‘Doctor Who is, above all, a programme about identity,’ our Old Testament lecturer proclaimed this morning in chapel as he kicked off a series of homilies on Exodus – we leavers take our turns later. And yes, this is a valid position. But it is so much more than that, as Exodus is so much more than just a history or a story. ‘Dr Who’ follows the journey of a group of people, built around the core of Dr Who and his travelling companion(s), and is all about the defeat of evil through these people led by the iconic Dr. It’s the same moral story as depicted in Westerns – the white hatted goody on his white horse wins over the black hatted baddies on their scrawny nags. (And pause to think about the stereotyping in that…no wonder few Westerns are made now.)
The good Dr is not human although he appears in human form. He has powers and knowledge that are super-human on our scale of things, and, in the end, always wins out against the worst baddies that the human imagination and the BBC’s FX Department can produce. Other non-humans in the stories often already know him as The Master. There is sacrifice for the cause – his companions may die – and the body count in many stories is amazingly high, both in terms of exterminations and transformations from human to something else. But all tastefully done with the mimimum of blood and bits. ‘Star Ship Troopers’ it is not. Dr Who – always, so far, a male Dr – is quirky, not your Mr Average, and nowadays youngish, with good looks and GSOH but not always – Dr W No 1 (William Hartnell) was crotchety, of late middle age and devoid of a funny bone. The programme’s success back in the 1960s owed very little to the cult of the personality or celebrity.
Of course the really astounding thing about Dr Who is his ability to take on a new human form – a commercially brilliant idea that allows the BBC to continue making the programme for generations. Entering into the story, we don’t know what he really looks like (although I have a very vague, probably mistaken, memory of something Other appearing briefly during one regeneration), only see him as he chooses to present himself and that is in a form that we can accept and understand. In this sense we are his chosen people, and he has a passion and admiration for humanity that seems much of the time to be unjustifiable. I have shied away from describing his transformation into a new Dr as resurrection, partly because he doesn’t die and also because I think that it stretches any parallels too far. But it is interesting, and perhaps fruitful, to ponder on what insights ‘Dr Who’ might give us into the spirituality of Western, pluralistic, postmodern culture. The series has lasted from modernity into postmodernity and accommodated itself to new audiences. Like the book of Exodus, Dr Who is a story about the salvation of a people. The saviour comes in human form and is committed beyond all reason. But ultimately Dr Who is meandering around killing time in his eternal life rather than on a journey towards an end; his motivation is curiosity rather than love.
And yes, I have met Dr Who – in a shop in Yorkshire where he was buying waterproof clothing.
The good Dr is not human although he appears in human form. He has powers and knowledge that are super-human on our scale of things, and, in the end, always wins out against the worst baddies that the human imagination and the BBC’s FX Department can produce. Other non-humans in the stories often already know him as The Master. There is sacrifice for the cause – his companions may die – and the body count in many stories is amazingly high, both in terms of exterminations and transformations from human to something else. But all tastefully done with the mimimum of blood and bits. ‘Star Ship Troopers’ it is not. Dr Who – always, so far, a male Dr – is quirky, not your Mr Average, and nowadays youngish, with good looks and GSOH but not always – Dr W No 1 (William Hartnell) was crotchety, of late middle age and devoid of a funny bone. The programme’s success back in the 1960s owed very little to the cult of the personality or celebrity.
Of course the really astounding thing about Dr Who is his ability to take on a new human form – a commercially brilliant idea that allows the BBC to continue making the programme for generations. Entering into the story, we don’t know what he really looks like (although I have a very vague, probably mistaken, memory of something Other appearing briefly during one regeneration), only see him as he chooses to present himself and that is in a form that we can accept and understand. In this sense we are his chosen people, and he has a passion and admiration for humanity that seems much of the time to be unjustifiable. I have shied away from describing his transformation into a new Dr as resurrection, partly because he doesn’t die and also because I think that it stretches any parallels too far. But it is interesting, and perhaps fruitful, to ponder on what insights ‘Dr Who’ might give us into the spirituality of Western, pluralistic, postmodern culture. The series has lasted from modernity into postmodernity and accommodated itself to new audiences. Like the book of Exodus, Dr Who is a story about the salvation of a people. The saviour comes in human form and is committed beyond all reason. But ultimately Dr Who is meandering around killing time in his eternal life rather than on a journey towards an end; his motivation is curiosity rather than love.
And yes, I have met Dr Who – in a shop in Yorkshire where he was buying waterproof clothing.
