Oh, boy. Here we go.
In recent years, the long-running British science fiction show Doctor Who has become a major hit in the United States. Like many new fans, I was intrigued by the show with the appearance of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, so I went back and watched everything starting from the (new) beginning in 2005. Needless to say, I have had mixed feelings about the show the more I’ve thought about it. It is certainly imaginative and has the capacity to go anywhere that the writers want to dream up, which can mean that one week will involve a trip into the past while another may go into a sci-fi landscape that you haven’t seen before.
The team behind the show, currently led by Steven Moffat, have certainly done a good job in crafting the landscapes and visual design of the show. Whether it is anything from the creation of a new villain to the inside of the TARDIS, the team certainly spares no expense in making sure that the viewer believes that they’re peering into another world. However, the problem comes when you get to the actual stories themselves, and I am not talking about how the companions always ask the Doctor to explain what is going on…
1. The Doctor’s Ethics Are All Over The Place.
KA-BOOM!
The Doctor is typically thought of as the one Time Lord who made a promise to be a healer, traveling around the universe trying to solve conflicts. He does spend a lot of time on Earth out of love (and budget), but the general thought behind his character is that he likes to save the world with a sonic screwdriver, some tape, and a few pieces of wire. To augment this pacifist attitude, he generally abhors killing people even when such an idea flies in the face of common sense and reason. To demonstrate this, allow me to point out the most egregious example of it in The Christmas Invasion.
This was the first Christmas special that the show ever had… and the first episode that featured the beloved David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Long story short, there is an invasion by the Sycorax at Christmas and the Doctor has been out of it because of his recent regeneration. They are eventually captured and the Doctor thinks that he can eliminate the threat by sword-fighting the alien leader. He succeeds and the aliens are driven off, but then gets angry at the British government (and Torchwood) for destroying the ship. Through the magic of plot convenience, he is proven right as the government is taken down.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but Torchwood was right in destroying that ship.
They may have been written with the asinine belief that they could resurrect the British Empire, but this is an instance where they were absolutely correct and the Doctor was completely wrong. You have a situation where the Doctor defeats one enemy and that somehow eliminates the threat… until the defeated alien leader attempts to stab the Doctor in the back. Therefore, the writers have established that these aliens have no intention of honoring anything and could very well come back when the Doctor is not on Earth. When you have a hostile group that is threatening to take over the world and make half of humanity their slaves, the only way to respond to such a threat is to make sure that they never come back.
2. The Monster Mash And A Human Extinction Event.
More like kill the ratings, amirite?
The insanity has continued well into the era of the Twelfth Doctor with Kill the Moon, a heavily companion-centric story that essentially amounts to nothing more than a lesson on abortion. In it, the Doctor and Clara explore an outpost in the near-future on the Moon. They discover that it is overrun with spider-esque creatures and that it is actually an egg that is hatching, which explains the fact that it is cracking at the seams. Unfortunately, the Doctor leaves the entirety of the episode to Clara and some astronauts, which is where the episode completely goes to hell.
In order to make the choice of whether to kill the creature or save it, she turns to an Earth that has been ravaged by a series of natural disasters and asks them to turn their lights off or leave them on for each respective choice. Naturally, the people of Earth make the smart choice and order the creature’s death, but Clara suddenly decides that she knows better than everyone else and aborts the detonation of nuclear warheads.
Okay, why? Why would you assume that everything would turn out to be okay unless you had a script? Any number of possible things might have gone horribly wrong. Namely, the Moon could have shattered and thrown all of its’ debris to Earth.
An event like that would have meant the end of the world. And even if it had not happened and the creature successfully hatched, how do you know that it wasn’t going to turn and attack Earth with all of those spider things hanging off of it? It could have easily done so, except that the plot didn’t need it to do that.
This leads to one last question that fans may be all too uncomfortable with:
Conclusion – Is This Show Supposed To Be For Families (Or Children)?
These totally aren’t Space Nazis, you guys. Not at all.
This was a common criticism of the Star Wars prequels and I believe the same thing can be said of this show. While I certainly wouldn’t expect graphic violence from the show, it does try to address adult topics like politics, genocide, slavery, totalitarianism (Daleks, much?), corruption, eugenics, and other issues that are very, very dark.
Given the examples that I’ve shown you (and many more), is it even possible to tackle these subjects or is there a need for a stronger writing team or narrative device to overcome this problem? I would argue for both, which leads to my idea that this show needs a human organization that is an adversary to the Doctor. It would be a good balance to the pacifist attitude of the Time Lord and can show how certain aspects of his ideals can cause continued misery for Earth. Torchwood would have been a good choice, but I am thinking that an international military organization would be more appropriate to show the human side of how Earth would be defended in this universe.
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