Doctor who
Sep. 19th, 2012 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aumentouAt the suggestion of my housemate, I just watched the latest Dr Who. So,
Dr Who has something in common with Warhammer 40K: things happen that make no sense and the only explanation is that they're done for "coolness" as defined by thirteen year old nerds. WH40K has viking space marines riding around on giant wolves hitting people with axes. Dr Who has the doctor posing and pretending to be a cowboy. I'm going to guess that being ludicrously old makes everything seem pretty boring, so I'm happy to let that go when it's being done in casual moments when it won't cause trouble.
But it isn't always, and that's a serious problem.
This episode contains a mad scientist who built an army of cyborgs to end a messy war. Some way from squeaky clean, morally speaking, but compared with some of the things that our own country has done in war actually not that bad. For example, in 1940 Churchill ordered bombing raids on Berlin specifically to provoke retaliation against British cities. The aim being to get the Germans to stop flattening south coast airfields and hence allow those airfields a chance to recover. The theory (which was almost certainly wrong, but never mind) being that the airfields were necessary to repel a German invasion. So Churchill "volunteered" every British civilian within German bomber range to be a target. Whereas the mad scientist took a bunch of soldiers and turned them into cyborgs. That's not very different, ethically, although on the practical side it's worth noting the cyborg scheme was way more successful and that Churchill didn't commit suicide.
This digression does point up something good about the episode: it brings up an interesting moral question. However, it then handles it like shit. The position of the townsfolk is a microcosm of the position of the scientist's own state. They can choose to sacrifice one life to save more, or not. The scientist, and his own state, both chose to make that sacrifice. The townsfolk choose to do the same, twice, and are prevented from doing so. Personally I'm not clear why this is an important moral point. For the scientist to be treated as he treated others does not seem unreasonable to me. You believe in the greater good? You're prepared to sacrifice others to the greater good? Cool. Now understand that you too can be sacrifices, so get outside the boundary stones and face the consequences of your actions.
But poor handling of a moral issue is par for the course for TV. The thing that really pisses me off is the Doctor being a poser. His plan, at the end, puts lives at risk in order to save lives. His plan is to get the scientist away from town so the cyborg can hunt him down away from innocents. Fine. Except that since the scientist has no way to win, that's pretty close to just chucking him out and telling him to run fast. What's worse: the lives of the villagers are put at risk doing it. More: the cyborg is hurt doing it. The doctor deliberately hurts a cyborg who he thinks is a moral being and risks the lives of people who aren't part of the quarrel in order to temporarily save the life of a guy who is acting against their own principles by hanging around in the first place.
So why does he do it? Because the programme makers want to have a "cool" confrontation scene where the doctor poses for no reason. In character, that translates to the doctor putting lives at risk so that he can pose.
I stopped watching it some time ago because it was full of crap. Dipping my toe in today has left me convinced that was the right choice. I'm slightly sickened by the notion that this is the thinking person's TV choice.
Dr Who has something in common with Warhammer 40K: things happen that make no sense and the only explanation is that they're done for "coolness" as defined by thirteen year old nerds. WH40K has viking space marines riding around on giant wolves hitting people with axes. Dr Who has the doctor posing and pretending to be a cowboy. I'm going to guess that being ludicrously old makes everything seem pretty boring, so I'm happy to let that go when it's being done in casual moments when it won't cause trouble.
But it isn't always, and that's a serious problem.
This episode contains a mad scientist who built an army of cyborgs to end a messy war. Some way from squeaky clean, morally speaking, but compared with some of the things that our own country has done in war actually not that bad. For example, in 1940 Churchill ordered bombing raids on Berlin specifically to provoke retaliation against British cities. The aim being to get the Germans to stop flattening south coast airfields and hence allow those airfields a chance to recover. The theory (which was almost certainly wrong, but never mind) being that the airfields were necessary to repel a German invasion. So Churchill "volunteered" every British civilian within German bomber range to be a target. Whereas the mad scientist took a bunch of soldiers and turned them into cyborgs. That's not very different, ethically, although on the practical side it's worth noting the cyborg scheme was way more successful and that Churchill didn't commit suicide.
This digression does point up something good about the episode: it brings up an interesting moral question. However, it then handles it like shit. The position of the townsfolk is a microcosm of the position of the scientist's own state. They can choose to sacrifice one life to save more, or not. The scientist, and his own state, both chose to make that sacrifice. The townsfolk choose to do the same, twice, and are prevented from doing so. Personally I'm not clear why this is an important moral point. For the scientist to be treated as he treated others does not seem unreasonable to me. You believe in the greater good? You're prepared to sacrifice others to the greater good? Cool. Now understand that you too can be sacrifices, so get outside the boundary stones and face the consequences of your actions.
But poor handling of a moral issue is par for the course for TV. The thing that really pisses me off is the Doctor being a poser. His plan, at the end, puts lives at risk in order to save lives. His plan is to get the scientist away from town so the cyborg can hunt him down away from innocents. Fine. Except that since the scientist has no way to win, that's pretty close to just chucking him out and telling him to run fast. What's worse: the lives of the villagers are put at risk doing it. More: the cyborg is hurt doing it. The doctor deliberately hurts a cyborg who he thinks is a moral being and risks the lives of people who aren't part of the quarrel in order to temporarily save the life of a guy who is acting against their own principles by hanging around in the first place.
So why does he do it? Because the programme makers want to have a "cool" confrontation scene where the doctor poses for no reason. In character, that translates to the doctor putting lives at risk so that he can pose.
I stopped watching it some time ago because it was full of crap. Dipping my toe in today has left me convinced that was the right choice. I'm slightly sickened by the notion that this is the thinking person's TV choice.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-20 05:33 pm (UTC)To be fair, many of your points were addressed in the episode. The Doctor's initial reaction, on finding out what the scientist had done, was to throw him to his death to make sure the townsfolk were safe. Amy made him change his mind - Does he have the right to just wander in and act effectively as judge, jury and executioner? Is it acceptable to give up on someone when there's a slim chance of saving them, but at an increased risk to others?
The Doctor makes a choice. He does it because he thinks it's the right thing to do, not just because he's a poser. It may or may not have been the right choice. The programme remained nicely questionning about that - The immediate consequence of the Doctor's decision is that an innocent man dies. The moral dilemma is something everyone will have their own opinion of, and it's good that Saturday teatime sci-fi entertainment raises these sorts of difficult questions. At the end, it seems that the Doctor may have messed up horribly and it's only the scientist taking matters into his own hands that allows the situation to be resolved.
One thing I really like about the series is that it doesn't portray its hero as always being in the right, even if he is always well-meaning. The Doctor has saved countless lives over the years, but countless more have died as a result of his actions or inaction. He takes the weight of the world on his shoulders, whether people want him to or not. And he makes light of it all because if he didn't he'd probably go mad. The suggestion that he is dangerous and plays too freely with other people's lives is a recurring theme. Many of the people he encounters, including his regular companions and even Davros, have attacked him for it.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-21 09:08 am (UTC)Lets go through his end sequence plan. He waits for the cyborg to show up, He distracts the cyborg, betting his life on it not shooting him even when he's sabotaging its mission. Then he has a bunch of people run around as decoys, betting their lives on the cyborgs ability to spot that they aren't the target and willingness not to shoot. The cyborg ambles around town, so the doctor bets everyone in towns life on the notion that the cyborg wont shoot people who aren't the scientist. And for what> What is all this dicking around and life risk for? It's so the scientist can make it to his ship.
I propose an alternative course of action. During the night, the doctor goes to the TARDIS , betting his life that the cyborg won't intercept and kill him, exactly as he did later. Having gone to the TARDIS he then picks up either the scientist or the ship and transports the one to the other. Then the scientist can make the moral choice, or not. Result: same outcome if the plan succeeds, less risk to lives of the townsfolk.
Now, why didn't the doctor do that? Why did he come up with a stupidly convoluted plan? Possible options: one, he's too stupid to spot the obviously better plan. This would explain a lot, actually. Two: he wanted a chance to face off with the cyborg and pose like he's in a western. Because that is actually the only advantage of the way he did it: it gave a dramatic end sequence with extra posing. You can see why the programme makers would pick that choice (exciting action sequence!). But it doesn't make sense for the story... unless the doctor is so keen on posing that he's prepared to risk lives for it, or is so stupid it doesn't occur to him to use his amazing teleporting spacecraft.
And there's a really big thing. So many of the plot "problems" the characters face in doctor who could just be solved by going, "hey, TARDIS! Win!", and yet they never do. And people die because of it. And it doesn't make sense.
Alternative theory: The doctor actually likes people dying around him. He gets off on guilt, so he kills people so he can feel guilty about it. You think that's silly? But it makes more sense than the actual plot.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 11:47 am (UTC)It wasn't the greatest plan ever, I'll grant you. Maybe there's a better one and maybe there's a plot hole; maybe there isn't. *shrugs* If there is, I'm not going to read things into it that the writers clearly didn't intend.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 04:02 pm (UTC)It is when plot demands it. Which is annoying.
"I can also see that there's a much better chance of distracting the cyborg when he's in the middle of town surrounded by people, than trying to wander out in the open at night past the guy with Terminator vision who's watching you like a hawk."
But there's the thing, you don't need to distract him. He isn't going to kill innocents and the entire plan they used banked on that, so the doctor could have just walked out there alone with no distractions.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 10:09 am (UTC)It's probably a good thing you don't watch regularly, because last night's episode was very silly indeed, and really didn't make any sense ;o)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 08:18 pm (UTC)Whereas Doctor Who has established what the tardis is capable of in some situations - in one of those Silence episodes the doctor materialised the damn thing in mid-air to catch River Song as she jumped from a building. That's precision, it's canonically possible, but he can't manage it any other time? That's not "speed of plot" it's, "plot hole".
The cyborg was established as not harming innocents. What was it going to do, tie him up with bits of spare power cable? Plus, why would it stop him when he was moving away from the target when it wouldn't know he wasn't just leaving?
It was a bad plan, and it makes no sense.