Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

“Regard all critics as useless and dangerous"


Especially this. Especially me.

Witness the recent television revolution demonstrated by such innovations as Young James Herriot, young Endeavour Morse, young Merlin, young Robin Hood and an infantile Doctor Who. At this rate I’m beginning to think that The Simpsons gag about Watchmen Babies will be a reality by 2013.
One thing I am prepared to bet money on is that the next Christmas Who offering will be a play on Alice in Wonderland. Think about it, a teenage girl, sexual imagery and a chance for a lead to wave around his sonic phallus. It is almost too good to be true.
There is no point in writing a review of the Christmas special, the trailer says it all – young girl, Doctor grinning and talking about Christmas (you know Christmas, it is the religious festival that all Time Lords and aliens seem to celebrate) and more shots of the Doctor waving various extensions of his masculine sexuality around. Same old, same old.
There is one concern aside from my usual gripes. At what point has the supposed great and good of the intellectual world lost the ability to see what is going on here? I can understand reporters and reviewers from the tabloids not caring. The average tabloid TV review reads more like a gossip column and then Simon found out his wife had cheated on him, he was distraught... However even The Guardian, apparently a bastion of cultural insight, is singularly unable to present a review able to deconstruct the true nature of the present show. This is where I have to concede Chomsky was more or less on the right track, in considering that the intellectuals (horrible word but it is useful in criticizing those who set themselves apart and above the rest of us) commentators and anyone else who is meant to analyse and observe our culture betray the society they live within by avoiding the truth. The fact that Moffat gives us a show with an ithyphallic lead who hangs around pre and post pubescent women and joyously kills anything not remotely human hardly seems to raise eyebrows, let alone thorough analysis. I suppose what it says is that providing you get a journalist pissed on free booze, be they from The Sun or The Guardian, they won’t actually care what kind of amoral bilge your spewing out.
And here we have the beginning of a much greater problem. I do not hate Moffat. I disagree with him, what he does and what he offers to the greater cultural consciousness but I do not care about him for good or ill. Ultimately he is just a manifest symptom of a much wider issue, that of cultural degeneration. For example both Channel 4 and the BBC promote an aspiration to mediocrity that is almost absolute and all pervading. When you watch Channel 4 now, where almost every programme is a variation of Skins or Big Brother reality style contests, remember this is the shipwreck Mark Thompson created. This was the station which gave us A Very British Coup, GBH, a live reading of V by Morrison and actually dared to show foreign language films at peak times and now it is the very worst kind of commercial whore, one that continually underestimates the intellectual capabilities of its audience. The executives at Channel 4 hate their audience because they genuinely believe they are stupid. It is little wonder that we then find the BBC giving us young Robin Hood, young Merlin and a juvenile Doctor all of whom are practically identical.

As I said Moffat is just a symptom. There are bigger problems to deal with than him. Our culture is stuck in a peculiar kind of torpor at a time when people will soon need it.
I believe The Iron Lady will be out soon, the flattering biopic which ignores the fact that the woman and her acolytes wanted to re-create society by outlawing homosexuality, placing women back in the home, censoring writers and their output (witness the outcry over V or The Monocled Mutineer), returning to Victorian ideals of workers’ rights (19th Century trade unionists were imprisoned or shipped to Botany Bay) and making greed the route to power. It was a desperate time for those who believed in liberty but there was a resistance against the odds.
Here I can offer a minor segue... You know how I am always banging on about the amorality/immorality of the modern show, well I may seem like I’m about to contradict myself. Now we all know the story of Remembrance of the Daleks to the point that re-naming it Genocide of the Daleks seems to make sense. Here is the thing; I have no problem with it. Good people do bad things; a hero must become tarnished by the battles he fights. It is not just good drama, it is actually right to show a hero take a road which raises questions about his motivations. The term hero is mired in confusion, a hero is not good beyond all good, nor should they be. Such Christian Puritanism is nothing short of hypocrisy. Look how He-Man spent every episode using brawn and brute force to overcome difficulties only to offer a moral lesson at the end of each episode. Hypocrisy. See how in Die Hard 4, the McClane hero character spends 2 hours proving how right wing paranoia and violent confrontation are justified while maintaining an unnatural interest with his daughters sexuality (the basic gist is that he is the only man worthy enough to fuck his daughter by right of battle). Hypocrisy. Take how Disney promote morality under the auspices of a neo-right Christian concern whilst making stars who can financially exploit an audience whose hormones are at fever pitch. Hypocrisy.
If you want a moral show, without the hypocrisy, you have to look to South Park. It is quite simply the greatest satire of our times, extraordinarily clever and insightful but often misunderstood or simply disregarded. As I said morality should not be confused with Christian puritanism but be considered an honest unerstanding of ourselves as individuals and the world we live within.
When the Doctor destroys the Daleks in Remembrance it is a moral question and one the show and its fictional characters raise. Yet it is also important to remember the political context in 1987. The right was in ascension and the left had no way to stop it (partly self-inflicted due to the delusions of the extreme left wing) It was a desperate time, all bets were off and the future was looking bleak. Against this backdrop it is no wonder the Doctor finishes the Daleks for good, it is merely an expression of frustrated reason and a desperate compassion. In the modern show the Doctor is not actually standing for anything, other than lusting after women (who he probably first met when they were children) or trying to sell (toys, himself, a stagnant value system) When he orders the genocide of The Silence he has no idea who or what they are, he actually seems more interested in flirting with the woman who turned out to be his best friends baby daughter. When the Doctor assembles his army to rescue Amy and her child (his future girlfriend) he abandons the humanitarianism and compassion the show previously stood for by acting as though his actions have a price to be paid by those he helps. The disturbing inference is that the Doctor believes he has a God-like right of power over peoples lives and deaths; in payment of a debt incurred through previous help he expects you to die for him. Instead of investigation, analasys and reason he, like the most regressive of action heroes, resorts to force as his first option. This is why the sonic screwdriver is now an all purpose weapon of mass destruction and sexual metaphor (consider what the gun means to the average action hero - it is an extension of aggression, will and instinct over rivals, an image of physical and sexual dominance) There is no morality here, only hypocrisy and amorality, simply because morality is the ability to question both the self and the actions one undertakes. Morality does not equate with Puritanism, a hero does not have to be blameless but they do have to be honest and self aware because the negation of awareness, compassion and justice is the main expression of evil.
Now, socially speaking, we are back on the brink. The right wing are back, led by an unholy trinity who have no conception or ability to imagine outside of themselves (effectively this negates any feelings of compassion that could have been engendered for others) Politically we have been betrayed and undermined by a decade of Babel styled politicians who sought to obscure truth so only lies could be believed. This time my concern is there is no one to speak out or stop the degeneration. Our writers, our artists and intellectual betters all seem to lack the dynamism seen in their forbears. Our drama is nothing more than soap opera designed to provide a fix to emotion junkies, our art has been turned into mere novelty for the noveau riche by Saatchi, our writers are involved, work for and complicit with advertising (itself a form of financial expoitation which deadens free thought through mediocrity) our novelists seem unable to tell the difference between a novel and film script... I could go on but you get the general idea. The complacency present in modern society and culture was dangerous, will be dangerous and is dangerous. There are more important things going on now and likely to develop over the coming years than some bloke and his head boy lead who have taken a once glorious show and made it regressive, ithyphallic and amoral.

Although it is part of the problem, it is not the main problem. Doctor Who was once something more than it is now and, rather sadly, so were many other things.

It is time for the obsession with mundanity to end.

Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song

Some years ago a group of journalists began spreading a rumour that Umberto Eco did not write his books but constructed them be feeding random bits of information into a computer and allowing a randomised program do the rest[1]

This was obviously nonsense; Eco is nothing short of a genius. Yet I am reminded of the story simply because the accusation could be levelled at Moffat with considerable ease. Each story is constructed using the same plot devices and ends up repeating itself until the show is swallowed by its own anus. Even the latent sexism seems to be stuck in an endless loop of repetition (Churchill “what happened to time?” The Doctor “A woman” and “hell in high heels” etc)

This leaves one obvious problem, any attempt at rational criticism will have to repeat and repeat itself until it is as pointless and derivative as the show itself. In short there is nothing I can say that I have not already said before.

My suggestion, if anyone is reading this or actually cares, is to print out some of the below, cut them up into sentences (apologies, I know some of them are not great but dyslexia is an absolute arse at times) and then re-assemble them into a newly constructed article. I’m sure it will convey my general thoughts on the episode in question.

Perhaps the best thing I can do is quote the eleventh Doctor himself as a way to criticise the show.

“I sell toys. This is what I do now.”

Yes, rather sadly it really, quite literally, is.

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[1] On a separate note... Almost as if the existence of cosmic karma is trying to prove its existence to me new novels by Christopher Priest, Haruki Murakami and Umberto Eco are being released within a few weeks of each other. This at least seems to balance out my heartbreak over the show and proves there are still writers out there who give a damn.

Doctor Who: Closing Time

When the show returned our first sighting of the Doctor was of him blowing up a shopping centre. Several years on and the Doctor is now working in a similar centre selling toys.

If anything it perhaps highlights the change that has taken place behind the show. It is no longer a drama programme about an anarchistic time traveller but an entertainment brand. The lead actor is not actually playing the Doctor but a peddler selling the brand. Even the fictional companion is shown to be a famous model within the fictional world; the child asking for an autograph a metaphor that the brand is targeted at children, not through drama, but something as shallow and meaningless as advertising or celebrity idolisation.

As such the modern show is nothing more than an entertaining advert for something else. Even the BBC execs, eager to defend a piece of rubbish like Strictly Come Dancing, referred to Saturday night television as entertainment night. According to the exec concerned Strictly was as much a part of the entertainment schedules as Doctor Who; here he betrayed the general view within the organisation – it is not a drama show but an entertainment programme, nothing more and as long as it keeps to the now standard formula nothing can go wrong.

Formula for a new Doctor Who Script

0-30 min: Scooby Doo style monster chasing or time paradox shenanigans.

30-35 min: cloyingly sentimental drivel often confused with drama or characterisation.

35-40 min: annoyingly tacked on scenes pertaining to be part of a story arc but having little to do with story and everything to do with the incomprehensible, cynical and instantly gratifying pursuit of plot over meaning.

40-41 min: trailer for next week – somehow being more coherent than most of the episodes themselves.

42+ min: dreary rendering of theme music that makes everyone glad they run trailers and voice overs in place of closing credits these days.

Doctor Who: Night Terrors

Not actually a television drama programme but an incoherent and rambling love letter to Steven Moffat.

Incidentally, can somebody explain the following to Mark Gatiss

1) Real people do not talk like that. Real people below the middle class do not talk and act like the intellectually deficient ruffians from an Agatha Christie novel.

Try and credit people outside of your own social sphere with being more than walking cliches and stop trying to impress the boss.

Let's Kill the Show! Oh, we've already done it...

I feel sick.

OK, I watched. Half of it, then I just could not take anymore.

Yes, I was wrong about eye patch woman but the sentiment and meaning still apply.

The Guns 'N' Ammo philosophy still in play (woman with gun shooting stuff) Not so much empowering but, when you consider the Silurian female is now a cannibalistic, gun toting warrior, a distorted and demeaning portrait of women. Their power is derived from a makeshift phallus (gun, sword) and always intend harm to the heroes, ergo powerful and strong women are represented as dangerous and mentally deranged.

Episode - usual stuff really - young girl obsessed with Doctor (now unavoidably cosmic grooming, and just for good measure they put her in a school uniform while she is fixated with the Doctor - nothing fetishistic about that at all...) Time travel as ultimate plot device, fake death of lead character etc.

We have a Doctor who can have the following conversation

Amy: Why does she want to kill you

Doctor: ...She is a woman...

Apart from latent misogyny, what is that actually meant to mean?

Yet another duplicate of Karen Gillan. I could point out that these duplicates are really a subliminal device for turning a woman into two-dimensional pornography by making them vacant, easily manipulated dolls (they are not real women with thoughts/feeling or independence but have the attributes of physical womanhood - hence a male reduction of gender to appreciable two-dimensional gratification)

The kiss of death with poisoned lipstick... No comment as I may begin to sound like a Freudian. I cannot claim to be a feminist (I'm male, mostly straight and do find the female form a thing of beauty) but come on, at least think about the messages you're broadcasting into the public consciousness.

More messianic idolisation of the Doctor

Oh, and a polite Hitler played for laughs because, above everything else they came to represent, the Nazis were really comedy gold. Still maybe it does not matter, it is all in the name of inappropriate, amoral hokum aimed at children...

I'm off to throw up.

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler

BBC in crisis after they forget to add lesbian tinge to stereo typical female baddie..

Before we begin, a plea... Please do not read if you are the kind of person who posts “Why, oh why, oh why, do people take it too seriously” on forums. I have no time for wilful ignorance or unquestioning acquiescence, especially from someone who believes these are traits to be promoted.

I genuinely do not intend to watch the series when it returns. The flagrant amorality, a lead who goons around like a sexually frustrated adolescent and story lines which... Well, I have been through this already.

I understand the woman with the eye patch is returning. When we last saw her she was acting without any real motivation, her villainy was almost for the sake of it. Although there is an interesting cultural backdrop to this character which connects to one of my many niggles with the modern show.

Our society favours the girl. Before the Twentieth Century the birth of a boy was the most desirable outcome for any would be parents, be it as an heir, as a potential for income (young boys started work earlier than girls) or simply because overall social conditions favoured the male (a woman’s best hope, for security or general life expectancy, was marriage and there were more women than men in Victorian society which made this a precarious hope at best). Now, according to data recorded by mid-wives, most parents hope for the birth of a girl and our culture is orientated with images of femininity, as overt sexual images (lads mags), tools for selling via their sex (advertising) or media icons (the cult of celebrity)

The consequence of this is far from a feminist society or civilized equality. As the last century drove on the shift towards the cultural preference for the woman became mired in sexual neurosis and exploitation. We supposedly live in a civilized society but, in the centre of London, you can easily buy congress with the flesh of young woman who is, and let’s be honest about this, a slave.

Yet, to be accurate, we do not desire the woman. Our society craves the girl, the innocent and young virgin. Think of the stirs caused by Natalie Portman after Leon or, more recently, Emma Watson and Miley Cirus. As such the images we see and the icons that are created are of younger and younger women. There is a proliferation of images, movies and music all adhering to this. The BBC fire Moira Stewart, even though she is more capable of her job than many others; men will stash away a personal harem of two-dimensional magazine girls and check out Vikki, aged 19, on Page 3; the movie premiere becomes a claim to fame simply by how well would be starlets dress, or undress, their flesh for the eager cameras. I could go on, but you get the general idea.

Doctor Who, to a greater or lesser degree, has been as much a part of this as anything else. Witness the replacement of Liz Shaw by Jo Grant as an example. But the show never sexualised the links between lead and companion. The female companion was a friend, not a consort. The worst excesses of the show were exploitative, Tegan and Peri spring to mind, but it was often an uncomfortable element and eventually dropped away to the more traditional, familial role models.

However...

With the advent of the Tennant era the idea of companions as platonic companions was no longer admissible; instead the Tardis became a harem where young women would look at the Doctor with tears in their eyes and say ‘I luv u Dr.’ It is also worth noticing that the Tennant era becomes a pro-longed re-interpretation of My Fair Lady. The nice, white, middle class man takes away the young ruffian girl and teaches her to be better than her past and be in love with him. Her black boyfriend, left behind by the nice new couple, is left to marry someone of the same skin colour (for some reason the idea of an inter-racial relationship seemed too much for the producers to contend with) Even Sarah Jane became an ex-wife figure, her role relinquished to the new and younger girlfriend.

What Moffat does with the show is even worse. His scripts/stories seem to revolve around a few basic, and continually re-used, plots; the main, and most worrying, being what a tabloid could call cosmic grooming by the hero. The Doctor is not so much an adventurer in time and space but a being using time travel as a means of meeting and forming a bond with young girls who will later throw themselves at him when they reach the age of consent. Even the Tardis has been revealed as a one dimensional harlot lusting after the Doctor.

It is no surprise that the villain of Let’s Kill Hitler will be an older woman, missing an eye, and carrying a hatred for, rather than a sexual need for, the Doctor. Apparently she will be the worst war criminal in history but all she seems to have done is kidnap a member of the Doctor’s harem; until he declared war on her like a frustrated and barbaric king of legend. Now she has stolen the baby daughter of his best friends, one of whom has an infatuation with him and, less we forget, this baby daughter is his on-off girlfriend in the future. Suggestions that it may be inappropriate to describe her as worse than Hitler, based on what we know so far, are probably pointless when considering the skewed morality the show exhibits of late. The eye-patch woman is automatically excluded from the shows notions of good femininity, defined by the Tardis harem of recent years, by virtue of her difference and how, like a wicked stepmother, she constantly deprives the hero of his young, pretty female consorts. Will the episode deal with the magnitude and consequences of her villainy or simply rely on the subliminal notion that a mature, disfigured woman must be evil because she does not confirm to the main cultural theories on desirability. Shame I’ll never know.

I also understand the monsters, and the modern show has to have monsters to emphasise how anything different is fundamentally evil, will be called the Teselectas. Seriously? What a load of testicles.

I would love to see the past couple of years psycho-analysed.

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler - Huge Spoiler!!!

Seriously, you’re searching to try and find spoilers for this?

Wow.

Ok, let me assure you it will probably feature the Pond family, Amy, Rory and their gun obsessed daughter (personally, I blame the parents) trying to find the Doctor. One of them comes up with the idea of killing Hitler as a way to get his attention (damage to the timeline etc) Cue all manner of comic, time paradox shenanigans. Obviously it will all stop for one moment to remind the viewer that the Second World War was actually quite horrifying. Although horrifying it will not be enough to stop TV producers from exploiting it for an hours worth of mundane comic, time paradox shenanigans.
I may actually place a bet that the Doctor and River flirt amongst a pile of dead Nazis.

Sorry, I'll come clean. I could not resist baiting the fanboys with the attention grabbing title.