While watching any television series, one key factor which keeps me
hooked is usually the longer-running story arcs which tie everything
together. These certainly play a prominent role in the relaunched Doctor
Who as well: Bad Wolf, the Doctor's constant fight against the Daleks,
the return of the Master, and then the crack in the universe present
throughout the fifth season. It was this arc, especially its conclusion
in the episode "The Big Bang", which made me realize that in the case of
Doctor Who, it is not the ongoing story which keeps me coming
back. Indeed, almost every Doctor Who story, be it the plot of an
episode or the overarching theme of a season, follows the same rubric:
something fishy is going on, the Doctor finds out what it is, the Doctor
and his companions and/or the earth and/or the universe are found to be
in an impossibly precarious situation, and then the Doctor finds some
impossibly implausible solution which somehow makes everything come
right again.
This is nowhere more evident than in "The Big Bang," where
the explosion of the Doctor's TARDIS actually destroys the entire
universe except for a small portion containing the Doctor and his
companions. But hooray--just by remembering things the way they were,
Amy Pond is able to bring everything back into existence exactly the way
it was. Once the viewer knows that something like this can happen in
the Doctor's world, he or she needn't worry about any further
predicaments in which the Doctor may find himself. The series' authors
will certainly always be able to find more equally impossible ways of
saving the Doctor and the universe. This isn't exactly a formula that keeps viewers watching.
After this somewhat sobering realization, I
nonetheless continue to watch Doctor Who, albeit with slightly less
enthusiasm. What is it that keeps me coming back? I believe that Doctor
Who's recurring appeal for me is twofold. First, the Doctor, high and
mighty Time Lord though he is, invariably establishes connections with
ordinary human beings, and it is in fact these human beings that largely
motivate the Doctor to do what he does. Secondly, although the series'
viewers discover more and more about the Doctor as time passes, these
ordinary humans with whom the Doctor interacts for the most part do not,
and it is always entertaining to see how enigmatic the Doctor appears
to them; the series' title-inspiring question "Doctor Who?" will never
grow old.
No episode encapsulates these two aspects of the series
better than "Love and Monsters," which details how a group of people who
have had previous contact with the Doctor try to find out more about
him and come into contact with him again. The Doctor had helped each
one of these people with some problem in his or her past, but then
vanished, leaving him or her wondering just who this mysterious doctor
really was. The perceived enigmatic nature of the doctor is emphasized
by the fact that the entire episode is narrated by Elton Pope, one of
the humans searching for the Doctor. Although the Doctor (with the help
of Elton) in the end of course saves the day again by vanquishing the
evil Abzorbaloff, the memorable part of this episode is how those
touched by the Doctor meet up to reminisce and speculate on the Doctor's
nature and whereabouts.
"Doctor who?" indeed.
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