

If someone were reviewing an action movie and said that the movie had an extremely high 'body count', most likely they would not be referring to characters in the movie talking about people they had killed off-screen without a single person killed in front of the camera.

For me, body count is the number of people killed on-screen. Anything referred to in dialogue is just hearsay and does not contribute to the body count.

For what you are talking about, it's simply the number of people claimed to have been killed, but not a 'body count'.

From wiki-something "In censorship, 'Body count' has been used as a criterion to judge the 'shock value' of a movie, and hence its suitability for younger viewers. It is usually calculated by the number of deaths or bodies shown on-screen."

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[–] ant-mac 8 years ago

We're not discussing the rating criteria on some hypothetical action film. Nor are we talking about an entry in an online encyclopaedia. We are discussing which DOCTOR WHO serial had the highest number of deaths through verbal or visual exposition.

It is perfectly possible to keep an accurate record of the fatalities in a production if the information is conveyed in a verbally clear manner. It might also be quite impossible to keep an accurate track of the fatalities in a production even if you witness it visually onscreen.

After all, exactly how many fatalities were there in STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE, 2012 or KNOWING? We saw many occur onscreen in all three films.

Besides, if you wish to ignore the dialogue, why are you wasting your time watching the program in the first place? It is of equal importance as anything you might see visually in the very same production.

And what about the DOCTOR WHO serials that no longer have a complete visual component to them?

ant-mac

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[–] timmdoolen 8 years ago

I'm not ignoring the dialogue. I'm saying the number of killings referred to merely in dialogue has nothing to do with the term 'body count.'

I have a definition of body count. You obviously have a very different definition. If there were a Doctor Who serial where no one was killed onscreen but a character mentioned that he had just recently killed 100 trillion people, then for you the body count is 100 trillion, for me it's still zero.

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[–] paulbeardsley 8 years ago

If it really matters, I would use multiple terms:

Onscreen deaths
Reported deaths
Implied deaths
Assumed deaths

And to be honest I think onscreen deaths is the only really meaningful statistic; the others may be interesting if you are compiling a fictional chronology.

And even onscreen deaths are unreliable. How many times have Davros and the Master been apparently killed? What about characters who were merely stunned?

Reported deaths - what if someone was lying, like Blackadder who got up too late for the battle so he came up with impressive-sounding figures for his kills?

Anne Rice's vampire novels - we're told they average one kill a night, and three of them live in New Orleans for about a century. (That's 100,000 blood-drained bodies dumped in the swamp which nobody seems to notice.)

In the Hitch Hiker's Guide books the Krikkitmen kill "a grillion" people but that's in flashback, so does that count?

What about a domestic drama set during World War II in which nobody is killed on stage. Do we count everybody who dies during the timeframe of the story? Does that include people who would have died even if there was no war?

So this is permanence, love's shattered pride.
What once was innocence, turned on its side.

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[–] apostasia 8 years ago

Resurrection was notorious in its day for the number of on-screen deaths, so I'd chuck that in as a starter for ten.

Just a painted face on a trip down suicide row

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[–] mail-81278 8 years ago

Actual characters with speaking parts? The Tom Baker era ep set in the lighthouse which name escapes me at the moment, EVERYONE died except Doctor and Leila.

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[–] chrismartonuk-1 8 years ago

THE SILURIANS both on-screen and off.

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[–] AardvarkRatnik 8 years ago

That's The Horror of Fang Rock ;)

Assuming the alternate Earth in Inferno was completely destroyed then that's roughly about 5 billion dead

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[–] paulbeardsley 8 years ago

Earthshock - think of all those poor dinosaurs killed by that freighter!

Castrovalva - travelled almost to the beginning of the universe, then (probably) to the present. In that time, billions were born and died on Earth alone.

So this is permanence, love's shattered pride.
What once was innocence, turned on its side.

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[–] pferreira86 8 years ago

I totally forgot Logopolis, yeah that would be a good choice. As mentioned elsewhere Resurrection of the Daleks had the biggest on screen bodycount on TV at the time, someone said it had more people killed on screen than the film The Terminator.

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[–] mindbait 8 years ago

which sounds good except that Terminator didn't really have that high of a body count. It's like when I went on this tour boat and they pointed out this waterfall that was "taller than niagra falls" yep, pretty much... but isn't niagra more famous for it's width than its height?!

https://soundcloud.com/rhythm-n-weird

New song "Where was I?"

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[–] speccyboy 8 years ago

I'd throw in "Attack of the Cybermen" as a contender, as well.

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[–] pferreira86 8 years ago

which sounds good except that Terminator didn't really have that high of a body count. It's like when I went on this tour boat and they pointed out this waterfall that was "taller than niagra falls" yep, pretty much... but isn't niagra more famous for it's width than its height?!

Critics were obviously affected by the nightclub massacre scene.

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[–] mindbait 8 years ago

Critics were obviously affected by the nightclub massacre scene.

whoops, I forgot about that... oddly enough I was discussing the Terminator films with a friend today. he was saying that he thought the effects in the first one was a bit naff, and I felt like the Christian Bale one lacked the sense of humour that offset the grimness of the first 3

https://soundcloud.com/rhythm-n-weird

New song "Where was I?"

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[–] foxboro27 8 years ago

EVERYONE on the other Planet Earth in Inferno dies.

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[–] pferreira86 8 years ago

oddly enough I was discussing the Terminator films with a friend today. he was saying that he thought the effects in the first one was a bit naff, and I felt like the Christian Bale one lacked the sense of humour that offset the grimness of the first 3

The effects in the second movie sure as hell look better than in Genisis that I think can not be debated.

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