It’s summertime, which means it’s the perfect occasion to do things like introduce one’s significant other to Doctor Who, starting with the rather nifty arc of the Ninth Doctor, played with melancholy charm by Christopher Eccleston, and overseen by Russell T. Davies. And when we came to the end of “The Parting Of The Ways,” the climactic episode in which the Doctor sacrifices his ninth incarnation to save Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the shopgirl turned galactic traveler who seized his offer of a different kind of life and endangered herself to keep the example he set for herself alive, I realized precisely why I was so disappointed by the selection of another white guy as the Twelfth Doctor, and showrunner Steven Moffat’s comment to those who would have liked to see a female Doctor that “I would like to go on record and say that the Queen should be played by a man,” a slap at Helen Mirren’s expression of interest in the role.
What follows that are seventeen or eighteen million words (seemed like that many, anyway) that could have easily been replaced with, “I’m a progressive, therefore I am inherently miserable.”
When you have chosen to place an almost religious faith in government, you begin to seek depth in the shallowest of places, like a television show, albeit a very intelligent and good one. And when you’re always manufacturing racism and sexism in even the most benign situations, you will find that the joy gets sucked out of almost everything.
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