With my apologies to Dr. Hawking for plagiarizing his title. I was surprised that my diary about Ben Franklin and The Doctor got any comments last night. I wrote it purely for fun, and am very glad that folks were drawn to it.
Tonight I would like to give a brief history through time and space, and catch up the audience with that is going on now since The Doctor is back. More below.
It all started in 1963, with and episode called "An Unearthly Child" with William Hartnell as The Doctor, and with his Granddaughter Susan (Carol Ann Ford) as his companion. The interesting thing to me about this episode is it first "freezes" the TARDIS into a public police call box because a critical component in the "chameleon circuit" on the TARDIS failed. As a matter of fact, after they had materialized on a planet after Earth and left to explore, Susan looked back and tugged at The Doctor and said, "It didn't change!"
For years afterwards that would be an occasional piece of storyline, and when he finally did repair it, and the TARDIS morphed to blend in with its surroundings, he disabled it. It seems that over the centuries he had grown fond of the shape.
The first season of the show was produced by a woman named Verity Lambert, who unfortunately died last year. I have been doing research to determine whether or not she was related to Kit Lambert, who produced The Who. So far I have not been able either to confirm or refute it, but that would be extremely interesting. If anyone has information, please let me know. Update: she and Kit were not siblings. Her father was an accountant, Kit's a classical musician. I could not find more than that.
The departure of Susan was part of the storyline (companions come and go all of the time), but William Hartnell became very ill and could not continue as The Doctor. This caused sort of crisis with production, since the show was popular, and another actor would just not pass as Hartnell. The writers got together and came up with a plan: new information about Time Lord physiology. It had already been revealed that The Doctor was a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, but not a lot of other information was known.
The stroke of genius was not even to try to provide a substitute for Hartnell, but to replace him completely. So the storyline about "regeneration" was born. In Time Lord physiology, when a body becomes so severely damaged that normal healing can not occur, a severe transformation occurs that completely replaces the damaged body with an entirely new one, with a different personality but the same basic character traits, such as honesty, bravery, humor, etc. So Patrick Troughton, a black-haired, stocky actor, replaced the tall, thin, and grey Hartnell.
Regeneration happened over and over as actors either chose to leave (like Troughton and John Pertwee, Troughton's succussor), Tom Baker, and Peter Davison. Davison was replaced with Colin Baker (no relation to Tom) who was fired by the BBC for actions, as I understand, unrelated to the program. And so it went. After C. Baker, there was Sylvester McCoy (the only Scot to play the role). The show was finally canceled due to low ratings during McCoy's tenure. Fan pressure was pretty powerful, so a TV movie with Paul McGann (with a cameo by McCoy, who regenerated into McGann after being treated for gunshot wounds, the anesthetic being toxic to Time Lords) was produced with decent ratings in 1996.
In 2005 the show was revived with Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, who left after one season to be replaced with David Tennant, who currently has the role.
Everyone has their favorite Doctor, but the overall favorite seems to be Tom Baker. He is the one that most people recognize (curly shock of hair, hook nose, and the 22 foot long scarf). I would have to agree, but some of the others were really good. Pertwee was outstanding, and I liked Troughten, but have not seen that many of his episodes. Davison never seemed to be suited for the role, C. Baker was just awful, McCoy was OK, McGann only had the one TV movie, so is hard to peg. Eccleston was, in my opinion, excellent, bring some of the Tom Baker persona back to the role. I did not like Tennant at first, but he has grown on me, especially after the season premiere tonight (this is written on 18. April 2008). He seems to be growing into the role, and that is good.
So, folks ask, why does a show that started as a children's scifi in England in 1963 mean anything? Well, that is a good question. In one sense, it is like any other superhero escapist fantasy, but with a twist. Unlike Superman, who almost always is noble and polite to the point of being dehumanized, The Doctor was full of self doubt (usually concealed), and could be arrogant, overbearing, and rude to people. Sort of like we all are from time to time. I find a stronger connection to the Marvel universe than the DC one, in that the protagonist is far from perfect.
What value has such a thing? Well, entertainment first and foremost. Back when Tom Baker was The Doctor, some very subtle jokes made their way onto the air. For instance, one of his companions asked how he knew some very arcane piece of data, and he, without blinking, replied, "I learned that from mescaline." Or that his scarf had in fact been knitted by the wife of Nostradamus while the sage and the Time Lord shared brandy and spoke about the future. Nice touch. Or the part about throwing apples at Newton. But there is more than pure entertainment.
What we can glean, as progressives, is that some causes are worth making a stand, regardless of the odds. The Doctor is always at risk of life (regeneration does not work if the body is destroyed), but continues to do the right thing. Another is courage of convictions. For you Whoians out there, you know that the Daleks are his worst enemy, but he would not commit genocide when he had the opportunity in the episode "Genesis of the Dalaks", even though he knew full well that he would be making a mistake. (The later storyline has the Dalaks destroying Gallifrey and all of the Time Lords, but I still suspect that they are around). Finally, it is an opportunity to have as a hero someone who contains human flaws, and does the right thing in spite of them.
Well, these are some random observations, mostly to let the folks unfamiliar know what the hell I was talking about the other night. If there is enough interest, maybe Dr. Franklin will travel with him again. Warmest regards, Doc.