Of all brown-toothed, gadget-loving Brits, we love Charlie Sorrel of Gadget Lab second only to our own Rob “Gypsy Flash King” Beschizza. Over at his local, Charlie’s keen eagle eyes spotted an Apple keyboard in the latest episode of Doctor Who… a keyboard spattered with gastric alien juice and still functional 50,000 years in the future. As Charlie aptly observes: “Don’t bother with Applecare.”
Doctor Who uses a Mac [Gadget Lab]
Still, 3,000 years isn’t bad for a keyboard. And yes, it’s a BitTorrented file enjoying the loving caresses of VLC. God bless those French schoolchildren who made it. Without them, I would have to endure my exile in foreign lands without the good Doctor.
As I remember Buck Rogers in the 25th century had Commodore Pets. We need a list of time jumping computer tech in sci-fi shows.
I caught that. But the cliffhanger bothered me more than the anachronism.
The Doctor is known to be quite fond of 20th and 21st century Earth. He could well be an Apple fan. After all, the TARDIS also includes a rubber mallet, and no one would call that an anachronism. I’m not even sure whether anachronisms are possible when it comes to a show about a time traveller.
There aren’t just keyboards still around in the future – those neck-mounted communicator doohickeys have a very prominent USB plug right in the middle of them.
Honestly, considering the brilliant model-making prowess (honestly cant decide if I’m being ironic) of the original Doctor Who era – consumer of many paper cups and bits of hairdryer – this is a nice update/homage. ;D
I just realised – since the show is set in a giant library filled with facsimile books – it’s already intentionally an anacronism! Who is to say the keyboard isn’t also a facsimile of a 3000-year old design?
Funny on three levels.
1) I noticed that too. Kinda like noticing the Polycom speakerphones in ST:TNG.
2) The screen shot is of the torrent download of the episode.
3) The torrent is same one I watched on my Mac Mini, controlling it via my Apple bluetooth aluminum keyboard–awesome bluetooth keyboard for “media pc’s”. I am guessing the keyboard featured in the show was the USB aluminum keyboard (or would that be aluminium?)
This is what happens when you don’t tell the Art Department about certain close-ups.
3,000 years in the future, actually – that episode was explicitly set in the 51st century, and since the Doctor said that to Donna, it seems safe to assume he means 3,000 years after the 21st century.
It was a bit of an anachronism though. They were rather too obviously Apple keyboards.