Dr Who?

There’s been a Who-fest in our house for the last few weeks.  As the launch of the new Doctor series approached, we decided to do our own bit of time-travelling, for a reminder of what happened in 2005, when Christopher Eccleston re-booted the series.  We didn’t plan to watch the whole story, but apart from one or two episodes that we couldn’t access, we’ve kept going and were roughly at the halfway point of Peter Capaldi’s term of office, when the new series began to broadcast.

Watching both has been beneficial.  I’ve enjoyed the contrast of the Jodie Whittaker version.

It takes time for us to know each new regeneration.  First we get used to the face, accent and clothes, then the personality begins to refine.  Meanwhile, the journey through time and space continues.

Where do we find The Doctor, doer of good deeds, protector of the universe?

In the prologue to the ninth series, Ohila, leader of the sisterhood says, ‘Right behind you and one step ahead.’

There’s nothing like a good paradox to add layers to what is really a fairly simple and even familiar format.  A community is in crisis, threatened by tyrannising outsiders.  One or two try to take a stand against them, but are overcome. Things are looking grim, until a stranger enters the scene.  We’ve met such heroes before.  That’s no surprise.  Stories are continually being regenerated.

One of the forerunners I see for The Doctor is a re-imagining of the pioneer-days of the western United States.  I’m talking about, The Lone Ranger, who despite his name, always had two trusty side-kicks, Tonto, his native American friend and Silver, his horse.

The Doctor mostly travels with a loyal companion (or sometimes several), in a surprisingly wise and knowing Tardis, but there is another reason for my choosing this source rather than Shane, for instance.  Often, as The Lone Ranger rode off into the sunset, one character would ask another, ‘Who was that masked man?’

The Doctor’s true name is a secret, so invariably in new situations the introductions are:

‘Hello, I’m The Doctor.

To which, the pedantically inclined reply, ‘Dr Who?’

They might also say, Dr Why? Where? When? or How?

The twelfth doctor says, ‘I try never to understand, it’s called an open mind.’ I liked the twelfth doctor, particularly in the Steven Moffat stories.  And more particularly, the ninth series, when the character interactions seemed to jell perfectly.  There was something special happening in the interactions between The Doctor, Clara Oswald and Missy that seems, in retrospect, to have anticipated this recent regeneration.

Watch this new series carefully, and what becomes apparent is how much of the old Doctors are being referenced. The key themes are still there, (what is the nature of friendship, of guilt, of love?) though maybe the interpretation is getting a little shaken up.  I’m looking forward to finding out Who this latest Doctor really is.

Which Dr Who?

Last night I was one of the millions who turned on for the fiftieth anniversary episode of Dr Who, and tuned out the world.  For seventy-five minutes I was lost in story.  Yes, I’m a fan, have been as long as I can remember.

From, ‘The Guardian’ 18/11/2013

What’s not to love about the idea of time travel, in a box that is bigger on the inside than the outside can contain?  Even without a quirky character in control it’s the stuff of dreams.  Throw in a main character who shape shifts, just after we’ve settled into the idea that this is how he is, and I’m hooked.

I do miss the old Doctors, all of them, and most of their companions too.  I like to think they had more adventures than we saw on the tv, or heard on the radio, but I’m glad that there’s a turn-over in personalities.  This seems like a variation on the oral tradition of story, where tellers remould their material to suit each audience, reflecting the concerns and circumstances of the day in their approach and content.  In this way, stories stayed fresh.

Cinderella, for instance has been losing and finding her shoe for more than two thousand years.  Versions of her story have been found across the globe in some of the earliest writings of various civilizations.  But here’s the rub: for most of us, despite the various writers who’ve reworked the story during the past hundred and fifty years or so, Cinderella remains held in the 1697 limbo that Charles Perrault created when he set her inside the pages of his Fairy Tales from Past Times with Morals.

Cendrillon, by Gustave Dore, 1862

In 1893, Marian Raolfe Cox proposed that there were three hundred and forty-five variants on the Cinderella story.  That’s a lot of Cinders, and she hasn’t always gone by the same name, of course.  But she’s still the pretty, put-upon step-daughter and sister who wins a handsome husband when her missing footwear turns up.

Just as The Doctor is sometimes a joker, sometimes an action-man, sometimes grumpy, according to incarnations, and yet remains always The Doctor.  Some purists are bemoaning the more recent ‘up-grades’ of his personality.  They liked the old aloof doctor, who rarely even held hands with anyone, much less kissed or was kissed by a companion.   I’m glad he’s moved on.

And that goes for the side-kicks too.  I can watch the old episodes, with dippy, even silly, screeching companions prone to fainting or cowering in a corner, because they belong to their age.  That’s not us today, I tell myself.

Of course, in reality, if I was faced with weeping angels, cyber-men or any other more feasible invasion situation, I probably would scream then go hide in a cupboard and wait to be saved.  But this is fiction.  I want main characters who are active, who face up to the action and react positively, even if they are not the title protagonist.  I want them to get out there and work things out, together.