I Love Time Travel – Part 9 – Doctor Who

This is how Vincent Van Gogh summons the Doctor.

I only joined the Doctor Who crowd in 2010, during a Netflix binge on the 2005 series and beyond.  Three Doctors and eight or so seasons later I am now a fan of the most unusual show on television.  I phrase it in that fashion because it is British, tightly scripted and not for doorknobs.  You have to keep up.  If you can negotiate the accents, and the quantum physics, the English humor shouldn’t be a problem.

What makes this show different in the realm of time travel fiction is that the rules are as fluid as the concept of time travel.  One the most famous quotes by the Tenth Doctor: “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”

The TARDIS (that blue Police Box dealy) is not just a time machine a spaceship as well.  The Doctor is from a race of Time Lords (the show was conceived in 1963, cut them some slack.) and the show are his adventures bouncing throughout the universe; exploring, interacting, blowing it up and sewing it back together.  The box, not unlike Bill and Ted’s phone booth, travels to predetermined destinations but because of superior alien technology, also has a mind of her own.

(It has been established that the TARDIS has a female personality who loves the Doctor dearly.   I’ll move on.)

The unique wrinkle that the show brings is the idea of fixed points of time.  It is a way to anchor the stories and logic and maintain the story arcs from season to season.  There are points in time that cannot be changed without dire consequences; moments in the universe that have to come to pass or the fabric of existence would collapse on itself.  The Doctor usually obeys this rule and because of sharp writing, finds a way around the rule to accomplish his goal.   He is more of a tour guide to the universe, finding interesting people to meet and wrongs to right.   

There is an omnipotence, God-like quality to the Doctor.  Because he is the last of his kind, and the only being in the universe with his abilities, all of his actions affect universal timelines.  He also answers distress calls in any space/time, to those who know him or believe in his legend.  He can be in the exact place, at the exact time, all the time; and return his companion after months of adventures to the exact moment they left Earth.

Doctor Who is about fun.  It is more of a detective show than a time travel show.  There is the wonder of traveling to different time periods, but more problem-solving, too.  The protagonists make decisions (delightfully British, and frequently liberal) that affect societies as well as just screw around in the Victorian age. Most episodes are about the sense of adventure in life.  The science fiction is merely a backdrop or a means to an end.  The scripts are about meeting new people and learning.  The morality plays between cultures (a la Star Trek) are unavoidable, but the Doctor’s sense of fairness, justice and nonviolence keeps the whole world moving.

So many time travel stories are locked into transformation of historical events or righting wrongs in one’s personal journey.  Doctor Who’s TARDIS is more of a vacation tour and a theme park ride.  Maybe the Brits keep their imaginations in check and remember that this is all just fiction and sometimes fiction can be adventurous and entertaining.