Season Five of
Doctor Who concluded Saturday night. All day Saturday, BBC America presented a DW marathon. Which is a mixed blessing because Auntie Beeb's American cousin
doesn't think we, on this side of the Pond and/or below the 49th Parallel, deserve the experience of the full episodes, and the cuts they make are very often less than inspired. I mean, don't get me started on the whole “chunk of coral” thing, 'kay?
On the other hand, it's “Doctor Who”, and an abbreviated version of the Doctor is better than no Doctor at all. Well, yeah, there was that business with Eight, but...
Anyway...
In honor of the end of the fifth season since the reboot,
and Matt Smith's first as the Doctor, I have decided to
try and explain my continuing affection for this campy, yet imaginative, serial.
I blame my grandfather, really.
My grandparents didn't own a television set, by choice. My grandfather's philosophy was that if one couldn't be entertained by books and music, one
shouldn't even bother. I think I've recounted before that evenings in the house in Sherman, MS were spent reading or being read to, and listening to Gershwin or Rachmaninoff or Schubert. When I was being read to, he started with James Thurber - specifically, "The Thirteen Clocks". After I'd heard it enough that I could quote it back to him, he had to find
other things to share. His personal library was purely rife with Ian Fleming's James Bond, so at the tender age of, like,
six, I was treated to (a sanitized version of) the adventures of Great Britain's master spy. Read to me in a British accent with a hint of a southern drawl. (Which is why I a) love James Bond to this day, and b) wanted to be a spy when I grew up. Oh, well...)
So... cut my teeth, as it were, on serial stories
and developed strong leanings toward all things British – cemented by the advent of the Beatles. Add a
soupçon of David McCallum as
Ilya Kuryakin (yes, I know the character was Russian; it was the accent that I adored)
and factor in
“The Avengers”.
Finally, throw some sci fi into the mix - Star Trek (the original, naturally) and “2001: A Space Odyssey” - and I was a fangirl waiting to happen. All that was needed was a trigger to put me squarely in the middle of the Whoniverse.
I had a vivid imagination (see the
wanted to be a spy reference.) and very compelling personal reasons to indulge in escapism at almost any opportunity. The opportunity – the trigger – in question, as it turned out, was a low-power UHF station in Atlanta, oh, around 1970-ish. I can't remember the call sign. I want to say it's position on the dial was somewhere in the 30's but I can't even be certain of
that. Anyway,
somehow they were able to broadcast "Doctor Who", and in something approaching real time. Catching it on my little 13-inch b/w set with the funky little loop antenna was pretty hit-n-miss. Usually on a Friday night or the wee hours of Saturday morning; the station management seemed to schedule it around wrestling for some unknown reason. Anyway... The broadcast quality wasn't great. Hell, the taping quality wasn't much to write home about; it was, after all, British. *wink* Compared to the other sci-fi of the day - specifically, "Star Trek" – the “effects” weren't all that special. Even to a young girl who had just grown out of thinking cartoons were pretty cool...
I loved "Star Trek"; still do, in all of it's many incarnations and reboots. However, even in ST's original form with its (relatively speaking) crisp film quality, hi-tech spacecraft, strange new worlds - all of that! - I loved “Doctor Who” more. Not much more, but enough to make the difference. ST was about
"The Future" - after we had sorted out all of our issues here on
terra firma and turned our eyes to the stars. It gave us something to aspire to, but a long, long time from now. "Doctor Who" was
in the here and now (or there and then). In the world of DW, people lived day-to-day lives right here on good ol' planet Earth, blissfully unaware (most of them) that there were bug-eyed aliens, saltshaker aliens, metal-covered aliens, aliens with evil intent (or, at least, morally confused), and they were all out there drawing a bead on our little patch of sunshine. And all that stood between them and us was (in my moment of discovery) an irascible old man who didn't suffer fools lightly. He managed to secure our safety in spite of the "help" of a largely bumbling military and
with the help of assistants/Companions who traveled with him. And the TARDIS, of course. What a awesomely sweet,
fun “little” ship!
(On a side note - I always thought the Daleks looked more like saltshakers than pepperpots. I'm just sayin'...)
"Star Trek" offered to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations etc., yes, but always backed up by phasers and photon torpedos, and almost every episode provided an opportunity to tapdance around that whole "peaceful mission" thing. The Prime Directive was, like so many laws, a paper shield - conveniently twisted about as needed to accomplish
whatever. "Doctor Who", on the other hand, had (has)... an unarmed TARDIS with a broken perception filter, a sonic screwdriver and some jiggery-pokery. The Doctor also possessed something of a moral compass; sometimes he struggled with it but he almost always managed to find his way back to True North. (The one time he didn't – couldn't, even – is worth a series, or a feature film, in and of itself. But not with Johnny Depp. Please.)
So... It was a proper, personal escapism that hooked and reeled me in. I wanted my demons to be confronted
right then, thank you, and not at some distant stardate. That the confronter was a grandfatherly sort also fit nicely. Like I said, blamin' it on Poppy.
When we moved to South Georgia and away from my friendly UHF station and its mysteriously acquired copies of a BBC serial, I entered into a dark phase of no Doctor. Grew up (theoretically), went to school, came home, got married, had a child, got divorced, discovered WoT and other things. Got busy with life, and left the TARDIS behind.
Or so I thought.
I remember it well. It was very late one Friday night, or early Saturday morning. Lee was with his dad, and I was sitting on my couch in the house on Goff Street, and channel-surfing. And there it was. On the local PBS station out of Waycross, Georgia. The actual regeneration episode of Jon Pertwee to Tom Baker.
And it was a membership drive weekend, so... can we say “Doctor Who marathon”?? (Which is how I came to own a
TardisExpress t-shirt... “When it absolutely positively has to be there yesterday”...) Ere the rooster crowed, I was a Whovian once more.
Oh, certainly. By that point, in the realm of pop culture, we had already seen three Star Wars and two or three Star Trek movies, and assorted other sci-fi entries on television. Some of them not bad. Comparatively speaking, Time (no pun intended) had not been kind to the Doctor's technology. Hadn't been all that gentle with the overall production quality, either. But the stories –
the stories – had maintained their essential whatever-it-is that I loved way back when.
With the single-mindedness (
read obsession) for which I am famous, I started catching up; I'd completely missed Doctors Six and Seven – not my favorites, personality-wise, but still admirable. And the constants were still there. The improbability of a wise and ancient alien, able to travel the far-flung reaches of time and space, but who still wants to lend a helping hand to planet Earth. Adopted us, he had, in a way. Hints of an earthling mother, although canon isn't entirely clear on that. Could be why, or could be that he just
liked us for reasons that even he couldn't entirely understand. Another constant in the series is the TARDIS.
Time
And
Relative
Dimensions
In
Space. Bigger on the inside. Much, much bigger on the inside. A sentient ship, telepathically bonded with the Doctor and, sometimes, his companions. Somewhat cranky at times, and requiring a lot of tinkering. Also requires, ideally, six pilots which is why the Doctor's landings are so rough at times. Plus, he leaves the parking brake on and that's what makes the grinding noise, or so River Song explains. The TARDIS looks after the Doctor, occasionally overrides him when she thinks it's for his own good. The last constant is the Companion. Usually female, although there have been a few males over the years, they are
us, in the story. They represent the curiosity, the incredulity, the fear, the wonder. Quite often “jeopardy-friendly”, sometimes petty, usually clever, they give us a reason to join the Doctor during his adventures. Sometimes, they even save the day.
Bottom line, then, is that the Doctor is a friend in high places who drives a really smart car and doesn't mind taking others along for the ride. There's a concept that travels as well today as it did all those years ago. Go figure...
By the time I had found my way back to the show, it had already come to an apparent end. There was a lapse of seven years between Doctors Seven and Eight – at least as far as the television series was concerned. There was a faithful fanbase, mostly in the UK, who kept it alive in print and radio. In 1996, some bright someone decided to try for an American audience
via FOX. That didn't work out too well. As a result, the Eighth Doctor was pretty much a one-shot onscreen, although he did soldier on in the other media.
PBS would trot out the series on a semi-regular basis, focusing mostly on Pertwee, Baker and Davison (Doctors Three, Four and Five), but the frequency diminished with the years and it seemed that, here in the States, the Doctor was going to slip away altogether. I managed to be philosophical about it (having found other things to obsess about) and even relegated it to one of those things that might occasionally be good for a surprise win at Trivial Pursuit.
Then, 2005... Christopher Eccleston became the Doctor, and the series was reborn. Darker, more angst-ridden, last survivor of the last great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks (the pepperpots/salt shakers). Responsible (in ways not entirely clear) for the death and destruction of his home planet, Gallifrey, in a last ditch effort to defeat the evil Dalek Empire. Dangerous, erratic, manic and with all the tact of a bulldozer. (Sounds like half the guys I've dated; no wonder I was hooked from the start.) His Companion was a ****ney shop girl named Rose Tyler. The first episode of the reboot had more than its fair share of camp and plot holes but the spirit was all DW. Every episode got better and better. The relationship between the Doctor and Rose developed into something with some real depth to it. The episodes “The End of the World”, “Father's Day”, the two-parter “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” were stellar, really.
Every episode had much that was worthwhile. Eccleston is a fine actor, and Billie Piper was surprisingly good once she got her feet under her. There were excellent supporting characters – Rose's mother, Jackie, was a hoot. Harriet Jones, MP... Rose's ex-boyfriend, Micky Smith... And Captain Jack Harkness, who ended up with Torchwood. The Daleks made a dramatic return, the Companion saved the day. All's well that ends well.
Except that Eccleston decided to leave (after a very touching regeneration scene) and was replaced by David Tennant. Tennant, himself, was a fanboy (self-proclaimed in an interview) and he played the part with genuine passion. His relationship with Rose became the stuff of legend. Don't believe me? Just google Doctor Who fanfic. But, be forewarned... You just
think WoT fanfiction is prolific! You should see some of the DW fan sites. *lol* (And, yes, I've done one. Just one, and it's all I'll do. After – what? - two, three years of personal inactivity here, I had to see if I could still do it. I can, and that's all I need to know.) David Tennant gave us three full time years and one parttime before handing it off to Matt Smith. I'm not even going to try and list all of the
excellent episodes that occurred during Tennant's tenure. I mean, really. Okay... All of his first season. Then "42", "Blink", "Human Nature/The Family of Blood", "Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords" from the second, and most of the third. Plus "Waters of Mars".
As I said earlier, I had misgivings about Matt Smith. They have proven to be unfounded. I'm very happy about that. This season gave us some truly exceptional work. “The Lodger”, “Vincent and the Doctor”, “Amy's Choice”, “The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone” and the first episode “The Eleventh Hour” have become favorites of mine. Really, the weakest one of the lot was “Vampires in Venice”, and it's wholly worth watching for the
confrontation scene between the Doctor and Signora Rosanna Calvierri, alone. (The clip is long - and fun. The confrontation itself occurs around about 8 minutes into it.) Matt Smith really,
really pulled off the ancient-soul-in-a-new-body vibe.
Wow... really didn't mean to get this carried away...
Summing up... Season 5 over. There will be a Christmas special, then sometime next spring Season 6. Matt Smith will return as the Doctor and, apparently, so will Amy and Rory. (No, Rory didn't die after all. Well, he did, but it all got sorted out. More of that
wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.) Maybe next season I might actually do something review-ish as it progresses.
Yeah. That sounds like a plan. And, 'cause y'all love me, you'll roll with that, won't you...
