[Spoilers] Once you really start getting into the premises and logical extensions of the episodes (i.e. doing criticism), sometimes things break down. Premises can be disturbing because, if true, they’re scary, or they can be disturbing because they don’t make sense. Previously, I roughly laid out the premises that bothered me from each episode. Ultimately, I decided that things that don’t make sense are worse than things that are merely conceptually scary. And then there’s the “ring of truth” aspect that makes some things qualitatively more scary. Here’s my list:
10. Landmarks have secret, nefarious purposes
In Episode 1, “Rose,” we learn that relatively innocuous structures like the London Eye could be secret transmitters for nefarious parties. Not impossible, but such claims must be issued by people in Tinfoil Hats.
9. Nuclear Power will destroy us all
In Episode 11, “Boom Town,” the Slitheen are back, running Cardiff and trying to destroy the earth by using a nuclear power plant to open the rift. So here we see new dangers for nuclear power–“It can open a rift in space-time and destroy the planet? F@#$ that!”
8. Creepy old men are everywhere!
I can’t think of anything new to say here: In Episode 1, “Rose, we are reintroduced to this elderly professional–and I’m talking about the Doctor here–who goes in for 20-year old shop girls. There’s a lot of #MeToo and Class critiques available here. True, “age is just a number,” and the Doctor’s number is somewhere around 900. The TARDIS is dangled as a panel van containing all the candy in the universe. It’s more than a little creepy, though ultimately platonic.
7. Time paradoxes aren’t really patrolled by Time Lords, but by Reapers
In Episode 8, “Father’s Day,” We get a Time Travel Paradox: What happens when you go back in time and do something that contradicts your history? Reapers. That’s what happens. Reapers feed off cracks in space-time caused by a Blinovitch Limitation Effect, or “crossing your own time line.” Basically, if you change your past, your present will be different as well, and you can write yourself right out of existence. While the timeline can absorb a lot of minor changes, there are certain “fixed points” that must remain unchanged or the whole of space-time unravels. So we need Time Lords like the Doctor to parse out which moments need to remain fixed and which can be massaged without bringing on the Reapers–which, by the way, the Doctor can do nothing about, save ensuring that events unfold as they need to. So that’s what Time Lords do. Sure, they create and try to enforce a bunch of rules that they personally don’t feel the need to follow all the time, but when push comes to shove, the ultimate arbiters will be the Reapers.
6. Capitalism is alive and well in the future.
In Episode 2, “The End of the World”: We learn that wealthy planets can survive indefinitely; bankrupt planets gotta die. This idea of a monetary basis for decisions is taken to be so natural, the death of the Earth isn’t even worthy of the Doctor’s intervention, he’s there as spectator.
Episodes 4 & 5, “Aliens of London”/”World War Three” feature Capitalism run amok. The profit of a tech-savvy few (e.g. the Slitheen) outweigh the needs of the indigenous (Earthlings). The same thing happens in Episodes 9 & 10, “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances,” We once again see the splash damage of Laissez Faire Capitalism. Once again, the message is that the Capitalists are doing illegal things and harming people, even if unintentionally, so Caveat Emptor.
Also in Episodes 4 & 5, although the Doctor steps in to stop the Slitheen, there has to be a contest, which again places the logic of the episode in the category of Might Makes Right, which is itself an extension of Capitalism. Similarly, in Episode 6, “Dalek,” we are reintroduced to the Doctor’s nemeses, as the series apparently needs these opponents, because everything has to be a contest–a zero-sum game–that’s the essence of Capitalism.
5. “Ze who controls the media, controls the world.”
This one’s close to my heart, but also a disturbing trend since at least 2015. In Episode 7, “The Long Game,” Satellite 5 represents everybody’s worst perception of the media. Fox News as the only station. The Liberal Media drumming up a race war or pandemic threat to keep everyone living in fear. Without a trustworthy objective voice to listen to, a different station, a third party auditor or independent experts, no one would know truth from spin, and that’s horrific.
4. Amusing Ourselves to Death
In Episode 12, “Bad Wolf,” we’re back on Satellite 5, but instead of Fake News, now we’re treated to Reality TV Death Matches. It’s treated as an evolution driven by the Daleks; however, it has and undercurrent of inevitability based on then-current (in 2005) trends. We love to hate the characters and vote them off, why not go the extra step and watch them disintegrated? As Neil Postman postulated, we are Amusing Ourselves to Death, in both the killing of the contestants and the rising Dalek threat. Scary monsters, but ultimately unlikely.
3. Human beauty standards of the future are off the chain!
Episode 2, “The End of the World” features Lady Cassandra O’Brien. The pinnacle of human evolution [in her own mind], she serves as a critique of female beauty standards, the desire for women who are incredibly thin–Cassandra’s a two-dimensional sheet of skin. To paraphrase Nigel Tifnul from Spinal Tap, “How much more thin could she be? And the answer is none. None more thin.” It’s implausible, and frightening.
2. The Gelth
In Episode 3, “The Unquiet Dead,” the Gelth can consciously come through the rift, enter the gas lines and then leave them to possess a body, but when gas is in the air, they suddenly must leave the bodies and inhabit the gas? How does that work? It doesn’t. It’s a completely illogical premise.
1. Our capacity for sympathy and love (versus hate) is hard-wired in our DNA
In Episode 6, “Dalek,” the Dalek absorbs some of Rose’s DNA, which both gives it the capacity for sympathy that saves her life, and is the source of its own self-revulsion, which causes it to self-destruct. So the capacity for good is hardwired into our DNA. Similarly, in Episode 13,”The Parting of the Ways,” the Daleks admit to using the cells of human beings to create new Daleks. True, unlike Episode 6, where the Dalek is altered/tainted by Rose’s DNA, these Daleks are selecting humans for membership on a cell-by-cell basis [apparently based on our capacity for hate, per Episode 6]. The idea that an emotion is coded into our DNA, and that other species are coded differently, brings about the same kind of Us Versus Them philosophy that underwrite racism and all acts of genocide. Indeed, Doctor #9 is all about wiping the Daleks out of existence, and might well feel similarly about anyone else he may come to view as genetically flawed. So this is scary, and at it’s heart, implausible.
So what’s your vote for the most disturbing premise? Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments!
