Nerd Things

(Possible spoilers, if you’re REALLY behind, have just started watching, or are interested in watching Classic Who) Episodes 12 and 13 of Series 4 of the reboot shows mark the return of Davros and his Dalek creations.

On the planet Skaro, two species were at war for control of the planet. The Kaleds and the Thals were pitched in a millennium long struggle. The Kaleds lived under an oppressive totalitarian military regime. Not dissimilar to Nazis with identical jingoistic and racially motivated intent. The Kaled and Thal struggle also resembles the predicted culmination of the Cold War, where forces of Capitalism and Communism would struggle for World domination. A Kaled scientist, Davros, created the ultimate weapon. He manipulated the radioactive fallout affected Kaleds to create a cyborg warrior class known as the Daleks, see what he did there. His creations were even more bent on racial purity and world conquering than their creator. They eventually usurped the Kaleds and later Davros himself and created several Civil Wars between Davros’ forces, the Imperials, and the Renegades and then later the Time War, with the Time Lords. Both factions sought Universal domination and the extermination of all other inferior species. Daleks also see other mutated or diluted Daleks as inferior and have been known to kill their inferiors on numerous occasions.

Now just a bit more background. In episodes 12 and 13, the Daleks, with the aid of Davros and Dalek Caan, have assembled a Reality Bomb in order to destroy all matter in the universe, which will be relayed via the Medusa Cascade across all other parallel universes and dimensions and the Void. Thus killing all other organisms in all of existence. Ok. Now what? Of course the Doctor and friends will stop them, but what if they didn’t? What if Davros succeeded in destroying the whole of reality, leaving only the Imperial Dalek fleet? What would they do? Rebuild? They are infertile. This sect of Imperials is created out of Davros’ own cells ripped from his own chest. They are obsessed with the extermination of all other species, but unlike the Nazis they have no endgame. The Nazi’s would unite all Germanic and Scandinavian civilisations. Then they would kill the Slavs, the Jews, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the gays, and probably everybody else if they won the war, after putting them into slavery first. They would achieve Lebensraum, or living space, they would spread out conquer the world betray their allies eventually. Creating a unified, totalitarian, batshit insane world government. It’s sick and disturbing, but you can rationalise it. It might make you a bit sick inside, but you can rationalise it. Why destroy the Universe? You have no resources. Maybe they have the 27 planets, that are acting as the bomb’s conduit across the Medusa Cascade. They haven’t reached a post scarcity economy, I don’t think so anyway. So they have a finite amount of resources. Can they go on indefinitely or will they slowly die out. Their life support is a mystery and they will be left with only 27 planets for millions, if not billions of Daleks and Davros. What kind of life is that? I know they’re Daleks. Their quality of life is pretty shit and they’re programmed to accept that. They don’t get depressed, but they don’t get happy either. They have some sense of pride, but how long will that last. All of reality destroyed, except for loads of spaceships and maybe a few planets. They’d get bored with nothing to destroy. Davros is human. Well, Kaled anyway and sort of… He’s on a spaceship full of Daleks that think they are vastly superior to him and he only has a demented Dalek Caan for any real company. What could they do?

So what’s their endgame? What’s the point? Would they found New Skaro? Would they revert back into their humanoid forms? Would they fragement into different factions and go back to Civil War, but what would they fight over? It’s just a pile of cosmic dirt and scrap metal. What do you think? I’d really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks for your patronage and if I got something wrong please correct me, so I can edit this and look less like an idiot.

I am a lifelong Whovian, even before the rebirth of the popular television series back in 2005. It’s just something I’ve grown up with and have learned to love it, as only a nerd can. For those who don’t know, Doctor Who is the quintessentially British science fiction show. It started in 1963 and is one of the longest running television programmes of all time. It follows the travels in time and space of the Doctor, a seemingly human alien with two hearts, and the human companions he chooses to accompany him. The Doctor is a Time Lord. This species has incredibly long life spans and the ability to avoid death by regenerating in a different form with an almost entirely different personality (each Doctor being played by a different actor. This ability of regeneration has caused some controversial (and basically wrong) statements to be made on the subject.

Some people say that the Doctor has to be a white, British man. I’ll tackle the cultural and ethnic part of this first. This is bullshit from the perspective of DW canon. It is possible for Time Lords to regenerate from black to white, as evident in Mels’ transformation into River Song in the episode Let’s Kill Hitler. From a moral perspective this is blatantly racist. Recently actor, Idris Elba was considered for an incarnation of the Doctor and that would have been pretty awesome, though unorthodox. As Jingoistic as it is to say, I personally believe the actor who plays the Doctor should be British. The show is British. It is an element of British culture. Just imagine James Bond being an American and working for the CIA instead of MI6. Imagine Burt Reynolds instead of Roger Moore in that role, it’s a vomit worthy notion. I’ll cite Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, as an example of what happens when a British role goes to an American. The film’s redeeming qualities are Alan Rickman being the most badass Sheriff of Nottingham ever and Morgan Freeman, obviously. However, Kevin Costner’s portrayal of an American Robin Hood, or at least a Robin Hood with an American accent, is laughable at best. Even other nationalities wouldn’t quite fill the role. As much as I was entertained by an Aussie friend of mine’s portrayal of the Doctor as an Australian… But still,it just isn’t right any other way and loses that sense of quintessential Britishness…

Now to sex… People who would be accepting of a black or Asian Doctor say that the Doctor could not possibly be a woman. This is based on fallacies like he can’t regenerate as a woman, which is wrong on so many levels it isn’t even worth going over it, that he would lose the essential elements of Doctor-ness, and sexist stuff, which is also too stupid to illicit a proper response. What makes the Doctor the Doctor is different to everybody who watches the show. There are certain elements that connect each of the Doctors together like a responsibility to save innocence, general curiosity, encyclopedia like knowledge, and a general hatred against the stupid/ignorant, who muck nearly everything up anyway. A woman could very easily have all of these traits and would just bring her own perspective to it like any male actor would. The Fifth Doctor had to deal with people complaining that the Doctor couldn’t be a young man. The Tenth, David Tennant, had to put up with some naysayer’s complaining that a Scot couldn’t be the Doctor. These Doctors have become some of the most popular. A woman actor could very easily pull it off. Also if I were to ever to play the Doctor, I think I would prefer to be the Doctor after a woman because then I could be wondering where my breasts have gone when I regenerate and show surprise in having a penis again. It sounds stupid, but I think it could work. Fish fingers and custard sounds pretty stupid too, but they’ve become symbols of idolatry to the fandom. So yeah, a black British woman Doctor is perfectly acceptable, but PLEASE no Americans!!!! or the French for that matter….

Bit of a shout out to Mike Rugnetta at PBS Idea Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsideachannel?feature=watch ) and his video on What Does The Doctor Mean to You http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-WtqAD6kMU