Doctor Who Cares?

Here is a rare foray into the world of popular culture, which given both my ignorance in the sphere and the fact that I can't imagine anyone cares what I think about it, I felt initially reluctant to offer.  But then I remembered this is a blog, and I regularly write about that things that I don't suppose anyone other than myself is interested in anyway.  So here, I wanted to offer some grumpy-old-man thoughts on Doctor Who.

This isn't about the new Doctor, or at least it's only indirectly about her.  Despite having watched Doctor Who since it's first reinvention, I found myself profoundly uninterested in who might be taking over the helm of the TARDIS, and I think the reason is that the last season of the show has persuaded me that I just don't want to watch any more.

Of course this last season hasn't been all bad.  Capaldi is a compelling actor, and a joy to watch; I guess he is the main reason I've stuck with it.  There have been some individually quite enjoyable episodes.  But the overwhelming feel has been a season-long preach, a constant crossing of the line between politically aware television and outright propaganda.

Doctor Who has two things going for it when it comes to producing propaganda.  Firstly, there is the character of the Doctor himself: vastly superior to humanity in practically every way, and in fact to all intents and purposes omniscient from the human perspective.  A god, one might say, but a god who spends his time pronouncing sarcastic moral judgement on the human race (whilst, it must be said, maintaining a certain fondness for and preventing our extinction multiple times).  The point is that when the Doctor pronounces the backwardness of human society and extols the virtues of liberal-left politics - which he does, a lot, in none-too-subtle ways - he must be right.

The second thing the show has going for it as a piece of propaganda is time travel.  This works whether the Doctor takes his companions forward or backward in time.  If he goes forward, he can show us that the logical end point of capitalism is to make people pay for the air they breathe, and that provides a great opportunity for a sermon about the evils of the economic system.  Of course, we know that the writers are just inventing the future - they don't actually have access to a TARDIS - but still, the idea sticks in the imagination, and capitalism is discredited by this apparently logical extrapolation.  If the Doctor goes back in time, on the other hand, we get to see that 19th century London was just as ethnically diverse as a modern cosmopolitan city, or that ancient Romans had sexual mores very similar to those of the early 21st century liberal left.  That is, of course, a falsification of history, which perhaps could be excused on the grounds of dramatic license, if it didn't once again feel so preachy.  We are being given the impression that those who don't toe the liberal line in the 21st century are just out of step, not only with our own time but with time as a whole.

Maybe I'm taking this all too seriously; it is, after all, just a light entertainment programme.  But perhaps that's the third thing that makes it the perfect vehicle for propaganda.  If the programme started with a notice along the lines of 'there now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of the 21st century liberal consensus', I guess we'd be a) a bit less likely to watch, and b) a bit more critically alert.  But you have to suspend so much disbelief to get into the TARDIS in the first place that you're probably not thinking about the view of the world that is being presented.  Perhaps the only thing that lets the show down as propaganda is that the writers are not able to be subtle enough about their biases to keep my critical faculties asleep until the end of the episode each week.

So, I don't think I care about the new Doctor.  It's a woman; jolly good.  Slightly put off by all the comments along the lines of 'it's about time', but perhaps only because in the light of the whole of the last season it all just feels like more of the same in-your-face gender politics masquerading as fun.