Alien Appreciation: The Doctor of Doctor Who

There has been an awful lot of Austen on this blog lately, and a regrettable absence of aliens. This post is an attempt to change that.

When I started racking my brain for the last science fiction book I'd read, I realized that it was Jenna Starborn, which sort of doesn't count, since it's also Jane Eyre. But then, before I allowed myself to fall into complete and utter despair, I realized that that might have been the last truly sci-fi book that I read, but it's certainly not my most recent sci-fi media encounter. That title would belong to the absolutely marvelous British television series Doctor Who. Consider this post an appreciation of my current favorite alien, and a not-so-subtle argument about why you should go watch this show as soon as you possibly can.

A lot of people have heard of Doctor Who, but if you're not British (and I'm not), it can't possibly hold the same place in your collective national psyche. The original Doctor Who started running in the sixties, in black and white, and that run didn't end until the mid-eighties. Reruns showed throughout the time when it was off the air, keeping the show as a presence and influencing the lives of generations who might not have been sentient when the show was actually on air. Then, in 2005, the whole thing was rebooted, and the craze kicked off again.

When living in London, I heard a lot about Doctor Who. My friends obsessed over who would be cast as the new Doctor; even my teachers made references to characters from the series, or specific lines and episodes! It was so pervasively cultural that by the time I'd been living there for a couple of months, hanging out with British people and trying to understand what the heck they were saying, I understood a lot about the show without even having watched it.

And then, I watched it. And seriously, wow. Maybe it's because I ran through all of the available episodes of the rebooted series in the course of a month, but that show hit me like a sledgehammer, and a lot of that has to do with the feeling it has, the ambience it creates and how different that is from what I find in so much science fiction--and how much that has to do with the character of the Doctor.

Hard science fiction fans are probably not too satisfied with Doctor Who. The science--which involves a lot of "because we can!" time-and-space travel that isn't even always used consistently within the show's universe (although I'm always far too engrossed to realize this until much later)--isn't really the show's point. The point, as the title might suggest, would be the Doctor. (Tip: his name isn't actually "Doctor Who," and if that phrase is heard, it's usually in response to him introducing himself simply as "the Doctor," which is the only proper name we ever get for him.)

The thing about Doctor Who is that it approaches space, the future, and all of the things you would expect from a science fiction series, with a lot of faith in humanity, even if it is also capable of showing that humanity often doesn't deserve it. The Doctor himself, despite belonging to an alien race called the Time Lords, looks exactly like a human being (although when humans have questioned him about this more than once his answer has been that he doesn't look human, they look Time Lord). But it's more than that. He spends a lot of time on Earth, simply because it seems that he's taken a liking to us--when he says "I'll never stop having to save you," it's equal parts frustration and affection. He believes in the kinds of days when problems are solved without violence--when everybody lives--and he's not the sci-fi hero who goes in with guns blazing. His "weapon" of choice is a sonic screwdriver, and while its powers seems to expand with each new season, most of what it does is open doors! I wholeheartedly agree with Craig Ferguson's sentiment (delivered in song!) that the show represents "the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism," and most of that is down to the continued presence of the Doctor, doing his best to save the worlds one step at a time.

I could go on and on about the Doctor, but nothing that I say about this show will take the place of watching it. So, what are you waiting for -- go watch it! If I haven't quite convinced you, or if you're looking for a little more background before jumping in, you should check out this article, or this excellent infographic. But really, just go and watch it, so that I can dissect future episodes to an audience who knows what I'm talking about!