Now in its fourth season on BBC 1, the revised DOC- TOR WHO has proven Davies a gifted fortune teller. What was once a cult series that ended its original run preaching only to the choir has now become one of the UK’s leading pop cultural institutions— big in budget, scope and appeal, and all without sac- rificing either the soul or the heritage of its past. As a measure of how big the new WHO is, con- sider its effect on English politics. The program is shot in Cardiff, Wales, along with a number of spin- offs. The result has been a huge boon to the Welsh economy and has triggered a significant upturn in Welsh tourism. Scotland responded by calling this cultural chauvinism, and publicly objected to such economic favoritism—the only way to fix it, they say, is for the BBC to launch an equally popular sci-fi drama in Scotland!
All the more impressive, then, that Davies had
to reinvent DOCTOR WHO several times over. The initial reboot in 2005 starred Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, with his sidekick Rose played by former pop idol Billie Piper. Eccleston quit the show after just one season, replaced by David Tennant. At the end of the second season, Piper herself departed; by that point, she had become at least as popular as the Doctor himself. Davies’ rethink
of WHO places an unprecedented new emphasis on relationships and emotional drama, never a focus of the original series. Classic WHO at its best was always austere—an otherworldly superhero whose motivations, desires, fears, and even name were hidden from the audience. The original se- ries could at times punch deep into the gut (“Caves of Androzani,” anyone?) but only rarely tried. The newly configured version unashamedly embraces emotion. For the first time in its history, the show now seriously addresses what it must mean to be the Doctor, and what terrible costs he faces to be the man he is; this is DOCTOR WHO for the age of CASINO ROYALE and BATMAN BEGINS. The battles faced by the Doctor are fanciful and absurd, but the lessons they reveal are universal: one need not face a ravening Dalek to stand up for what is just, decent, and right—and terribly, terribly hard. Over the course of two seasons, a profoundly passionate (yet still chaste) romance developed be- tween the ancient time-traveling Doctor and his comely assistant Rose. When the events of the sec- ond season finale wrenched the two apart, the Doctor’s grief mirrored that of his audience. Rose haunts the third season, as a memory of love and loss that leaves the Doctor a darker and moodier
The Doctor in his tenth, current and most popular incarnation: David Tennant, seen here with Season assistant Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) outside the TARDIS.
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