Dr. Who and Buffy

Russell T. Davies--hero or villain? The man responsible for bringing the Doctor back. Fan reaction appears to be divided, though it is not clear if the division is equal. Some have said that Davies borrows too much from Buffy, and many hate the latest episode, "Love and Monsters."
(AICN reviews)

The hellmouth was a convenient plot device, giving Buffy the opportunity to defeat the monster of the week and carry the story along. But with the Doctor this structure is in danger of being overused--there have been very few human villains (this season the only one who stands out is the human creator of the Cybermen in the alternate universe -- see episodes 5 and 6). Even if there were monsters of the week in the old series, at least the story was more developed over 4 episodes (ideally) and not forced to fit within 50 minutes. I enjoyed the political stories with the Time Lords, but they've been killed off, and it's not clear that they will return. (With Romana becoming Lord President in her own Big Finish audio series, fans may be better off listening to the radio programs.)

Also, a related complaint: too much paranormal/fanatasy/horror plots means not enough science fiction... not enough evil aliens whom we can respect. Will they bring back the Master? Who knows.

Episodes 8-9 dealt with an entity that could be the Devil, although it was deliberately left 'ambiguous,' because no self-respecting secular science-fiction show could admit the existence of the Devil. Here the entity is a spirit inhabiting a body, which is contrary to the orthodox understanding of angels. While the spirit can leave the body and inhabit another, the body stays alive and must be kept alive; otherwise the spirit may die as well. Who can take that kind of evil seriously? All the 'devil' does is manipulate their fears--there's no temptation to sin, to rebel against God. How does the Doctor encourage the humans to deal with the Devil-alien? Not to turn to God, but to depend upon themselves and their intelligence to defeat him. God plays no role whatsoever in the episode, so the Devil has already won in real life, if not in this fictional story.

Apparently there are at least 2 Big Finish audio series dealing with early Christianity, and neither portray orthodoxy in a positive light--it appears to be a Dan Brown-like or Gnostic-revisionistic take on history. Someone should have read a decent volume on Church History, or J. Pelikan's work.

There has been a strong emphasis on secular humanism that I think was absent in the old series. While the Doctor is the protector of Earth and of the human race, he admires human beings for their inquisitive spirit, as if this is what sets them apart from ever other single sentient species in the universe. One gets this in Star Trek as well--it is the humans who wish to explore the universe and discover--"to seek out new life and civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before"-- the Vulcans are content with being at home, the Klingons just want to drink and fight, and the Romulans want to conquer. One waits for the "humans are the next big thing" motif to pop up as well (the motif is taken to an extreme in Babylon 5, but shows up in Star Trek as well). Most of science fiction is tied to secular humanism and an exaggerated confidence in human progress and technology, and often there is a link between the two--with better technology, suffering and poverty will be eliminated, and with that sin.

Never mind that the Star Trek anthropology is rather inconsistent, relying upon a flawed definition of emotion that covers both the movement of the sensitive and the rational appetites.

And of course sci-fi reality is premised upon unlimited energy resources, for the most part...

There is also the denigration of the ordinary in episode 10--Elton Pope recalls that adults tell children "to grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid and that's it " but responds, "the truth is the world is so much stranger than that, so much darker, and so much matter(?), and so much better." Is such an ordinary life meaningless? If it doesn't lead to pleasure or novelty, or if everything is ordered only to the self, and nothing beyond. This is the consequence of original sin on art--a failure to recognize that meaning is rooted in God.

One might argue that anything escapist might involve a denigration of the ordinary. But the depiction of heroic virtue, whether it be manifested in ordinary or extraordinary circumstances affirms the place of the ordinary--it's not the same as the pov of the degraded soul who finds everything trivial because it has ceased to please him.

We'll see how Billie Piper's departure from the series will be handled. (And she's supposed to be in the adaptation of Mansfield Park.)

(Hmm... something about The New Voyages, fan attempt to resurrect TOS, with different actors playing the classic roles. The actual website.)