Doctor, heal thy universe
I had a random thought about Doctor Who today. There's something pretty basic to the new series that's never bothered me before, but I'm pretty sure it will from now on.
(Only very vague spoilers follow, and definitely nothing past the Tenth Doctor. I couldn't spoil much if I wanted to -- I'm way behind.)
Remember Andromeda? The premise was that Dylan Hunt, a single commander from the Federation-like Commonwealth, was trapped in time Captain America-style for 300 years and emerged to find the Commonwealth long gone. The galaxy had basically gone from Star Trek to Star Wars. But Dylan still had his ship, and it was stronger than most of what had been cobbled together since. What did he do? He set out to "rekindle the light of civilization" -- rebuild the Commonwealth to tame the Wild West that the galaxy had become.
The show did okay but not great, and so halfway through season 2, the suits forced a retool. The Commonwealth was rushed to completion, somehow collecting 50 members by the end of the season. This would free up Dylan to just wander the universe helping people. Now that premise is Star Trek, and Star Trek is great, but Andromeda had aspired to be something different, and it never felt the same after the change. Dylan had been a character with a sense of duty. He was the only one left from a better world, and he wasn't content to just enjoy the leftover fruits of that world himself and maybe help people here and there. He chose to rebuild for everyone's sake.
You see where I'm going with this, right?
The big change that marked the new Doctor Who series was that our hero was now the last of the Time Lords. As people, they won't be missed -- they were smug, corrupt know-it-alls. But they existed for a reason. We see ample evidence of this -- every season the Doctor has a new universe-spanning threat to stop, no one else could have done it, and most of them would have existed with or without him. "Father's Day" even cites the Reapers as an example of something the Time Lords would normally have dealt with. Now there's only one Time Lord and one ship to protect the whole universe.
Why is this guy just wandering around?! Yes, it's what he's done all his life, but he was just one guy with a civilization behind him! Yes, the Time War was traumatic, but he can take as long a break as he wants before getting serious! Wandering is a break, you say? Not for a guy who runs into Dalek armies on the regular! And more important, we never see the slightest indication that he EVER plans to stop. He's living as he's always lived, even though the universe has changed forever. And he's constantly risking his life, just non-stop, when unbelievably vast amounts of knowledge that no one else possesses would die with him.
This guy -- maybe not Eccleston, but no more than halfway into Tennant -- should been thinking very hard about how to pass on his knowledge and rebuild the universe's safeguards. He likes to brag about being a protector of humanity and the innocent in general, but he doesn't seem to care if he gets vaporized by some random Sontaran and leaves everyone unprotected. How many entire alien forces do you have to thwart before it occurs to you that they'll keep coming? Someone will have to be there to thwart them after you're gone. The fact that the Time Lords were gravely flawed doesn't mean every possible organization like them will be, and even if that were true, it's better to have SOMETHING opposing the truly evil forces out there than nothing.
Bare minimum, the Doctor should have set up a new Time Lord Academy, Luke-Skywalker-in-the-EU style. (He wouldn't even have to change the definition of Time Lord to allow non-Gallifreyans -- it already does. Ace was set to become one on the show, and did in some canon audio stuff.) Yes, it would take an insane amount of work and time. But the Doctor is the only one left who can do it, and if he's at all serious about protecting the universe, he MUST.
Until then, he's all talk. And boy oh boy does this guy talk.
(Only very vague spoilers follow, and definitely nothing past the Tenth Doctor. I couldn't spoil much if I wanted to -- I'm way behind.)
Remember Andromeda? The premise was that Dylan Hunt, a single commander from the Federation-like Commonwealth, was trapped in time Captain America-style for 300 years and emerged to find the Commonwealth long gone. The galaxy had basically gone from Star Trek to Star Wars. But Dylan still had his ship, and it was stronger than most of what had been cobbled together since. What did he do? He set out to "rekindle the light of civilization" -- rebuild the Commonwealth to tame the Wild West that the galaxy had become.
The show did okay but not great, and so halfway through season 2, the suits forced a retool. The Commonwealth was rushed to completion, somehow collecting 50 members by the end of the season. This would free up Dylan to just wander the universe helping people. Now that premise is Star Trek, and Star Trek is great, but Andromeda had aspired to be something different, and it never felt the same after the change. Dylan had been a character with a sense of duty. He was the only one left from a better world, and he wasn't content to just enjoy the leftover fruits of that world himself and maybe help people here and there. He chose to rebuild for everyone's sake.
You see where I'm going with this, right?
The big change that marked the new Doctor Who series was that our hero was now the last of the Time Lords. As people, they won't be missed -- they were smug, corrupt know-it-alls. But they existed for a reason. We see ample evidence of this -- every season the Doctor has a new universe-spanning threat to stop, no one else could have done it, and most of them would have existed with or without him. "Father's Day" even cites the Reapers as an example of something the Time Lords would normally have dealt with. Now there's only one Time Lord and one ship to protect the whole universe.
Why is this guy just wandering around?! Yes, it's what he's done all his life, but he was just one guy with a civilization behind him! Yes, the Time War was traumatic, but he can take as long a break as he wants before getting serious! Wandering is a break, you say? Not for a guy who runs into Dalek armies on the regular! And more important, we never see the slightest indication that he EVER plans to stop. He's living as he's always lived, even though the universe has changed forever. And he's constantly risking his life, just non-stop, when unbelievably vast amounts of knowledge that no one else possesses would die with him.
This guy -- maybe not Eccleston, but no more than halfway into Tennant -- should been thinking very hard about how to pass on his knowledge and rebuild the universe's safeguards. He likes to brag about being a protector of humanity and the innocent in general, but he doesn't seem to care if he gets vaporized by some random Sontaran and leaves everyone unprotected. How many entire alien forces do you have to thwart before it occurs to you that they'll keep coming? Someone will have to be there to thwart them after you're gone. The fact that the Time Lords were gravely flawed doesn't mean every possible organization like them will be, and even if that were true, it's better to have SOMETHING opposing the truly evil forces out there than nothing.
Bare minimum, the Doctor should have set up a new Time Lord Academy, Luke-Skywalker-in-the-EU style. (He wouldn't even have to change the definition of Time Lord to allow non-Gallifreyans -- it already does. Ace was set to become one on the show, and did in some canon audio stuff.) Yes, it would take an insane amount of work and time. But the Doctor is the only one left who can do it, and if he's at all serious about protecting the universe, he MUST.
Until then, he's all talk. And boy oh boy does this guy talk.