If Doctor Who was like the psychic paper used by the Doctor—meaning we would only see the show we wanted to see—what would it look like? From seasons five through seven, it might have been superficially close to exactly what we thought we wanted: the adventures of a romantic, dazzling, fairy tale hero who is handsome, quirky, and a snappy-dresser. But now, the Doctor is grumpy and the stories he inhabits are more screwed up, because this season the show has gotten real by ditching fairy tales in favor of moodier science fiction.
Accusing the Matt Smith era of being a charming “fairy tale” version of Doctor Who isn’t out of nowhere. From the Doctor mentioning Amelia Pond’s name was “just like a fairy tale,” to the tinkly whimsical notes of Murray Gold’s score for the Amy scenes, to unexplained plot resolutions; the fairy tale feeling from 2010-2012-ish quickly became a catch-all justification for the whole shebang, at least with Steven Moffat (back then a new showrunner) at the reigns. Amy gets her baby stolen in some sort of Rumpelstiltskin deal, the Doctor becomes a legend to people who live in a Forest, and the entire universe can stop/be changed because of a magical kiss between a Time Lord and River Song.
Back in a May 2010 interview with io9, Moffat rationalized the fairy tale aspects of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor by outright admitting this writing tendency was a sort of whim for making certain kinds of stories work:
“That’s just how you justify it. It’s a mechanism by which you justify what happens. There was magic in fairy tales back when people believed in magic. There isn’t magic in Doctor Who — there are sometimes [laughs] token scientific explanations for everything…”
But, after three seasons of saying the show was just a fairy tale, Moffat has changed his tune (and Murray Gold, his tunes, too) and has said publicly that the fairy tale era is “over,” and that there are more “consequences,” in the current direction of Doctor Who. As big time fans know, we can’t always take Moffat at his word, but a glance through season 8, up to this point, reveals he wasn’t kidding. Currently, this show is far more interested in telling thought-provoking science fiction stories, than dazzling (or frightening) us with an outer-space fairy tale.
This isn’t to say the science itself is necessarily more realistic or more accurate at all, because it’s not, it’s just that the style of the writing has done away with over-the-top character-stuff in favor of letting us think about each particular “what if?” a little bit longer. A lot of bloggers and critics have pointed out the nifty triumph of this season is in presenting a more serious character arc with Clara and also messing with the morality of the Doctor himself by asking if he really is a good person or not. (Which to be fair, people worried about during the Matt Smith era, too, and the David Tennant era, and…)
Charlie Jane Anders’ recent assertion that a major character arc has displaced a season-long mystery is a totally accurate observation, but I’d argue this shift is particularly made possible by having the stories just feel a little more science fiction-y and less fairy tale.
I’ll spell it out: the individual episodes themselves this season aren’t designed to be instant crowd-pleasers, or even all that fun. Right from the start, in “Deep Breath,” we are presented with the question of how far robots would go to become human if their programming was out of whack. These robots are a direct sequel to Moffat’s very own beloved second season classic “The Girl in the Fireplace,” but this time out, the robots are ugly, aimless, and beaten down by time. The robots in each episode reflect the tone that the show is trying to convey. In “The Girl in the Fireplace,” Tennant’s Doctor called these robots “lovely” and everyone swooned when he rode that horse. What a romp! In “Deep Breath,” those same clockwork robots are treated like sad, damaged, real things.
Robots without a real understanding of their own “humanity” is a classic science fiction concept, showing up very obviously in Isaac Asimov’s books, but probably more relevantly in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The notion that these robots are looking for “the promised land” also gives these versions of the clockwork robots a borrowed human religion, another cool science fiction concept which cropped up most recently on the contemporary Battlestar Galactica. These clockwork robots weren’t as hardcore as the Cylons from BSG or the replicants from Blade Runner, but they certainly evoked that mood instead of only being a funny/scary collection of gears.
Similarly, the Boneless in “Flatline,” are baddies specifically derived from a science fiction idea: the notion of a two-dimensional creatures. True, the “point” of the episode may have been a morality play about Clara taking on the powers of the Doctor, but it was facilitated by an awesome head-scratching sci-fi notion; what if there were two-dimensional creatures? How would that play out?
When 2D was revealed to be the nature of the conflict, I was super pumped because all I could think of was Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and the brief journey Meg and everyone have to the two-dimensional world in that novel. Depictions of beings in a two-dimensional universe stretch all the way back to the 19th century (see the social commentary tract Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions) but the concept of awareness and effect across spatial dimensions is a real consideration in theoretical physics, as demonstrated in this great Carl Sagan segment from Cosmos about how hard it would be for a two-dimensional creature to understand a three-dimensional world. Check it out:
Further, the tiny TARDIS in “Flatline” isn’t an Alice in Wonderland thing at all, but actually more of a direct reference to the Third Doctor sci-fi heavy story “Carnival of Monsters.” During that era, Jon Pertwee’s Doctor was a “science advisor” to UNIT, and the tone of the show followed suit, featuring more science fiction conundrums of the week. We all have a fairly clear idea that Capaldi’s costume and Pertwee’s costumes are super-similar, but that’s not the only telling and interesting aesthetic that’s returned. It’s all about space suits.
Space suits are back in a big way in Doctor Who this year, and not in the faux-ridiculous way they were presented in “The Impossible Astronaut.” Whether it’s the end of the universe in “Listen” or the our very own moon in “Kill the Moon”—living in space is considered scary this season. It’s so scary in fact, you’ve got to wear a space suit and breathe heavily into it! Like in Alien!
In fact, “Kill the Moon” specifically addresses humanity’s fears about heading into space in ways that seem grim and challenging simultaneously. This too, is a classic science fiction theme. In the novel version of Logan’s Run, human beings haven’t actually figured out how to journey into space at all, partially due to lack of ambition. In nearly all of Star Trek, the notion of getting out into space is what unites humanity and saves us from being jerks to each other. “Kill the Moon” echoes that hopeful note, and that’s because Doctor Who hasn’t gone full Battlestar Galactica or even Twilight Zone here. Plus, who doesn’t love a giant space egg?
And the old-school science fiction references keep coming! “Into the Dalek” made a very obvious reference to Asimov’s novel Fantastic Voyage (which was actually a novelization) while the trope of “going on a Fantastic Voyage” crops up in everything from the Deep Space Nine episode “One Little Ship” to the cult 1987 movie Innerspace. (Which also starred Robert Picardo, who you know played “the Doctor” on Star Trek: Voyager.)
Philip K. Dick shows up again in the episode “Time Heist” which is an obvious homage to the short story “Paycheck,” in which a man has no memory of having done a job, and then is “paid” with a bag of mysterious objects. Memory erasure combined with time travel is also connected to Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, where certain characters don’t even remember who they are even when they meet old friends in different contexts. Vonnegut references are also abound in “Listen” where time travel allows you to visit yourself much like Billy Pilgrim sort of does in Slaughter-House Five. But really, the sweet, comforting use of the word “listen” itself might be the biggest Vonnegut reference of all.
“Mummy on the Orient Express” demonstrated Doctor Who’s capacity for presenting wacky science fiction concepts which you’re forced to take seriously. Everything makes sense in this episode, even if the premise is totally absurd, which accounts for just about every single thing Doulgas Adams ever wrote, including The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. Adams, of course, also wrote for the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who! It’s not that “Mummy on the Orient Express” is a straight out Douglas Adams homage, it’s just that it feels like something he probably would have liked. Science fiction, plus goofy history, plus classic horror! You could argue we haven’t seen combos quite like this since the Tom Baker era.
Last week’s “In the Forest of Night,” brought this no-more-fairy-tale thing all the way home. The Doctor briefly calls Clara “Little Red Riding Hood” and the little girl Maebh runs around in a red hoodie, but as opposed to being a fairy tale approach to a science fiction concept, it’s a science fiction story that “explains” the existence of fairy tales; specifically western culture’s obessions with forests. (Right here on Tor.com, Chris Lough is correct to point out that “the Eleventh Doctor would undoubtedly feel right at home in this Trafalgar Squarian forest, but the Twelfth Doctor refuses to submit to that kind of story.”) Referencing the Tunguska meteor strike is a sure-fire sign of sci-fi geeking out. This real-life event has been referenced or explored in science fiction in everything from Ghostbusters, to Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, and even in two different old-school Doctor Who novels.
In 2013, with everything leading up to the show’s 50th anniversary hoopla, Doctor Who seemed more caught-up with its own mythological importance than, really, anything else. Matt Smith’s Doctor worried out loud in season’s 6 and 7 that he’d become too big, and attempted to erase all of his fairy tale action from history. Now, with the new Capaldi season, it seems that has actually worked, because lately, the Doctor has literally let the cool science fiction story happen without even being in the action all that much.
To be clear: the often-used fairy tale structure of Doctor Who and big over-the-top heroics of both David Tennant and Matt Smith are wonderful and totally essential to the popularity of the contemporary show. Saying Capaldi is somehow “real” Doctor Who because it’s more of a science fiction show would be crazy. I’m trying to make a point about ratio here, and whereas the Matt Smith era favored a heavier dose of fairy tale to sci-fi, the new formula has inverted that. The fairy tale part is still there (“Robots of Sherwood” and “In the Forest of the Night,” duh) it’s just not the main focus anymore.
As a strange side effect, I think these new episodes are slightly less entertaining to a casual viewer than some in a previous seasons, but I do think they are by-and-large smarter. To put it another way: “The Girl in the Fireplace,” is still a better episode of television than “Deep Breath,” even if “Deep Breath” is more honest and intellectual.
If the fairy tale of the Matt Smith era is over, and the science fiction-centric Capaldi era is here, does Doctor Who have more narrative integrity now? Maybe. It may not be better or worse, but it is a nice change, insofar as variety in any TV show is totally essential. Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor infamously (and creepily) told Peri that “change” had come and “not a moment too soon.” That version of the Doctor didn’t have psychic paper, and yet, the contemporary show somehow sensed it needed to change by moving away from the fairy tale structure.
Now, we’ve got a lonely alien who is a little depressed from having to save the world for so long? That doesn’t sound like a fairy tale. That sounds like science fiction.
Ryan Britt is an essayist and critic. His writing about science fiction and fantasy appears regularly here and in numerous other publications. He is the author of an essay collection forthcoming from Plume Books in Fall of 2015.
This season’s theme reminds me a lot of the “New-Age Science Fiction” that used to be around in the 70s (it often turned up in the Pertwee era). I quite like it. Having said that, I did like the Fairy-Tale airs of the Smith Era too (and the Horror themes of the Early-BakerT era, and the dark-fantasy of the McCoy Era). Much better than the Eastenders in Space of a lot of the RTD era, but not quite as good as “concept”-Sci-Fi of the PeterD era.
My criticism is the poorly done serialization of the Missy thing, which will not surprise me if she is the Female!Master (because Moffat has been determined to get the MtF-regeneration thing to stick in canon for good, and this is probably the best way he can do it), and it is just a little too over-explainy. Sometimes the technobabble explanation adds nothing, it certainly does not appease the professional complainers about the show and it just takes away from the wonder.
Interesting article, but needs a proof pass.
“Psychic” paper, btw.
I’ve loved this season particularly BECAUSE I didn’t care for everything that folks swooned for with Tennant and Smith (I couldn’t stand a thing about Tennant and liked a lot about Smith range as an actor in the role but wanted to punch everyone who talked over and over again about fezzes at conventions). The point about the 70s style that @1 makes (similar to the Hinchcliffe references many point out) is apt — we need to always be mindful that ‘science’ is but a descriptive adjective to ‘fiction’ in ‘science fiction’; the same that we shouldn’t expect ‘gothic horror’ to not be allow to have range outside of certain historic paradigms, we need to allow science fiction to step outside the bounds of lab-tested work for the sake of the story (even if some elements strain verisimilitude — as much as the trees/flare story upset folks this week, for example, tying it into examples like Tunguska and the description of that forest worked for me as verisimilar enough for story’s sake).
And more grumpiness, please. Fairy tales are ALL about grumpiness and unhappy endings, after all!
More science fiction than fairy tale, yes, but sadly no less grandiose. Regardless of which style the creative team is aspiring to, narrative integrity hinges on deft execution and clarity of purpose, both of which are scarce in new Who. In fact, in a reversal of common sense, Moffat & Co. openly state that they begin each script with a “cool idea,” meaning that they begin with a point of style and attempt to ascribe substance afterward (and it shows). The writers are either too afraid to commit to a particular viewpoint in exploring social issues, or they’re intellectually incapable of understanding and presenting them, and the resulting commentary is shallow, muddled, often hopelessly misguided, yet perplexingly written in a triumphant voice. Maybe they simply write resolutions that are merely convenient or “cool,” but nonsensical, and fail to further develop their ideas. The Doctor’s newfound impetus of self doubt and politically apologetic sentimentality is a narrative force of stagnation which lends the Doctor an unflattering air of impotent self indulgence, and the uneven episodic tone of this series is a testament to what an ill fit it is with The Doctor’s persona, and to their inability to write a cohesive arc in which the characters’ behavior is consistent, and each episode is essential. Really, the only remaining anchors are poorly implemented yet potentially interesting science fiction plot devices, and Capaldi’s brilliant internal distillation of the character, which shines through all the incongruent layers they’ve written over it. He has a place in his heart for classic Who, as we all do, and it’s that same sentiment that allows us to overlook its many faults while awarding it gold stars for “being different.” No other show could get critical acclaim with this kind of quality – well, no show other than Sherlock anyhow.
I am loving this bleaker season, because it aligns with my personal preference for storytelling. I wonder, though, if a certain segment of the show’s audience – the young adults who came in during Tennant and Smith – are going to be alienated by what the Doctor can be.
At the risk of vastly overgeneralizing, I would say a lot of New Who fans are unfamiliar with the long history of the Doctor, and all the turns he has taken. They’ve probably watched Eccleston, but he wasn’t so far outside the Tennant/Smith mold that they couldn’t appreciate him. Let’s be honest here, too – some fans are also drawn to the fact that those Doctors were played by a couple of good-looking young men.
Peter Capaldi is physically very different, and his Doctor is very different. As much as those of us who embrace traditional science fiction are loving the change, are the numbers holding up in terms of ratings and popularity compared to Smith’s last season?
It’s interesting to me that this article appeared today, as literally this morning I was thinking to myself “This season seems much more magical” (a trait I associate with fairy tales.) It seems to me that the Tardis might be deliberately taking the Doctor to events that have “magical” or fairy-tale like conclusions (the moon egg, the fairy light-like trees) to re-inspire his sense of wonder at the universe after being at war for so long. You do note that the fairy tale nature of previous seasons isn’t completely gone, but I guess I’m still focusing on that, instead of the many traditional sci-fi connections you found – though it was fun to be reminded of many of these inspirations.
I read the headline and was immediately ready to disagree, but you present a solid case. I think you’ve convinced me.
Wrote this on Google Plus. Over 1000 people clicked the “+” sign. Doctor Who is not Science Fiction. The Doctor isn’t even relevant to the series so far this season:
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After “Mummy On The Orient Express” it is clear that for the foreseeable future, Doctor Who will continue to be young women’s fiction. There’s nothing wrong with that, nonetheless I had hoped for more with Capaldi’s Doctor.
I thought with the demise of Amy Pond we’d leave the romantic comedy genre behind forever. We have left it behind, but we’ve replaced with with juvenile relationship drama. It’s sad really.
Here we have this character, a 2000+ year old Time Lord who can go anywhere in space and time, explore and meddle in the affairs of incomprehensible numbers of lifeforms, not to mention our own, giving us a rare opportunity to mix science, conjecture, and ideas, along with a unique way of allowing us to look at ourselves as a species, and week after week after week all we get is “Rose Rose Rose” or “Amy Amy Amy” or “Clara Clara Clara.”
I’m sorry but it’s as if Oprah is writing Doctor Who. Anywhere in space and time people and what do we focus on ? CLARA’S FREAKING BOYFRIEND! Is Clara angry with the Doctor? Will Clara forgive the Doctor?
Seriously, the word “relationship” needs to be stricken from the show protocols. If Star Trek were written by these people, every episode would be about Kirk being torn between Spock and Uhura. They’d never go to another planet, just hang in orbit around Earth and have relationship issues.
To be fair, there was one good “relationship” episode and that was “The Doctor’s Wife,” but then that was written by Neil Gaiman.
Not only is the redundant companion relationship crap beyond boring, but now we’re getting rehashed junk like “Robin Hood,” and “Mummy on the Orient Express???” What’s next? The Doctor meets “Little Red Riding Hood?” Oh wait, that would tie into “Bad Wolf” and the fan children would be utterly mind blown.
In addition to everything else, The Doctor has almost become irrelevant to the program. It’s all about the companions. Who cares about a dorky girl from Earth when you’ve got a Time Lord to write for???? I mean look at the next episode description:
“…Separated from the Doctor, Clara discovers a new menace from another dimension. But how do you hide when even the walls are no protection? With people to save and the Doctor trapped, Clara comes up against an enemy that exists beyond human perception …” J
ust freaking change the name of the show to “The Clara Oswald Adventures.” Next week, Clara and her pet Time Lord have another adventure!!!! I mean who is The Doctor and who is The Companion here? Clearly Capaldi is The Companion.
I guess the writers just aren’t up to the task of writing for a character as big as The Doctor and find it much more comfortable to write for an overly emotional little girl. I guess its true what they say. “Write what you know.”
Heck, Mr. Peabody makes more use of the WayBack machine than the Doctor does of the Tardis.
Get rid of the companions, let him roam the cosmos alone. Maybe drop by earth for a tryst every once in a while, (he clearly digs earth chics) but that shouldn’t be the focus of the show. It’s like Science Fiction Archie Comics right now. If he most have a companion, give him one like some physicist who challenges him and makes him do crazy things like make dark matter visible or something.
They must dig themselves out of this wussy rut the’ve been in seemingly forever.
That’s a really interesting analysis of the show’s focus. I don’t know if I’ve found this season more sf-like, but I have enjoyed the fact that it’s focused more on the logic of its individual stories than a sense of the show’s own epic mythos. And they’ve been some fascinating standalone stories.
While I know that some people aren’t enjoying the focus on Clara’s character and her relationship with the Doctor as the main series arc, I really like it. It means that there’s no need to insert other plot elements into each episode to create a sense of continuity (though there’s still a little of that tagged on a little clunkily to the end of some episodes), and the emotional arc adds more at stake alongside the cool factor of the novelty ideas for each episode (which I also like).
I’m still waiting for Capaldi to go all Malcolm Tucker in the Tardis though.
We’ve just had magic trees that produce an “oxygen shield” that saved the earth from a solar flare. Because oxygen is a great fire retardant. Beginning with a little girl in a red jacket running through a forest. Chased by wolves. And her sister appears out of a bush at the end, because she wished for it. SF through and through.
We had an invisible mummy on a train in space.
And the most idiotic of all, the moon is a space dragon’s egg. That increases in mass (don’t ask), blows up and is replaced by a new identical moon egg. So we all lived happily ever after.
The Robots whose spaceship was “powered by gold” and boosted when Robin Hood shot a golden arrow into it.
And you say “the show is ditching fairy tales in favor of moodier science fiction”.
More moody, yes.
More SF? WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?
Fairy tales can be very moody and dark. The original Grimm’s tales certainly were. The current show is doing the more traditional fairy tale style rather than the Disneyfied ones of the last few years. Maybe just because Capaldi isn’t a toyboy.
Doctor Who is further from SF than it’s ever been, and I’ve been watching it since Hartnell first went into the junkyard.
Just a PS.
While here we have “Fairy Tale No More”, in your colleague Chris Lough’s review of “In the Forest of the Night”
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/10/doctor-who-in-the-forest-of-the-night
“This is a fairy tale, laid over you as a blanket and woven of the dreams
that come to you in between the borders of fantasy and reality.”
There is more gumpiness and less whimsey this season, but I still think that Doctor Who is more fairy tale than SF. Just because you attach a few rivets to the sets, and technobabble to the plots, doesn’t make fantasy into SF.
I think that problem in this discussion lies not in the episode itself, but in definition of the genres. What is sci-fi anyway? What is fairy-tale? Nowadays, when genres so often mix and mingle, can we even tell the difference? If there is such thing as science-fantasy, why not, say, science-fairy tale? I think that would fit DW nicely. And it would explain these two reviews, one claiming this last episode is a fairy-tale, other saying this series is more SF than before. Why cannot both be right?
Why can’t both be right? Because they’re mutual contradictions.
I strongly dislike the idea that anything at all can happen in “science fiction”. That contradicts the whole idea — the science part of the name. Nothing wrong with fantasy, why use the wrong word when the right word exists?
I any case, this article’s thesis was that they were distinct, but somehow defined them by “tone” rather than content.
@14 AlanHK: It’s not that anything can happen in SF, it’s that – I think – the whole genre thing got complicated. So complicated I actually don’t see the contradiction between SF and fairy tale anymore. (How else could I agree with both aforementioned reviews?) And I don’t think fantasy is the right word for Doctor Who. Science fantasy at least, but I kind of like the term “science fairy tale”. It depends on point of view: you can see DW as sci-fi, modern fairy tale or both at the same time and find valid arguments for all three theses.
Glad to know someone else has read “A Wrinkle in Time”.
“I’ll spell it out: the individual episodes themselves this season aren’t designed to be instant crowd-pleasers, or even all that fun”
Let us remember that this is supposed to be a mass-market entertainment programme on UK BBC TV slated after “Strictly Come Dancing”. It is not supposed to be over-analyzed at all; and it is supposed to be fun. If Moffat has all these great SF ideas and references, then perhaps he should be writing something else.
This is TV for children and adults (to, hopefully, watch as a family) on a Saturday night. This does not mean that good SF or other ideas cannot be used; but it should, at the very least, try to entertain. This season has failed to entertain.
In the article you mention that the music has changed somewhat.
I have NOT been able to watch the new season just yet, for various reasons, and I’m just wondering, if any one has noticed, did they change Clara’s theme music?
Because in the episodes I DID see, season 7, I felt that it sounded an awful lot like Belle’s theme in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. (i.e. the part fairly early on in the movie, where she has a solo couple of lines during the song, sitting by the fountain with a book and sheep)
Really if you look at the look and mannerisms of Capaldi as the Doctor, doesn’t he harken all the way back to William Hartnell? Old, cantankerous, and caring, but more dangerous and knows it. He has the difficult choices to make. His Kobayashi Maru isn’t rigged.
Despite my namesake’s efforts, it’s time to come back home and realize The Doctor is apart from humanity while trying to be with it.
“Science” departed Dr Who in 2005, never to be seen again.
Maybe Doctor Who is no longer fairy tale; but it is certainly not science fiction. DW has always been fantasy, and it still is fantasy, scripted to entertain the kiddies (and their parents) for forty minutes a week. Putting too much thought into what science the show blasphemes every week is a serious waste of everyone’s time. Just sit back, eat your jelly babies and go with it.
Then you get to enjoy moments like that in Dark Water, when the Doctor walks through a threshold musing that he’s overlooking something… then the double-doors close behind him, and I realize why those doors, seen singly before, were poking at my memory so annoyingly…
The photo of them on the moon wearing orange suits is funny. Those are Advanced Crew Escape Suits (ACES, “pumpkin suits”) and simple flight suits, not a true EVA-type suit like the Orlan series suit (in white) — they are for escaping a crashed flight vehicle on Earth, not for surviving in a vacuum. They’re glorified overalls, and not air-tight. Everyone in orange would have their blood boiling by now… but it’s just a TV show.
Well, you can count me as another one firmly in the “What on Earth are you talking about?” camp. I’ve found this season to be idiotic, nonsensical drivel from top to bottom. The show-runner likes to call it a fairy tale because that allows him to skip the hard work of making his “stories” make sense in even the most marginal of ways.
The Sylvester McCoy era of the show was toe-curlingly embarrassing and incompetent, and for that it was very rightly canceled. This season? This season actually manages the impossible: it makes the McCoy era look like acceptable television.
“Well don’t watch it then!” squeal a hundred idiots in unison. Yeah, sadly that’s my conclusion too. It’s better to do anything else at all than watch a show that would insult the intelligence of a house plant.