Twisted Spinster

[Added: see the bottom of the post for the greatest thing ever.]

Yeah, I haven’t written one of these in a while. Anyway… I figured out the main thing that is wrong with the new Doctor Who series (that is, the revival which started in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston playing Doctor No. 9, and continued with David Tennant as No. 10). And that is: it’s not so much about this iconic British character of an alien time traveller who has weird adventures along with human or otherwise companions, as it is about how wonderful it is about being a fan of Doctor Who.

Not being British, I missed out on all the cultic thrill of being a fan of the show. Of course it was one of my favorite shows but it was one of those things that used to only be shown on PBS stations on this side of the pond. Before cable tv PBS pretty much had foreign tv sewn up; they were just about the only source of British shows like Monty Python, Masterpiece Theater, and so on. The schedule was more reliable, as was their funding source. But as cable took hold in the 80s, PBS began to lose its foothold as the only source of foreign tv, and I think their budget shrank, and they stopped showing anything that anyone over the age of 75 was interested in, so my last Doctor for a while was the 5th, Peter Davison. (My first was Tom Baker, number 4. I knew no other Doctors and until recently there could be no other Doctors before those two.) I remember when the tv movie came out, an abortive attempt by Fox to revive the series that went nowhere. I missed it for a reason I now forget. A friend saw it, and said it was “eh.” She hadn’t taped it, or else I’d have seen it. Anyway, I’ve never seen the tv movie with Doctor 8, Paul McGann, though I believe it’s the source of the Evil Overlord rule: “I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.”

Anyway, I heard of the revival, but wasn’t interested, so I missed the Christopher Eccleston run when it first came out. I didn’t get into the new series until it was well into it’s third year over here. Let’s just say I’ve caught up.

I decided to look up the guy who brought it back to life, Russell T. Davies. The first thing I discovered was he was the brain behind Queer As Folk, and that he was one of what I call “professional gays.” A light went off in my head, and a little voice said “so that’s it.”

I’ve been into music fandom before. Scifi cultism is kind of like that. You think you’re special because you listen to this weird music or read these weird stories that other people flinch and frown at, and that music or those stories say something to you that you can’t get from what other people, who you soon learn to call “normals” or “mundanes” or something like that — something that marks you out as special and separate from them — listen to or read. You try to explain your liking to the normals at first, but they just give you that look, and you soon learn to keep it to yourself, so you won’t lose the specialness. The threat that you’ll wake up one day and agree with “them” — the normal, average crowd — that your special, exalted, “other” thing, isn’t really all that special, it’s a variation of something everyday, or worse, it’s an inversion of something good and true, an inversion that is a mockery, and that up against the good and true looks false, stupid, and tinny. The threat of laughter and mockery always looms for the cult fan.

That being said, the strengths of the Doctor Who “brand” didn’t used to depend upon the exclusiveness and clannishness of its fans, but on the common roots of the base story itself, which was the age-old tale of the travelling adventurer. The new series is in a sense inverted. Excellent as much of it is (there is certainly better acting, pacing, and special effects than the old low-budget show), it’s become not so much about the wonderful and mysterious character of the Doctor and all the scrapes he and his random buddies get into as it is about how wonderful it is that we fans are into this Doctor character and show.

The most glaring example of this is the way the writers, led by Davies, decided to get rid of all the Time Lords and their planet Gallifrey in an immense yet never-clearly-explained war. Foom! They’re gone. It wasn’t enough that the Doctor was a rootless wanderer more or less exiled from his home for reasons unknown — let’s up the stakes and make him totally homeless. Which makes him totally dependent upon humans in the minds of the new writers, or am I the only one that has noticed that? Not to mention, having cleared the path, so to speak, of those “high tech” Time Lords, I observe that the human race in this series certainly seems to have out-marveled that old alien race when it comes to tech wonders. Consider: the humans live until the very end of the universe (Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords), can instantly terraform a planet (The Doctor’s Daughter), are able to transform an entire planet into a giant library just for one dying girl (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead), can live on as a flap of skin with a brain in a tank (Rose and New Earth), and so on. How can the Time Lords compete? Heck, humans even get time travel. (The character of Captain Jack used to be a Time Agent; and he travels in time without being protected by a Tardis — hardcore!)

Humans are elevated into the main characters in the new series, which throws the whole thing off just a tad. Just enough to irritate anal-retentive people with time on their hands (heh) like me. Maybe that’s why the best episode of the whole three years was “Midnight,” which had the Doctor all by himself without his companion and her superpowers of friendship to protect him. Of course, that episode ended with him having to be rescued from his predicament by a human anyway. Humans — that is fans — rule! Note: an episode of Queer As Folk reportedly had one of the main characters after an abortive date with another guy retreating to the safety of his hidden stash of Doctor Who episodes. See? Hidden away like a closeted gay’s real life! Did Russell T. Davies forget to mention that he’s gay? And a Doctor Who fan? Write it down, there will be a quiz.

I’ll skip over all the tedious lessons on “tolerance” that the new series writers’ seem to feel today’s audience needs at least one of in every episode. I also don’t want to give the impression that I don’t enjoy the show. I wouldn’t write about it like this if I didn’t. I wouldn’t watch it. But I hope that next year, with a new executive producer in charge, that we start to ease up on the fannishness and get back into the actual story. They have this fascinating character of an alien time traveller and he’s been made into just another love object for girls and boys to sigh over. At the end of the day, that’s not really all that interesting. (Nor is the — God spare us — underlying theme of “all war is bad” that I think is behind the whole Time War I-destroyed-Gallifrey-in-order-to-save-it thing. If I were in charge I’d pull some Whoniverse trick out of my ass forthwith and bring back Gallifrey and at least some of the Time Lords. I don’t have the trouble with the idea of authority that apparently certain writers at the BBC do…)

I’ll end with a short review of the last Doctor Who episode I’ve watched. “The Infinite Quest” is an animated episode featuring Martha and the Doctor. I won’t say it’s better than any of the regular live-action episodes, but… I enjoyed it a whole lot more than even some of my favorite of the other episodes. The plot is a foofaraw of nonsense that reminded me of the fun days of the old series, something about tracking down a many-parted device that can do something universe-shattering in order to keep it from the dastardly villain who wants it. Martha’s family is not mentioned. (Each regular companion except for Jack has a family in the new series, and despite a cute moment or two it’s unbelievably tedious. Oh, the many moments of plot wasted while Rose wittered on about her dead dad or way-too-living mum, or Martha lied to her mother, or Donna belatedly realized that “that’s my family down there!” on Earth. The old series had it right — make sure the companions are orphans or if they do have family — in the case of Turlough — or start moaning about wanting settled family life — like Susan — get those companions off the series as soon as possible. I’m so sick of families mucking up my entertainment.) Anyway, the episode is a throwback to the old fun episodes where it was just the Doctor and his mate trying to stop something bad or find something and along the way they visit some alien planets that aren’t frikkin’ 21st century Earth. I quite liked it. The only thing I didn’t like was the animation — it was okay for backgrounds, alien creatures, and robotic characters, but human and humanoids like the Doctor were primitively drawn, without even the life that Hanna Barbera characters had. But the regular actors (along with Anthony Head voicing the main villain) read out the lines, so I really didn’t have to actually watch the thing, I could pretend I was listening on the radio. Now I am wondering if the radio plays are more like this instead of being like the television show. I’ll have to look them up.

Update: this is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. Next year I’m making one. Ooh, but I’ll use a silver Christmas tree. Or even a gold one, if I can find one…

Second update: I’m so not used to the cradle-to-grave-care attitude of the British that this only occurred to me now — how odd is is that this show is considered some sort of cult classic in the land of its origin? I mean: it’s a government sponsored show (it’s always been on the BBC) and considered a British cultural institution. Not only that, it’s a “family” show (i.e., one people of all ages can watch, the ideal being Mum, Dad, and the kids all huddled together on the couch). But even in the UK its fans seem to think of themselves as members of some sort of special group quite out of the mainstream of British society. That’s just fucked up.