Non-Spoilery Spec for Doctor Who Series Four and the Doctor’s Character Arc

[rusty_halo]

In an attempt to preserve my squee, I’m pretty much avoiding Doctor Who fandom right now. Both because I still can’t believe the negativity of much of the fandom, and because there are spoilers everywhere. I’m still unspoiled for anything but casting, yay!

In retrospect, it’s pretty apparent how much being spoiled sucked the fun out of Buffy fandom. It became all about the destination rather than the journey. And it took all the hope and possibility away, since I already knew the conclusion. (And when you know the conclusion is that your favorite character dies, and, oh yeah, COOKIE DOUGH, what’s the point of even watching the rest? :P)

Anyway, I did read some nifty meta about the Tenth Doctor (it’s got casting spoilers and there’s an episode title spoiler in the comments). She’s got some interesting thoughts about the Doctor’s struggle to find his role in the universe. (Her conclusion is shippier than mine would be, but it’s still very insightful.)

It got me thinking about the Doctor’s character arc in series four. His story so far has been about recovering from the trauma of the Time War, reconnecting with other people, and dealing with the responsibility inherent in being one of the most powerful beings in the universe (all with varying degrees of success). The two issues central to the Doctor’s life are his need to connect with others and his responsibility to protect the universe (especially now that the other Time Lords are gone). Is he doomed to “Lonely God” status forever? Does he have to “settle down” in order to develop meaningful relationships with others? Or can he find a way to balance both?

The issues are illustrated very well in Voyage of the Damned, which I assume to be foreshadowing the issues that will recur throughout the series. The Doctor has a real connection with Astrid, but loses her due to the whole world-saving responsibility thing. Which, of course, leads to him pushing Mr. Copper away. He struggles with this in series three, too, not letting Martha get too close because he’s still mourning Rose. His life will never not be dangerous, but can he let people in anyway? Even knowing the danger, and the pain of eventually losing them?

This is part of why I think being with Rose was so good for him–she was a partner, both sharing his adventures and opening up to him emotionally. She chose to stay with him despite the danger, and she really would have been happy spending her life traveling with him.

I see this… weird fandom idea, that the characters need to “settle down” and stop traveling in order to be happy. But that’s not what the Doctor needs at all; he’d be miserable stuck in one place. (I don’t think Rose wants or needs it either.) People keep conflating “fulfilling life” with “normal life,” when they’re definitely not the same thing. (A normal life isn’t always fulfilling, and a fulfilling life isn’t always normal.) What the Doctor needs is to find balance; traveling the universe and helping people, but also opening up and connecting with others. They aren’t mutually exclusive. (And actually, that’s another theme we got in Voyage of the Damned; that he doesn’t just need people because he’s lonely, but that he literally needs people to help him because he can’t do everything on his own. Thus, Astrid sacrificing herself to save him.)

I’m not saying that this issue has a “solution” or is going to be “resolved”; I think it’ll be a constant struggle for someone living a life like the Doctor’s. But I think it would be a lot healthier for him to recognize that he needs to try for balance; that he’ll never be happy pushing people away and insisting that he travels alone, because he needs people too much for that ever to last.

The other theme Voyage of the Damned brought up was how to deal with power. I loved this, and can’t wait to see how it plays out in series four. The Doctor’s arc so far has brought him to the point of recognizing the power and responsibility he has now that the Time Lords are gone, but his struggle now is to recognize its limitations and use it well. The idea that you can’t save everyone, but still have to keep trying. And the idea that no one has the right to choose who lives and who dies. I just think there’s so much interesting territory to explore there, and that pretty clearly the show isn’t running out of ideas; on the contrary, it just seems to be getting better and better. (jaydk and I watched the first three episodes of series three last week, and as much as I love series two, I think series three is even better. And Voyage of the Damned was awesome, which suggests that series four will continue the pattern of improvement.)

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The other thing that struck me while re-watching Voyage of the Damned is the weird tendency in fandom to blame the characters for the decisions of the writers. Like, for example, I saw a bunch of complaints that the Tenth Doctor only bothered to try to save Astrid, not Morvin/Foon/Banakafalata. But Astrid was the only one wearing a teleport bracelet, so she was the only one he might’ve had a chance to save. You can blame the writers for setting it up this way, but you can hardly blame the Doctor.

Same thing with the way he rejects Mr. Copper at the end. It’s pretty clearly set up that he would’ve rejected anyone at that point, because he’d just lost Astrid and didn’t want connect with someone else only to lose them too. You can blame the writers for having the Doctor constantly getting involved with cute blonde women, but you can hardly say it proves that the Doctor is ageist when he would’ve rejected anyone right then. It’s like fans are constantly taking things out of context in order to have more to complain about.

Anyway. But I don’t want to bitch about fandom; I want to squee about how awesome the show is. Which it is. And OMG SATURDAY!!!!!

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please comment there.