Adumbration

Doctor Who

"Coincidence. It's what the universe does for fun" ("Closing Time", Series 6, 2011)

A few years ago, I happened to be downtown San Diego during ComicCon - the huge annual comics and science fiction convention. That event occasioned some entertainment watching the costumed participants streaming by the pub where we took sidewalk seating to enjoy a bite and brew with the view.   A few weeks ago, I was flipping through channels and came upon broadcast from ComicCon 2012, which featured an interview with two actors in the current season of Doctor Who, a television franchise that dates to the first Doctor in 1963.

As a youth, in high school, I watched quite a bit of the fourth Doctor (played by Tom Baker) and the program continued well after that, concluding that run in 1989 with the seventh Doctor.  Season 1 of the modern reboot started in 2005, featuring the ninth Doctor.  The current Doctor is number eleven.

The ComicCon interview was intriguing, and later on I noticed several of the recent seasons "on demand" through the cable, so decided to give it a try.  I missed the initial Series of the reboot, but later ones were still available, so I started watching with the regeneration of the Doctor to his tenth incarnation.  It was a seven minute special that sucked me in enough to watch the next full episode, and before long I was completely engaged by the characters and story.   I noticed those earlier Series were soon to expire from the on-demand system, so commenced a viewing binge that completed Series 2 in about four days, and Series 3 about a week later.

Since then I am mostly caught up into the current Series 7, in the process seeing two incarnations of the Doctor (tenth, played by David Tennant, eleventh Matt Smith), and principle companions Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), Amy Pond (Karen Gillen), and the mysterious River Song (Alex Kingston).  I located Series 1 at the local video parlor, so I am now savoring the backstory with the tenth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). This has meant a lot of television watching, for which my penance is writing this review.

Some of you may already appreciate Doctor Who; it is reasonably famous in SF as among the longest running programs in television history.  The modern version of Doctor Who seems a far cry from what I remember as a youth; the production values are much greater, to begin with, so it hardly seems like the same program.  To summarize the premise, the Doctor is of a very long lived race known as time lords. While the Doctor's universe is not ours, there are many similarities; it is naturalistic; but there are aliens everywhere (or so it seems), and strange psychic phenomenon.    Doctor Who has continued this long in part because they figured out how to change the Doctor; if faced with death, he can regenerate (within some limits); his successor holds the memories and adventurous spirit, but not exactly the same personality.  

Doctor Who is firstly an adventure series.  The first words of the Doctor to Rose is "Run!" ("Rose", Series 1, 2005).  Donna tries to explain to her friend - "He saves planets, rescues civilizations, defeats terrible creatures, and runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved" ("The Doctors Daughter", Series 4, 2008).  Like many fictions, however, the strength is in the characters - the Doctor and his foibles, his companions and their sometimes ambiguous, sometimes rocky relationships.  

The Doctor has a device called a TARDIS, which allows him to travel across time and space.  The TARDIS has the external appearance of a blue British police call box.  A perception filter keeps the TARDIS from seeming out of place to the local inhabitants wherever it goes.  On the inside, the TARDIS is very much larger, which allows the comfortable travel of the time lord and his companions.  The Doctor's coat pockets are apparently also bigger on the inside, which explains how he can sometimes pull from them a needful item.   

Doctor Who takes on companions - contemporary humans - and travels together for an adventure, a season, or longer.  Their adventures sometimes balance the ultimate future of the universe, or the immediate future of individuals or cultures.  The Doctor's companions are attracted to him in different ways, but those relationships are treated with some subtlety.  The Doctor is heroic; he has a adventurous spirit that values life and abhors violence, that (mostly) seeks a solution to threatening danger that can thread the needle rather than blow it up.  But to be fair, things blow up real good from time to time. While it is not for everyone, once they experience it, his companions are attracted by that adventure.  

In the opening sequence to Series 6 (2011), Amy Pond says "I ran away with him, and we've been running ever since".  Rose Tyler asks "is it always this dangerous?", and joins the Doctor in spite of his unequivocal "yes". ("Rose", Series 1, 2005)

The Doctor is not perfect by any stretch, his plans sometimes go horribly awry, and the TARDIS doesn't always take the Doctor where or when he wants.  A five minute trip can turn into 12 years; what was meant to be several hours absence turns out to be a full year.  Evidently he came to possess it under some sketchy circumstances that didn't provide the operators manual, and It seems to have a mind of it's own ("The Doctor's Wife" Series 6, 2011).  

The Doctor has a fold out wallet that he uses for identification. The psychic paper contents are completely blank, but it works everywhere, because it appears to attest he is watever he needs to be. This works up to the time when he tells a young boy that the credentials show he is "universally recognized as a mature and responsible adult".   The boy says:  "but it's just a lot of wavy lines".  The Doctor pulls it back to see, then: "it's shorted out; finally, a lie too big." ("A Christmas Carol", Series 5, 2010)

Like much science fiction, one must suspend disbelief.  I find it perfectly acceptable that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than the outside, and that it can travel anywhere in time and space.  However, the Daleks are still cheesy after a 40 year tune-up, and Series 5's "Victory of the Daleks" (2010) went over the edge with the Spitfire attack on orbiting spacecraft.  Even so, while I have cringed a time or three, the writing is entertaining, and the characters sympathetic and multi-dimensional.  And I like how the production has not focused on pretty faces; Karen Gillen is unique along the cute range, while her character Amy Pond and the others have their own goals and motivations.

"There's so much to discover; think how much wiser we will be by the end of all this. Did I mention missiles?  I didn't want to worry you. And anyway six hours is a lifetime. Not literally a lifetime - that's what we're trying to avoid. And we're already clever; let's see what we can find out." - the Doctor ("Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", Series 7, 2012)

While he may not always succeed at it, the Doctor aims to resolve conflict through communication and wits, rather than violence. Often his first response to an apparent threat is "let's try to talk with them".  Even so, his sense of justice can be harsh, even vengeful with rage in the face ancient adversaries, and it falls to the strong character of his companions to give voice to reason or compassion. ("Dalek", Series 1, 2005).  His approach to justice can also be more subtle; when the Prime Minister orders the destruction of a retreating alien force, the Doctor triggers her political downfall with six words spoken to an aide: "Don't you think she looks tired?" ("The Christmas Invasion", Series 2, 2005).

The Doctor has a wry and sometimes madcap sense of humor, but fear, in it's multifarious forms, features to drive the action. In "Midnight" (Series 4, 2008), the Doctor is engaged in a vacation tour when the vehicle breaks down in a life threatening environment and the group must wait for rescue. When one of the passengers starts repeating the words of everyone else, and then begins to speak those words in advance of everyone else's utterances, panic and suspicion sets in, followed by attempts to toss the Doctor out the airlock.  In "The God Complex" (Series 6, 2011), several people are trapped in a cheap hotel; the hotel has a unique room for each of them that contains their worst fears. One by one the party discover their room, succumb to fear, and are consumed. The Doctor must sacrifice his trust in order to save them.

I have heard it said that we are living in a new golden age of television.  That might be true.  For Doctor Who, it's "Anywhere you want. Any time you want. There's one condition - it has to be amazing." (Series 5 opening, 2010)