Doctor Who and the Loss of Storytelling

 

Rework of the Watermark BBC Doctor Who Logo by NeoRame

As you may know, Doctor Who is celebrating its 60th Anniversary with the return of David Tennant in three special episodes.

Instead of being a gigantic cause of unifying celebration, the reception has divided the fandom.

Why?

Well, here is what happened in the first special:

The Doctor arrives in London where he bumps into Donna Noble.  Donna has an adult daughter named Rose who is now a born-again Catholic.  Later on in the episode as Donna and Rose are walking home, a group of Rose's atheist classmates ride by on bicycles and make fun of Rose for her belief in Christ.  Once home, Donna and her mother struggle with how best to talk to Rose about her newfound faith without offending her.  Rose feels different than everyone else because of her Catholic faith and she befriends an alien who appears to be hunted.  When the Doctor talks to the alien, Rose berates him for assuming that the alien has not already been baptized and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  The Doctor apologizes for this assumption and asks the alien about their baptismal status.  It turns out that the alien is evil and tries to destroy London.  To save London, the Doctor must awaken Donna's memories, but this will kill her.  However, for the greater good, Donna agrees and they save London at the cost of Donna's life.  But Donna comes back to life because she was able to share her power with her daughter.  It is explained that because Rose has been born again in Jesus Christ, she has been twice-born and thus has two lives to accept the Time-Lord energy.  By being reborn in Christ, she explicitly says that she is more than those who are not baptized in His Name.  In the end, Rose and her mother are able to survive the Time-Lord metacrisis because, as a devout Catholic, Rose has the humility to let go of that power.  Before Rose does so, she points out how the non-Catholic Doctor could never understand what Rose has figured out because of her Catholic Identity.

If the above description sounds weird, you can understand why.  Would you not agree that this describes less of a science-fiction story about The Doctor and more like a Christian parable that is meant to preach a lesson?  Even as a devout Catholic, I find most Christian movies unpalatable because they choose sermonizing over storytelling.  For them, it is more important to give a lesson on the message than it is to move and entertain.  Even if I agree with the wholesome message of faith above, the prioritizing of message over story ruins both the story and the message.

And that is what has happened with Doctor Who.  

The above description of the first special episode is accurate.  Except you should replace Christianity with Gender Ideology.  Those who dislike the sermonizing of the show have been accused of being bigoted.  But that dodges the main problem.  Even if the themes were explicitly Catholic, as we find in the above example, it would still be terrible storytelling.

Instead of telling a universal story to celebrate six decades of Doctor Who, showrunner Russel T. Davies has decided that we are children who need to be taught a lesson.  He is the sage from on high who will set our wayward minds in the right direction.  .  This is the fatal flaw in most writing: to forget that the writer serves the audience and not vice-versa.  

That is a shame because there are some good moments in the anniversary specials.  However, Davies has lost his touch.  Or rather his skill has reverted back to what it was in his first season of Doctor Who.  I have nothing against Christopher Eccleston, but his season of the show was not one of my favorites.  It wasn't due to his performance, but it was primarily Davies' failures as a storyteller.  Remember this was the season that showed us that they would still be playing The Weakest Link in the future.  He would take fads and fashions of the day and project them as universal and timeless, which they are not.  So much of what he made that season is dated.  His metaphors were clumsy and his themes were too on the nose.  That is what has occurred here in the 60th Anniversary shows.  

And Davies forgets that sometimes the best way to deliver a message is by never saying it explicitly.  JRR Tolkien said that The Lord of the Rings is a clearly Catholic story, but Christ and the Church are never mentioned.  JK Rowling is clearly a Christian, but there is almost no reference to Christianity.  That is because their faith is woven into the fabric of the story.  So if you wrap yourselves up in the story, you will be receiving their themes of love, heroism, and sacrifice.  

I am convinced that the works Tolkien and Rowling with be read decades from now.  But if they keep doing to Doctor Who what Davies is doing, will time be kind to the Time Lord?