As a nerd, I have a great love for all things science-fiction. There is no genre in film or television that even comes close to being able to take the viewer on an amazing adventure beyond their wildest dreams, often setting the stories in the future or alternate worlds just to explain the insanity their story is trying to convey. It’s this “balls-to-the-wall” crazy, no holds style of storytelling that draws in many lovers of science-fiction while alienating a great deal of others with its’ frequent lack of heart that is usually lost in the madness.
But once in a while, a great science fiction project falls into our lap that manages to mix the surreal world of imaginative science-fiction storytelling with a whole lot of human heart and likeable characters.
Thus summarizes my love for Doctor Who, a show that I consider to be the most enjoyable work of television science-fiction in the last fifty years, which is fitting because the show has just celebrated its’ fiftieth anniversary. Now before you assume the show has been on for fifty straight seasons you should know that throughout the shows’ life it has encountered a series of bumps and obstacles keeping it from perpetually running. However, the show has run for over thirty-five cumulative seasons and released several dozen movies, cementing it as the longest running science fiction show of all time and the longest running BBC show of all time.
Doctor Who first aired in November 1963 as a family oriented educational show, with the main character (a mysterious old man simply called the Doctor) using a time machine to transport his granddaughter and her teachers through time for history lessons. As time went on though, several problems began to arise with the format of the show. Things such as diminishing ratings, lack of funds, and the failing health of the actor portraying the Doctor forced the series to begin to go through a sort of progressive change, slowly turning the show from educational into pure science fiction.
As time went on more and more of the Doctor’s history became clear to the audience. As it turns out the man known as the Doctor was not really a man at all, but actually a member of a race of aliens called “Time Lords”, named because their highly intelligent minds had mastered the science of time and space. To address the departure of William Hartnell (the actor who played the first incarnation of the Doctor) it was explained that instead of dying, Time Lords had a unique ability that allowed them to regenerate into an entirely new body once their old body expired, being able to do this at least thirteen times before meeting their ultimate end.
If Fringe (one of my other favorite shows I have reviewed on this site) can be seen as The X-Files on steroids, Doctor Who could be seen as The X-Files on LSD, Angel Dust, and PCP. The show is much more “balls-out-crazy” than your typical sci-fi, and can actually be considered more science-fantasy than science fiction. This actually turns out to be a strength of the show, as the dilemma of each episode is even weirder than the episode before it. A regular episode could consist of the Doctor and his friends travelling to renaissance Venice to battle a group of vampire aristocrats who actually turn out to be mutant fish monsters from space.
I am not joking you, that is an actual episode of the show.
Or maybe you would prefer the episode where the Doctor and his friend travel to a World War II torn London and team up with Winston Churchill to stop a race of evil armored space squids known as Daleks from helping the Nazis win the Battle of Britain.
Again, not an exaggeration.
Despite the surprising plots of the episodes, the story has always been slowly advanced forward one way or another over the course of a regular season, as in one season might focus on solving the mystery of the destruction of the TARDIS while another focuses on the resurrection of the Daleks. One season actually serves as a mystery of “Who Killed the Doctor?”, and this format is a welcome change of pace from most “monster of the week” styles of television sci-fi. While Doctor Who certainly has a great share of these episodes, they are liberally intermixed with several episodes advancing the Doctor’s struggles with one of his many arch nemesis’(the Daleks, Mister Saxon, Stavros, the Sontarons, the Silents, etc), which also allows the show to create several antagonists with deeper story arcs to their character.
So why do I love this show so much? To be honest, for a show that revolves around a person from another planet, it’s the human element that resonates so strongly for me. The Doctor is one of the interesting and dynamic characters I have ever seen, possessing a depth and realism to him that is hard to match both onscreen and in literature. The Doctor is capable of truly amazing things, and many Whovians have made the argument that the Doctor could just be the personification of God in a humanoid body. It’s a very interesting idea, especially when you factor in the idea that one of the biggest arguments against the existence of God is the question “If God is all-knowing, all-caring, and all-powerful, the how can so much evil exist in the world?” Well, let’s break this down from the Doctor’s point of view.
1. God is all powerful-At first glance this statement might seem like God (the Doctor) would be an invincible, unstoppable juggernaut of destruction if he chose to be, laying waste to his enemies without a second thought, but this doesn’t have to be the case for it to be true. While The Doctor may not be considered “all powerful” like God, he has a number of abilities and tools at his disposal which (when viewed through human eyes) which could be considered Godlike. For example, he has a machine which allows his to be anywhere at anytime that he chooses in time and space (Omnipresence?), and he has an all purpose device called a Sonic Screwdriver which can be used to do everything from open locked vaults to repair entire space stations in the span of seconds (Omnipotence?). Most importantly of all however, while the Doctor’s body may be as frail and weak as a human body, he is ageless, and if he is mortally wounded he possesses an ability which allows him to completely regenerate into a new body should he die (Immortality?).
Even though The Doctor has a normal body you can call him anything but weak, he just defeats all of his opponents with intelligence and science instead of the brute strength or reality bending power we associate with God. In fact, comedian/genius Craig Ferguson (a Whovian himself) has implied on many occasions that the reason the Dosctor appeals to nerds like myself so much is that he epitomizes how conflict can be resolved with intellect instead of brute force and cynicism.
On several occasions The Doctor has easily dispatched an alien force singlehandedly that Earth’s combined Armies couldn’t hold a torch to. Even though The Doctor has always allowed his enemies a chance to walk away, he has never hesitated to kill them in cold blood if they reject his offer, and he can certainly be viewed as “All Powerful”.
Usually while sporting a truly atrocious wardrobe
2. God is all caring-The Doctor cares a great deal about all living things, and as I’ve mentioned on this site several times he is always happiest when two sides involved in a conflict can walk away happy and unharmed. In fact, on several occasions he has offered the olive branch of peace even while the aggressor is still in the process of shooting at him. I know I just brought up how he always offers a truce to the aggressor if they just walk away, but even should they turn on him and reject his proposal he never takes an action that is more drastic than it needs to be in order to defend the innocent.
Now the Doctor has done some truly horrific things, he’s destroyed entire planets, wiped out whole civilizations, and tortured many protagonists literally for eternity. He was even resplosible for the extinction of his own people when he saw them transform from wise, benevolent caretakers into blood-thirsty soldiers, but every single one of these actions was necessary and he always did so if it meant the continued existence of the greater good. All of these actions were defensive, and he did it because he cared for the universe, specifically humans, whom he has always loved and protected. Sound like someone, or something familiar?
3. God is all knowing-Now this one is a little trickier, as on several occasions The Doctor has walked into a situation he was not aware of and had to figure things out before proceeding, but that doesn’t mean he can’t fall into this category in a lot of other ways. The Doctor may not know all of the answers all of the time, but he does possess:
a. The knowledge to figure these things out
b. The experience to know how to deal with every conceivable dilemma
c. The scientific prowess to navigate seemingly impossible scenarios
The Doctor is nearly a millennium old, and he has been travelling the universe for almost that entire time. As a result, the guy can speak every language in existence, knows intimate details of every species he encounters, and has enough scientific knowledge just off the top of his head to do something in mere seconds that would take an army of scientists years to do. Now this may not seem like something that can be called all powerful, but it certainly seems godlike next to people like us.
Now again, the Doctor never claims to be God, it’s just a comparison that can be gleaned when viewing The Doctor through human eyes. Add this perception to the fact that The Doctor loves human beings (he seriously thinks we’re the bee’s knees), he has a set of moral rules, and that he works in the shadows, accomplishing miracles without staying around to be thanked or praised, and you have a pretty strong case to compare the two. Also, he needs us, hence the point that he always travels with a human companion to keep him company. He may keep them around for company, he may keep them around to keep his ego in check, but more often than not, it’s for reasons that run much deeper than that.
Take the most recent companion Amy Pond for example, when the Doctor first meets her she is ten years old and thinks he is some sort of magic policeman who has come to solve her problems (which he actually offers to do). Before he can though he has to make an emergency time jump five minutes into the future to fix his time machine, but of course he miscalculates, and instead jumps twelve years into the future and meets a twenty two year old version of the girl he met. He realizes that his disappearance has severely damaging Amy’s childhood, and after saving her life (along with Earth), he discovers that she grew up praising him and arguing with anyone who tried to convince her that The Doctor wasn’t real, causing her to be declared borderline crazy.
Now why would the Doctor take this emotionally damaged and fragile girl on dangerous adventures that would endanger a life he already partially ruined? Is it guilt? Is it worry? No, I think he takes her on his adventures because she worshipped him as a sort of deity. Keep in mind, he decided to pick her up for their travels the day before her wedding, so even though he may feel guilty about everything he put her through, he sure doesn’t seem to worry about what he’s about to put her through. I mean, this is all conjecture of course, and let me know if you can think of another reason of why an arrogant guy with a kick-ass ride would try to pick up a naïve but kind, funny, twenty-something year old girl who literally worships you and would do anything for you.
Also, she looks like this.
The point is, she puts him on a pedestal and would follow him to the end of the Earth, and while that may seem condescending on the Doctor’s part it’s a lot like how people think it’s hypocritical that God created us so we could sing his praises. He doesn’t need them, but he finds it reassuring when he sees it and it helps remind him why he loves us so much. His love for us is comforting to see, in fact in one season the Doctor started out as a nihilistic insensitive prick and this turned out to be a disaster of a personification. I mean sure, Eccleston (the 9th Doctor) brought us a Doctor who was kind of a bad-ass, but his beliefs were completely against everything the Doctor stood for.
Eccleston’s reasons were kind of sound, he had just come off from a massive galactic war and had seen the worst the universe could offer, but this attitude he gave off was still unsettling and unwelcome to the fans. Over the course of the year though the Doctor’s perception of humanity begins to skew as his companion Rose realizes he needs help. During their adventures the Doctor begins to trust Rose more and more, and eventually sees that she encompasses the good side of humanity that he seems to have forgotten.
But how did she convince him?
By the end of the first series the Doctor is almost sort of born again, which leads us to David Tennant taking the role for the second series. His portrayal as a kinder, funnier, more charismatic Doctor was embraced by the fans, but just like Eccleston he continuously showed a dark side lurking beneath should problems arise. After Tennant came Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, and his portrayal is somewhere in the middle of Eccleston and Tennant with a bit of mania thrown in for good measure.
At the end of the day though, Doctor Who is one of the best things to come out of Great Britain since Shaun of the Dead. Very rarely do I get as riled up for a show as I do for this one, and Saturday nights are great nights for television now because of this one show. I can’t think of many things more relaxing than grabbing a beer, a pizza, and watching the Doctor and friends team up with a group of pirates to fight an evil spirit of the sea.
One more time, I cannot stress enough that these are actual episodes.
