‘Dr. Who’ explores personal change over time
The Sixth Doctor and River and Rose will pass through Houston this weekend for the Space City Comic Con, a fairly generous serving of principals from “Doctor Who,” the longrunning cult-favorite show about a time-traveling alien who zips around the cosmos correcting injustices and conflicts, with a particular soft spot for the inhabitants of our planet.
“Doctor Who” is science fiction by description as it plays with space and time in its narratives, but the interaction between the Time Lord and his companions provides the humanity. And those interactions are the draw that creates obsessive viewers. Which explains in part this 43-year-old’s fixation on its principals, to the point of investigating other convention appearances in Texas.
Later this year, Dallas’ con gets the Twelfth Doctor, Clara, Rory, “Missy” and Martha — an admirable haul. The Alamo City Comic Con in San Antonio in October has Amy Pond, which made my heart flutter, and another appearance by Rose.
Conventions such as these are essentially congregation destinations for many little cultural ecosystems. “Doctor Who” isn’t among the larger ecosystems, but its inhabitants are fervent.
The above names won’t mean much to those who haven’t tuned in since the British show rebooted in 2005, and they’ll mean a lot to the few who have. But they’ve carried forward one of TV’s great, long-running stories. “Doctor Who” originally aired from 1963-87 (Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, is the rare visitor from the first run). In it, the unnamed Doctor travels through time and space in a machine that on the exterior looks like a British police call box from the ’60s. The interior isn’t as tight a space as you might think. The show disappeared for years, but for a short attempt at a TV movie in the ’90s, and then began anew in 2005 with the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) on new adventures. Three Doctors have followed since. Peter Capaldi plays the Twelfth and current Doctor, Clara ( Jenna Coleman) one of his companions and Missy (Michelle Gomez) a nemesis. Rose (Billie Piper) showed up for the Tenth (David Tennant) and hung around with the Eleventh (Matt Smith). These are hardly household names among American TV viewers, but they’re still big draws at conventions because the show creates fervor among its faithful.
As for its breadth, there’s nothing like “Doctor Who” on TV, a narrative that has run for most of a half-century. There’s also nothing like it on TV for its tone: smart and playful, joyful and heartbreaking. And there, I believe, has been the draw for me. “Doctor Who” clearly operates around a central hero, though he’s one who almost exclusively solves dilemmas with brains over brawn, and with a tool rather than weapons. That’s part of it. He’s capable of mercy, but he’s not a pushover, either. “Never cruel nor cowardly. Never give up. Never give in.”
The central conceit of personal change over time carries with it a particular resonance. Twelve actors have played the Doctor. A smart narrative device has kept the story going all these years: When the Doctor is critically injured, his body regenerates, a morphing process that yields a new body with variations also on the personality. He’s the same, and he’s very different. This device provides an opportunity to keep the story moving after an actor departs, but it also affords an opportunity to contemplate the self across time.
“We all change, when you think about it,” said Smith, who played the Eleventh Doctor, moments before regenerating. “We’re all different people all through our lives. And that’s OK. That’s good. You gotta keep moving. So long as you remember all the people that you used to be.”
Presented this way, the Doctor has some common traits across time, but the differences between incarnations stand out.
Tennant’s beloved Tenth Doctor could shift from childlike to melancholic in an instant, particularly when contemplating the loneliness that comes with never aging. The Doctor is a creature with two big, beating hearts. He also craves companionship, which is joyous short term and devastating eventually because his story always is the longest. Smith was the youngest Doctor cast and carried forth a duality. His Eleventh Doctor also had a radiant quality at times, but his energy could be manic, as he seemed to run from a decision made in his past.
Capaldi is the oldest Doctor in a very long time, bringing a cantankerous quality and a surface coldness. He said of his companion, Clara, “She cares, so I don’t have to.”
But he did care, greatly. The “Heaven Sent” episode is one of the greatest hours of television I’ve seen and spoke to the depth of his caring.
I don’t profess to be an expert on the entirety of the series. I tuned in to Tom Baker’s grand Fourth Doctor and punched out after his departure, meaning I missed Colin Baker, the Sixth Doctor, who appears at Space City Comic Con this weekend. I’ve dug back into the Fourth, enough to know the Sixth’s Doctor was a little too fashion forward with his brightly colored patchwork jacket to inspire others to dress alike. The more recent shades of black, brown and blue, however, show up at conventions and Halloween.
From what I’ve seen, Baker’s Sixth lacked some of the pained empathy of the more recent Doctors.
But then, we all go through our phases.
That has been my experience with the show. It prompts reflection on an introverted youth, a frenetic young adulthood and a more muted path into middle age. These are stages that have stages within, kaleidoscopic moments in life full of decisions good and bad. They’re the moments worth pondering because the bookends aren’t there for us to consider.
“There are two events in everybody’s life that nobody remembers,” the Twelfth Doctor stated. “Two moments experienced by every living thing. Yet no one remembers anything about them. Nobody remembers being born, and nobody remembers dying. Is that why we always stare into the eye sockets of a skull? Because we’re asking, ‘What was it like?’ ‘Does it hurt?’ ‘Are you still scared?’ ”
We don’t get those answers. “Doctor Who” instead asks questions about what comes between.