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| Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC Worldwide |
I was discussing the latest Doctor Who finale
“The Wedding of River Song” with a friend and we agreed that the series was growing a little tiring after a while, constantly focusing on the Doctor and the mystery of him. We wished we could just get in the TARDIS, save the world and get back in the TARDIS. We both loved Stephen Moffat’s
“Blink” episode but she wondered if he was being a bit too clever, perhaps.
I had more mixed feelings including a little relief, because I was afraid through the series that Moffat was steering the ship towards the rocks. Some of the earlier episodes were so complex and basically undramatic (for various technical reasons) that I found myself 'switching off' emotionally and I thought this was foreshadowing a series and serious catastrophe. Ratings have dropped since Russell T Davies left and things looked perilous; Davies was good at grounding even the most outlandish moments in real human drama, tragic or comic. Moffat delights in plots so convoluted that fantasy disappears up its own artifice while character and humanity become sideshows.
But this finale provided many cool moments (too many to list, but Amy appearing out of the mist wearing an eye-patch has to rate for something) and backdrops which were engaging on a different level, plus it seemed to handle the central misdirection of the show and thereby open the door to a fresh new era.
By that I mean that for too long now the show has been about the Doctor himself and his ever-growing role in the universe, to the point where the character had become god-like, a living myth, whose shadow fell across every plotline and episode. I hankered after the old days when the Doctor himself was an untouched mystery, when the Tardis simply arrived, had an adventure and then left. For many years we didn't know anything at all about the Doctor- and we didn't need to know. That central unknown lay at the core of the show, lending strength to even the most tepid storyline.
Now it's become 'The Doctor Show' and that has been detrimental, I think.
Yes, I know that there is the question of The Question ('Doctor Who?') and that seems to suggest even more burrowing down into fundamentals that should stay buried, but the hint that the Doctor will 'return to the shadows' gives me hope that the power of the show's original format will re-assert itself and we can look forward to more exciting stuff than of late.
Grant Hudson
Head Teacher
Greenfields School
