Reasons I love Doctor Who, or, Why the Doctor Totally Kicks Buffy's Normalcy-Coveting Ass

[rusty_halo]

Yay! jaydk posted for the first time in over two years! Go read her brilliant thoughts about why she loves Doctor Who soooo much, and her thoughts on viewing series one for the first time after having already fallen in love with David Tennant's portrayal of Ten.

I keep meaning to do something like this, maybe even an episode-by-episode breakdown of my thoughts, as I keep rewatching series' two and three over and over and thinking "I should post about [whatever interesting thought that pops into my head]." But then I forget by the time I'm in front of the computer. Maybe I should take notes.

I will post a little bit about what I like about Doctor Who in general, though. I keep comparing it to other fandoms that I've been into, and all the various gripes I've had about them, and Doctor Who consistently comes out ahead.

One of the things that drives me mad is that in most shows, to be different/unique/weird/an outsider is bad. It's a burden; it comes with responsibility and pain and misery, and all the character really wants most in the world is to be normal. The great, shining, tragically never achieved goal of normalcy. To get a shanshu, to get a soul, to buy shoes at the mall and live in a house with a white picket fence and get married and breed and live out the heterosexual middle class fantasy. And the whole thing is about how angsty and miserable the character is because s/he can't have that.

Part of the reason I loved X-Men 2 and hated X-Men 3 was that X2 celebrated the value of being different and X3 was all about how it would be nicer to just be "normal." And part of the reason Queer as Folk US drove me mad and I loved the UK version much more was that the US version was all about the characters getting married and settling down (and even though Brian didn't, his whole story was all about whether he would, as if there's nothing more interesting his life could have centered around than whether or not he'd marry Justin!) whereas in the UK version Stuart and Vince said "fuck it" and ran off together traveling the world. (Yes, I know that's also thanks to Russell T. Davies.)

Anyway. And the reason all this gets to me is that it's AWESOME to be different. To have superpowers, or to travel through time and space, or to live forever, or whatever the "burden" is, it's also wonderful! One single boring definition of "normal life" is not the only way to live, and is not the most satisfying way that a person could ever be. (I mean, speaking as someone who fled suburbia to move to NYC and whose main goal is to travel and to experience the world, and who is never going to "settle down"/get married/have kids, this is all kind of personal to me. I'm so sick of stories where the ultimate goal, and happiest possible thing, is marriage and kids and white picket fence suburbia. And everyone's miserable unless they have that.)

Okay, and so the reason I love Doctor Who is that while it acknowledges the drawbacks to being different (in this case, loneliness, the responsibility of being the only one who can save the world, the danger and risks involved in doing so) it also acknowledges the joys. The Doctor has so much fun! I just love it, the way he relishes every new adventure, every new place, every single thing that he's never seen before. He comes across monsters and sees the beauty of them, and he comes across humans who've gotten themselves into insanely dangerous situations and he compliments their curiosity and ingenuity. And he can go anywhere and do anything! I love watching season two, when he's taking Rose around to different concerts throughout history, because that's *totally* what I would do! And to be able to do that, to experience so much of the universe, is really an incredible thing. It's worth the tradeoff of not being "normal," even of the loneliness that comes along with it. (I love that he has the choice to become human and live a normal happy life in "Family of Blood," and he doesn't take it. It's like the perfect antidote to all those awful "Spike gets a shanshu and has babies with Buffy" fics that I read back in the day.)

A couple of quotes to illustrate that this actually is a recurring theme and that I'm not just making it all up:

"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And... he's wonderful." (Family of Blood)

"When you're a kid, they tell you it's all 'grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that's it.' But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. [grins] And so much better." (Love and Monsters)

You really do get a great sense of balance, terrifying and wonderful, and that it's okay for people to be different; some people want that kind of life and some don't. Characters like Donna, Jackie, and Joan reject the scary adventurous life (and they're not judged negatively for it); The Doctor, Rose, and (briefly) Martha do want that kind of life, and that's also cool. I *love* the way that Rose leaves. Nearly any other show would've made the season about Rose "growing up" and realizing she wants a "normal life" and choosing to leave the Doctor on her own. Or it would've been about the Doctor realizing that Rose "needs" normalcy even though she doesn't realize it yet, and foisting the decision on her (a la Angel's horrid condescending sewer breakup with Buffy).

But Rose adamantly rejects normal; she wants to stay with the Doctor and travel the world and have adventures, even if it means never seeing her family again. I love that so much. I seriously can't put into words how awesome it is that they made that story choice, because so many stories ultimately come down to morality tales reinforcing the status quo, about how "normal" is always the right way to go, and this story didn't! She wants to keep having adventures, and he wants her to stay, and ultimately it's just random crappy old fate that tears them apart despite themselves.

There are other reasons I'm loving Doctor Who, like the unbelievable hotness (and also, talent) of David Tennant, or the wonderfully diverse casting (in terms of age, race, gender, sexuality--I'm so impressed!), or how well the Doctor fits with my favorite weird dark morally ambiguous character archetype (I think jaydk is sick of me comparing him to Lymond, since I was re-reading Game of Kings and Queens Play while watching Doctor Who), but I'll save those for another day.

***

Anything else? Don't forget that Chemlab is awesome and on tour. They're hitting Orlando, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and NYC this week. 10zlaine and I will be at the Philly and NYC shows. :)

Oh, and this is supercool: the Organization for Transformative Works. Friend them at otw_news.

[Cross-posted to InsaneJournal]

Comments

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Word.

And only two weeks to the Xmas special:)

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

And, yay! Christmas special!

[jaydk.livejournal.com]

Lookit me, I'm a posting fool. Thanks for the nice words, although I dunno if I'd go so far as brilliant! ;-)

Great statement above, and I agree -- I love that DW celebrates the awesomeness of the Doctor's weird, as far from normal as possible lifestyle. I love that we the viewer are invited not just to watch the Doctor's adventures, but also to vicariously enjoy being a part of them, and that one of the themes reinforced over and over again is that the Doctor inspires the people he meets to reach beyond their "normal" and grow into something new and different. And that there's more to reach for than the white picket fence and being safe -- I love having that message out there.

I also like that those choices aren't without cost -- if you travel with the Doctor, you will risk your life, you will be separated from your family, bad things will happen and hard choices will have to be made. But it's so worth it -- to paraphrase Sarah Jane, some things are worth getting your heart broken.

From the Doctor's perspective, I like that he doesn't want normal but he does really want a family equivalent, people with whom he belongs -- and that normal and family (or belonging) are not the same things. Which was why he was so happy with Rose -- he got to kick around the universe and have someone he loved at his side, because she loved kicking around the universe too. And that makes the Doctor's willingness to stop wandering the universe in order to be the Master's keeper/warden particularly shocking, because I don't think he'd be happy if he was stuck in one place -- but he's so lonely that he would make that commitment.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Cool--we totally agree on something!

Yeah, the thing with the Master was shocking, and strange, and very sad. But it was so slashily wonderful that I can't help adoring it. And it opens up the door for so much fanfic OMG....

[jerrymcl89.livejournal.com]

Of course, there is no normal for the Doctor to covet - he's not human, and his "normal" no longer exists. But it was particularly true in Rose's story that the point of it was that all the danger and weirdness was, for her at least, a better thing that her mundane normalcy.

[dalmeny]

I don't think he'd be happy if he was stuck in one place

My impression of the Third Doctor, who was stuck on Earth for a long time, is that he did start to crack up.

[ww1614.livejournal.com]

Oh, so very yes. I was so tired of the "normal" fetish, too.

You and jaydk have blown my mind and made me SO IMPATIENT for the Xmas special and S4.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I am super excited about the Christmas special. I am going to be spending Christmas Day on a series of airplanes from Indiana to New York and it's going to be hellish, but I'll get through it with the knowledge that I have Doctor Who to look forward to when I get home! :)

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Hah - when you wrote "in which my BtVS/AtS issues come out to play," I immediately thought, "Oh ho -- yet another person who is pleased that the Spike-ish character [Martha] does not stand around until the end of time pining after the main character who will never return her feelings because he's still got it bad for her exalted predecessor. At least Davies and his pals know that unrelenting romantic masochism in a story can make one hate the love object and lose respect for the one who does the unrequited loving."

Your reasons for loving DW are much more lofty and on point, of course. I'm still like a dog with a bone where certain things are concerned, though (thanks a lot, Whedon), and thus I'm very glad Davies and co. aren't into boring, ridiculous hackneyed love triangles.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

LOL, I wrote a big long reply to this, but it was mostly about how much I don't like Martha. And then I realized you like her, so that would be rude. So uh, I'll just say thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed my post. :)

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Being different is the bestest.

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

I am so with you on why Doctor Who rules. It's so nice to see it acknowledged that doing your own thing is a perfectly valid life choice and that not everybody achieves happiness by following the same social script.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Just as an aside: I loathed X-Men3 because Rogue, who had enormous power to save lives and make a real difference in the world, gave it all up because she just couldn't live without a boyfriend. What a disgusting thing to say to/about young women. Ugh.

Idetrorce

[(Anonymous)]

very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce