Dr Who - science fiction for postmodernity

Some features of the series arise from the genre of science fiction. So there is a tendency to favour scientific explanations over other kinds.

For example the seventies serial 'the Daemons' was an attempt to do a Dennis Wheatley style black magic story, complete with sinister rituals and horned devils. The Doctor insists that there must be a scientific rather than magical explanation for things, and not surprisingly the demons turn out to be beings from another planet.

In the new series (in a pair of episodes that briefly name checks the Daemons) the Doctor is on a space base in the distant future when he encounters a being trapped in a pit, which claims to be Satan or the Beast. The techniques used to defeat the Beast are thoroughly 'scientific.'   However, although the Doctor is sceptical about the claims made by this 'Beast,' he cannot provide any explanation for its the origins, and he is unable or unwilling to reassure Rose that there is no such thing as the Devil.

The references to the book of Revelation do not derive from scripture as such but from the horror genre. Other features of this genre - spooky voices, possession and ancient inscriptions - are skilfully combined with the science fiction tale of a base under siege. Here the writers seem to have felt less need that those in the seventies to reduce the horror elements to the science fiction ones.

The 'scientific' explanations are often kept deliberately vague. The new series is ironically self-mocking when the Doctor says to Queen Victoria

'You'd call it a werewolf but strictly speaking it's a lupine wavelength haemovariform.'

The writers know that the viewers know this is fantasy with scientific language used to provide a veneer of plausibility There is even a hint that the language of science and that of magic or the supernatural are equally valid alternatives. In another episode the Doctor calls an entrance to another time a 'spatio-temporal hyperlink.' When he is asked what that is, he replies

'No idea; just made it up. Didn't want to say magic door'.

If science keeps any superiority, it is because of its critical attitude, not because it provides final answers. A character in the new series wants to believe her dead father has returned to her and chides the Doctor for seeking a scientific explanation.  The Doctor is sympathetic to her, but wants the truth even if it is uncomfortable; which is just as well since the ghosts are invaders from an alternative reality.

Plausibility

All this points to a subtle shift in the plausibility mechanisms of the series. While the phenomena encountered by the Doctor must still have a 'scientific' explanation, there is an acknowledgement that these 'explanations' are part of the literary construct called science fiction, and may be only tentatively connected to actual scientific theories or discoveries. In other words there is a shift away from the modern towards the postmodern. However this shift was already taking place within the classic series.

Science Fiction is a modern literary form, a product of the enlightenment. As a form it emphasises rational explanation. So although Doctor Who always had strong fantasy elements, it was originally modern in precisely this sense; whatever alternative explanations, whether naturalistic or supernatural, for the phenomena encountered might be presented, the Doctor as the person with the greatest scientific knowledge would always give the true account in the end. This is essential to the series and has remained for the most part unchanged; it is in keeping with this tradition that Rose asks the Doctor, the scientist, to reassure her that the Devil does not exist. It is in defiance of this tradition the Doctor refuses to comment.

With a wink

In the later years of the classic series there was a gradual change in the way the viewers were expected to respond to the scientific explanations. In the Hartnell years,  the programme played everything straight, as if we were meant to believe in the extraterrestrial explanations. Troughton's Doctor introduced an element of whimsy into the role, but he still had an underlying earnestness that would emerge in moments of crisis. The third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, portrayed the Doctor in a way that bordered on melodrama. When Tom Baker took over the role he introduced wildness, an alien unpredictability that undercut the distinction between taking the role seriously and sending it up. This was reflected in the scripts. At times these seemed to wink at the audience and say 'this isn't real and you know it' For example when the Doctor's Time Lord companion decides to regenerate she tries on several new bodies like a lady trying on dresses before deciding to stick with her first choice.

Self-referential

There was also a tendency in the later days of the classic series to make references that were meaningful to the viewer but did not make sense within the fictional world of the series. Later Doctors wore clothes which used a question mark motif - a reference to the series' title which is not used by or of the Doctor in the series.

In the new series these postmodern elements continue. The Doctor encounters the Torchwood institute named after a house in Scotland where Queen Victoria encountered the Doctor. But Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who. When the Doctor and his companions find themselves on a satellite TV station 3000 years in our future they become involved with murderous versions of TV programmes popular in our own day. We know this is highly improbable, and we are invited to accept the improbability, to suspend our disbelief and join in the fun. Similarly implausible though very amusing is the character from the year five billion and twenty three who can identify a chav.

Dave Ferguson, July 2006