I know this post will appeal to maybe one or two of my readers, but it interests me, so I am posting it anyway.

I was just watching the season finale of the third season of the new Doctor Who on BBC America. I have seen it a few times, but I just figured out what disturbs me about it, and about the entire new series, especially seasons two and three. It appears the Britain is suffering from a lot of the same cultural influences the US is, and they are not good ones.

Now, let me say at the beginning, I was quite a fan of the old Doctor Who. I remember in my younger years when the local PBS station broadcast the Tom Baker episodes every afternoon in their original half-hour serial format. When it later moved to midnight on Saturdays, and they began broadcasting a complete set of episodes all at once, I would stay up and watch, even if I had to stay up until nearly dawn to watch that particularly long Dalek episode from the black and white days. And, to be fair, I do like the new series. I just don't think it quite gets it right. It is worth watching, but it does not inspire the same enthusiasm in me the old series still does*.

The original Doctor Who was always involved in grand schemes, but he was just a small being fighting against things much larger than himself. I suppose a big part of that was budgetary, but I also think the sixties and seventies,a nd even early eighties, had a different sensibility than we do now.

For example, the new episodes have to make the Doctor more unique than he already was. It was not enough to be a time traveling alien form a race of aliens, he now must be the last of the Time Lords. It is an annoying change, as there is simply no need for it. Of course, it does allow for more "mature" plots, as they delve into solitude and isolation and those somber topics which supposedly make the new show more sophisticated, but I find it just a distraction. I , for one, do not think science fiction needs to delve into somber emotional musings in order to be thought provoking. Asimov and Clarke were hardly masters of characterization, yet they provoked more thought than all the weepy vampires in Ann Rice's library.

In addition, this "Last of the Time Lords" is too reminiscent of all the "chosen ones" we have seen over the last two decades, but more on that later.

My second objection is that the new Doctor is a rock star. Where the previous Doctor was known to only a handful of people, if that, the new one is known to the public. Now, it has nothing to do with the scope of the plot, the old Doctor also struggled with plots of world-wide impact, but he just did it on a more human scale, working behind the scenes to save mankind, or alienkind, or whoever or whatever was at risk. The new Doctor, for a "secret" time traveler seems just slightly more fond of media attention than Paris Hilton. The one thing I have learned is that Britain is just as afflicted with the concept "popularity equals success" as the US.

But my largest complaint is the secular messianism inherent in the new Doctor. The old Doctor may have often saved mankind, but there was never any more to it than a well meaning man who tried his best to help. The new Doctor not only saves the world, but adopts an almost Christ-like attitude, though in an insufferable way. Even Jesus threw out the moneychangers, while the new Doctor is all too eager to forgive a mass murderer in season three finale**. His all-forgiving attitude not only marks a sharp break with the earlier series, but also with any common sense. When I saw the season four Christmas episode, with the Doctor being carried between two robotic angels, I just had to laugh. Either the script writers are the most obtuse sycophants ever, or someone on the staff agrees with me about the excesses and is quietly poking fun at the messianism appearing in the plot.

It simply does not suit the show, this need to elevate the Doctor into a solitary, morose, yet self-righteous and perfect media hound. It is as if every popular media trope were boiled down and distilled into a single figure. We need a secular savior who is both non-judgment and forgiving. And yet we have to add some depression to keep him approachable and make him a romantic figure.

Sadly, I have no political or social theme to tie this all together or justify this post's appearance. It would be tempting to tie in the Obama candidacy into my description of messianism as a media creation, but that would be a stretch. So, let me leave it at this, from seeing all of America's media ills reproduced in the revival of a British sci fi show, I have learned that we have finally achieved Fuller's "global village", but sadly it produces less than stellar television programs.

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* It is quite a disappointment to me that the local PBS station bought rights to the new series and started broadcasting that, rather than episodes from the original series.

** There were some hints of this possibility in the smugly righteous Peter Davison Doctor Who, but at least he got angry at injustice.

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UPDATE 04/21/2008

I forgot to add that I did enjoy seeing John Simm (from "Life on Mars") in the season finale, though even there the "reimagining" of an established character was troubling. The old Master was simply an evil, self-interested would be dictator. The new Master is troubled and insane, and ultimately forgiven by the Doctor. The old episode would never have imagined such an event. The Master was simply evil, not ill, and no one was about to forgive him.

On the other hand, Simm did a good job with the role, so I have to say I enjoyed it, even if I was annoyed with the direction the whole character has taken.

And that actually fits my description for the entire new series. Well, the first season with Christopher Eccelston was not as bad, as he was a bit preachy, but rarely morose, and he did not have the all-forgiving personality and attention hunger of the next two seasons. But the next two seasons were alternately amusing and annoying. I was thrilled to have an old favorite back on the air, and I was amused at some of the directions they chose, but some of the big, overall choices annoyed, more than amused, me. I am not annoyed enough to dislike the show, just annoyed enough that the original series will always be the superior one in my mind.