The New Doctor Who

The BBC series Doctor Who continues to challenge time by remaining on the air longer than anything else I can think of. The series ran from 1963 to 1989, and was revived in 2005. It is certainly the longest running science fiction show and it probably second only to Star Trek in its overall success.

The new series is now on its third Doctor, David Tennant having stepped down. Tennant was certainly the finest actor to play the Doctor so far. Having seen the first three episodes of the new season, I can't tell yet whether Matt Smith (number 11 overall) is quite as good. I do think he will make a fine Time Lord.

The original series was a lot of fun. Like most everyone else, my favorite Doctor was Tom Baker. With his wild frizzy hair and constant look of amusement and delight, he portrayed the spirit of science constantly seeing through superstition in all its forms. I like that in a Time Lord.

The revived series is a lot less about good hearted fun because it is serious in a way that the old one largely was not. The Doctor still jaunts around space and time in his TARDIS, a blue 1950's police box that is much bigger on the inside than on the outside. He is still accompanied by a woman (earth.human.young.usually attractive.20-21^st century) who acts as his Doctor Watson. Wherever he lands, there is some trouble afoot that the Doctor can see through and set right.

What makes it more serious is the way that moral dilemmas are woven into the plots. Dr. Who is what modern ethicists would call a deontologist. He places a high value on doing the right thing for the right reason and he is very impatient with utilitarian compromises. The show is very good at presenting the evils that can arise from doing something that obviously seems wrong because it promotes a greater good. That doesn't mean that he can always escape making a utilitarian compromise. What if doing the right thing means the death of millions of people?

The new series is also very good at presenting the self-deception and psychological dysfunction that can result from a moral compromise. In a recent episode the Doctor lands on a space ship carrying England's people away from a dying earth. At the heart of this spaceship is a dreadful secret. This secret is revealed to every citizen when he or she comes of age. The person then has the choice to protest or forget. That's two big buttons on a console. If a certain percentage chooses protest, the terrible arrangement that keeps them afloat, as it were, will be abolished. That might mean the death of them all. Apparently, everyone chooses to forget. The result is a society suffering from an inescapable bad conscience.

That is a remarkable meditation on morality and democracy. I can't think of anything else on TV that comes close to it in sophistication. Of course, it has to be fun more often than not. Things do not always turn out well in these episodes, but they mostly do. The Doctor nearly always comes through.

Doctor Who works by means of a very successful formula. There is the charm of freedom and adventure. The Doctor can go anywhere and anywhen. There is the charm of competence and knowledge. No matter what is wrong, the Doctor almost always knows exactly what to do about it. There is the charm of providence. It surely seems as if the Doctor is guided to where and when he needs to be. By whom, one wonders? But all these charms come at a price. His perpetual loneliness, the last of the Time Lords with a tragedy of Biblical proportions in his past, is only partially remedied by his comely companions. They have their own tragedy. Inevitably, they fall in love with him but they can never have him. That is only partly remedied by the magnificent adventures that wait outside the doors of the TARDIS.

The series used to be carried by the Syfy channel, but now you can see it on BBC America. It is well worth watching.

Comments

[Allonsy]

Nice post. Just wanted to say it seems the TARDIS itself is the agent that brings the Doctor to where/when he needs to be to set things right, as it is a living "machine" with which he has a very close relationship.

[Miranda]

Hooray for the Dr. Who Post!

I used to think nothing could entice me to watch zombies or anything remotely like them. Then I watched Dr. Who. I still find horror unappealing, but there is something tremendously appealing about seeing unspeakable horrors reversed.

And being able to see the great moral and philosophic battles of our time (and really, probably most times) brought to life as physical clashes between likable characters and fearsome monsters is a delight.

I can't say anything about the new series, as I've only just gotten to Season 2 of the David Tennant/Christopher Eccleston version. But I'm quite glad there are so many other episodes to look forward to.

[KB]

Allonsy: thanks for the comment. Yes, the Doctor's TARDIS does seem to be a living creature in its own right, but it doesn't have much of a personality does it? One can speculate that the TARDIS is directing the Doctor to where he needs to go, but how does the TARDIS know this? I think one has to assume some kind of providence here. That is a common assumption in a lot of fantasy. Who arranged for Bilbo to acquire the ring? Providence, of course.

Miranda: you have much to look forward to. Doctor Who is scifi rather than horror, but it can be pretty gruesome at times. If you haven't seen any of the spin off Torchwood series, it is serious and perhaps more serious in the same way. I blogged about the Children of Earth miniseries, which apparently ended Torchwood's run. That might have been the single best scifi I have seen on TV. It was certainly the most morally sophisticated.

It is certainly one of the charms of Doctor Who that the good almost always wins out. In my very favorite episode, the Doctor enters the room of a young girl and saves her from a playing-card robot. He advises her afterward to go back to sleep. This was just a nightmare. She points out that she is wide awake, and asks "What do monsters dream about when they have nightmares." The Doctor responds, thoughtfully, "I suppose they dream about me." That is my hero.

[Miranda]

Dr. Blanchard:

I agree that Dr. Who is more Sci-Fi than horror, though it has, I think, more of an element of horror in it than say, Star Trek or Babylon 5.

Coincidentally, the episode you mention was the last one I saw and it was truly brilliant. My favorite so far is the "Are you my Mummy?" episode. It is the episode that has horrified me the most, but the ending was so good, that it made me teary - which is a rare occurrence. The only film I can recall having the same effect was The Mission.

[KB]

Miranda:

I don't know, those spider shaped star ships in BB5 always gave me the shivers. But I concede your point. I define the Horror genre by whether it makes evil corporeal or at least as real as gravity and electricity. That happens in Dr. Who often enough.

I cry all the time during Dr. Who episodes. But ask my wife: I am a real softy.

[Brent]

, the Auton window deiumms from Spearhead From Space.Of the Doctors and companions interviewed on their fond memories, one can tell who actually enjoyed doing the program and really cared. The Doctors are Jon Pertwee, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and the companions being Carole Anne Ford, Frazier Hines, Deborah Watling, Nicholas Courtney, Nicola Bryant, and Sophie Aldred. Now that's only a handful! You can learn about why Jon Pertwee preferred humanoid monsters, and Sophie Aldred's near-fatal accident during the making of Battlefield. However, footage from incomplete stories (The Dalek Master Plan, The Underwater Menace, Web Of Fear), or dialogue from nonexistent stories (Fury From The Deep), is always a treat. And the five year purge by the BBC of half of the William Hartnell and two-thirds of the Patrick Troughton stories are among the most heinous crimes ever committed in BBC TV history. So a big Krynoid-size thanks to Ian Levine for saving The Daleks a day later and he would have been too late.The last minutes of Survival, the last aired TV story, and Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy's last words mirror the end of the program. I felt as if I could run forever. So did we.More Than 30 Years is a perfect synthesis of the program's history, combining clips from the series, Who-related commercials, and with the presence of other programs e.g. Blue Peter, Pebble Mill At One, Crackerjack, a cross-section of British TV culture. As someone said early on, its essentially British quality made it appealing. And who better than Nicholas Courtney, a.k.a. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, to narrate the documentary. So will the show return? Time will tell. It always does.

[James]

, the Auton window duemims from Spearhead From Space.Of the Doctors and companions interviewed on their fond memories, one can tell who actually enjoyed doing the program and really cared. The Doctors are Jon Pertwee, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and the companions being Carole Anne Ford, Frazier Hines, Deborah Watling, Nicholas Courtney, Nicola Bryant, and Sophie Aldred. Now that's only a handful! You can learn about why Jon Pertwee preferred humanoid monsters, and Sophie Aldred's near-fatal accident during the making of Battlefield. However, footage from incomplete stories (The Dalek Master Plan, The Underwater Menace, Web Of Fear), or dialogue from nonexistent stories (Fury From The Deep), is always a treat. And the five year purge by the BBC of half of the William Hartnell and two-thirds of the Patrick Troughton stories are among the most heinous crimes ever committed in BBC TV history. So a big Krynoid-size thanks to Ian Levine for saving The Daleks a day later and he would have been too late.The last minutes of Survival, the last aired TV story, and Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy's last words mirror the end of the program. I felt as if I could run forever. So did we.More Than 30 Years is a perfect synthesis of the program's history, combining clips from the series, Who-related commercials, and with the presence of other programs e.g. Blue Peter, Pebble Mill At One, Crackerjack, a cross-section of British TV culture. As someone said early on, its essentially British quality made it appealing. And who better than Nicholas Courtney, a.k.a. Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, to narrate the documentary. So will the show return? Time will tell. It always does.