In the anniversay episode of “Doctor Who”, Steven Moffat takes a moment in time to reflect and
re-imagine the story of a character who also literally takes the Moment in time
to consider his options before “changing his mind” about a decision that
changes his story. For both, the Art of the Imagination to transcend boundaries
is as remarkable and dazzling as the ability of the series to transcend the
limitations of Time. For both, that instant “cup a soup” Moment of Inspiration really
is a time-bomb that explodes the concept of “Doctor Who”.
In fact,“The Day of the Doctor” begins in 1963 with “The
Unearthly Child” when the doctor is not the centre of his story but a member of
an ensemble group of characters created by Sidney Newman according to the
original charter of the BBC using its new media to “educate, entertain and
inform” in an attempt to breathe life into learning for children watching the
5.15 Saturday slot.
Newman describes the
doctor as “enigmatic, ambiguous, monkeying back and forth with Time and fleeing
from a galactic war, seen wandering about in the fog and lost in memory, playing
an idiocy to underlying serious intent”. He is a mystery but the centre of the
story is Susan (as Rose is the centre of the reboot’s first episode in 2005), a
dreamy “unearthly child” with a vivid imagination whose knowledge is not like
other children because it seems to leap about, “brilliant at some things, bad
at others”. The two teachers who are concerned about her represent the two
directions the programme takes, History and Science, and their interaction
illustrates the interaction of those themes. They follow her to discover she
lives in a scrap yard surrounded by fascinating artefacts including an old blue
police box that pulsates as if alive. Some of the objects in this yard look
like bits we see in later episodes, like the manikins (“Rose”) and paintings
(“Day of doctor”) and clocks (“Edge of Destruction”), as if stories have been
imagined out of them.
Here we meet a mysterious white haired old man wandering
about confused, Susan’s grandfather who looks like the fearsome Old Father Time,
(the original Father Christmas, before Santa Claus, who marks the passing of
the old year at the dangerous time of the winter solstice).He wears old
fashioned oriental attire suggesting he is well travelled, the karakul hat and
cape chapan we now associate with Hamid Karzai as a costume denoting power and
prestige in foreign lands. He also wears a university scarf as the mark of a
scholar. So he appears out of place and out of time.
(the original doctor)
Susan and her grandfather live in the police box which Susan has named the Tardis. In this living matter of the Tardis they travel through time and space because the Tardis is the living matter of the Imagination, “bigger on the inside than the outside”, something Susan has in abundance and why her knowledge is so different in scope from those who dont have it, like her teachers. As a childlike character she is closer to the Imagination than adults. Through this Imagination in the shape of a box the four characters travel, enlivening history and science in the minds of the audience, an alternative to the fusty knowledge of book learning (although Susan is shown as an avid reader with her book on “The French Revolution” ,as Doctor 11 is later seen reading a scientific text book in TDOTD).
The Imagination is a different way of knowing things, an
amalgamation, something stressed throughout that first episode;”you’re going to
tell me I’m imagining things”, says the history teacher to the science teacher,
“can’t you see this is all an illusion, a game”/”you imagined it” says the
doctor/”I was born in another time and another world”, says Susan, trancelike. “What’s inside may be more important than
what’s outside”, says the doctor in the psychological episode called “Edge of
Destruction”.
The dematerialisation noise of the Tardis, a “wheezy
groaning” that suggests “ripping through the fabric of time”, comes and goes
with its image as if insubstantial and of the psyche. The surreal interior is a
mixture of antiques and technology, with a significant geometry of circles
(“round things”, time encircling space) on the wall and hexagons (denoting
balanced order) at the control panel, more equipped for flights of the
Imagination than the practical lifestyle of a typical home.
Whether these characters move back (history) or forth
(science fiction) in Time they always encounter the same issues about conflict
and human nature. The cavemen are fighting about the possession of the power of
fire, divided into two groups under two men in opposition. It’s a question of
“how do they use their intelligence” says the Doctor, in other words, how they
apply their mind. The machinelike Daleks are the consequence of a war between
two groups that destroyed each other, leaving a dead planet. Once they lived
harmoniously in an “integrated world of arts and invention but in one day it
was all destroyed” in a burning that was the end of civilization. At one
extreme the aggressive Daleks “showed a dislike for unlike, afraid of anything
different from them”, always offensive. At the other extreme, the Sars are
totally defensive, a group of pacifists who refuse to fight. “IF ONLY THERE HAD
BEEN SOME OTHER WAY”, the Sars say, “NO MORE WAR” in words that will be echoed
in the anniversary episode. (And it has to be remembered that 1963 was the time
of the cold war between two superpowers , the Cuban missile crisis and the rise
of CND, as 2013 is the time of a war between two religions and the threat of
weapons of mass destruction; different time, same polarities, the players may
change but the performance doesnt.)
Such are the dualities of existence within Time to the
Conscious Mind, because the Mind operates by dualities and creates a world in
that image. In Marco Polo these dualities become a “doubling” or “pairing”,
mirror images, as two young girls travel with two old men in two caravans
traversing Time and Cathay. Whoever they meet, whether historical figures or
aliens, the time travellers are learning about themselves and human nature,
about the causes of conflict and how intelligence is used to enhance or resolve
differences in decisions that encourage competition or co-operation, ingenuity
or malignancy, division or unity.
This pattern forms the journey of Doctor Who for 50 years
because, where as the faces of characters change, human nature does not. In
“Day of the Doctor” Father Time has become a youthful and heroic Timelord ,
Susan has become the girl companion Clara, the warring opposites still present
as sentient beings (Timelords/humans) versus mechanical aliens (daleks/zygons),
the burning of mass destruction is still portrayed as the” end of days”, but
the tentative scifi story has now become a significant epic narrative of
national heritage.
The words of the Sars, “No more” and “if only there had been
another way” echo down the decades to become the focus of the anniversary
episode. “What are these words, explain?”, asks the dying Dalek in the middle
of war in an inquisitorial technique typical of the Epic, answered by the
narrative that follows.
The opening sequence
relates back to the beginning with Foreman’s scrap yard and Coal Hill School in
an episode littered with references to
past encounters appearing and disappearing inexplicably like memories; the red armchair,
red shoes, red Fez, multi-coloured scarf, cyberman head etc. The present doctor
encounters past doctors who appear in different storylines that overlap. There are
references to older epics too. The mock heroic sequence of the doctor hanging
precariously from the tardis helicoptored in over London, with its melodramatic music and gadget-ravens low on
batteries, is reminiscent of the slick epic spy movies of James Bond. The battle
sequence of the legendary fall of Arcadia (a utopian paradise of classical
Greek myth as well as Gallifrey) with
its combination of ceremonial medieval costumes, operatic music like Orff’s
Carmina Burana, and advanced laser
firing computer technology, is reminiscent of the spectacular movie epic “Star
Wars”. The moment of reflection in the middle of battle between the war doctor
and conscience is reminiscent of the battle discourse called Bhagavad Gita
between the warrior Arjuna and Krishna as Greater Self, from the Indian epic
Mahabharata. Both war-riors take time out to consider their actions. Doctor Who’s
journey of ordeals is like a modern “Odyssey”, another epic. Clearly “Doctor
Who” is being placed within its own context as an epic of national
significance, and this present war is every war; “Ive been fighting this war a
long time” he says, “Ive been doing this all my lives”.
The problem of “doubles” is part of the same conflict of
duality. Doctors 10 and 11 double up to face each other in opposition as the
zygons create duplicates that cause havoc and confusion, mirror images or
reflections worthy of an episode where they are themselves the monster
creations of a writer’s Imagination. The zygons and their creators are both
“image makers”. As divided aspects of the same character, these two doctors
from two different time zones play with each other in a comic slapstick
rivalry, mirroring movements with their sonic screwdrivers and glasses and physical
gymnastics,( “Who are you talking to?/Myself.” And “funny, that’s what i sound
like when im talking to myself”). They are both spinning all over the place, confused,
without direction or focus.
(doubles)
Doctor 10 is taking time out from conflict by courting a lady as the lover/suitor of a Goddess/ Queen Elizabeth I (appearance of Elizabeth I/voice of Elizabeth II),who is “wasting her time at a picnic when she should have been planning wars”. It’s a situation that mirrors the war doctor as he takes a moment out of time and conflict in reflection with his Moment of Conscience (represented as a confused mix of Wolfgirl and Rose). The war doctor is in a medieval Morality Play with the two sides of his nature at war, but doctor 10 is in an absurd fairytale courtly romance ending in marriage, a pastoral idyll and comic interlude, full of bathos. His background music is playful, skipping lightly. He is in a muddle of misjudgement as he mistakes the real Elizabeth and real rabbit for zygons.
Doctor 11 was taking time out reading and relaxing when he
is suddenly transported back into the conflict of a “kingdom under attack” by
something unknown that has broken out of a painting. He is perplexed by what is
happening in the National Gallery with Kate and her two officials, significantly
asking for “reports in triplicate” to help him think. He sits with these doubles
and Doctor 10, his own double, in a stalemate scene that reflects an earlier
scene where the double doctors endlessly “reverse each others polarity” with
their screwdrivers. “Cancel detonation”, says one Kate; “counter demand”, says
the other. One doctor changes polarity with his screwdriver; the other changes
it back. So everything is confused in an optical illusion.
Locked in polarised twosomes or duality, doubles and
opposites, the world of divisions where thinking is either/or, these characters
are all stuck and confused. It’s only when the two doctors realise that they must
use their screwdrivers together that a third presence in the form of a third
doctor arrives to enable a resolution with a different way of thinking. When
the doctors act as three in one they liberate and heal, restore balance and
create new possibilities. As three they think outside the old two way
parameters, using leaps of the Imagination in moments of revelation beyond
conscious thought and time. This “three in one” thinking occurs in all levels
of the episode.
It’s the Moment who first mentions this other way when she
sits on the box in the barn. “That’s not a chair, it’s a weapon of mass
destruction”, says the doctor, thinking dualistically. “Why cant it be both?”
says the Moment, thinking imaginatively, in another way, not either/or, but
both. It’s this Moment that brings the three doctors together for the first
time, “you’re both me? Why are we all here? Why are we together?” “Look at you, the three of you” says Clara,
making them see each other together. They have specific nicknames; granddad,
sand shoes and dickey bow. But they also have generic names; healer, warrior
and hero. Though they appear separate, they are the same. They are archetypes
AND individuals whose function is to save and bring hope.
(the Moment of Reflection personified)
Kate and her double are stuck in the old stalemate way of
thinking based on opposition and competition, “we only have to agree to live;
sadly we can only agree to disagree.” It leads nowhere. This is only changed
when the three doctors walk in unison out of the 3D painting into the room.
Together they see a different way, “you are going to stop the countdown, both
together...because you wont know what side you are on”. They activate a device
that erases memory which forces both Kates to speak in unison, instantly and
without conscious thought. So they co-operate, “zygons and humans working
together, peace in our time”.
The bizarre decision to put themselves into a 3D painting so
they can walk out of it, the apparently nonsensical and non-sequential request
for the painting to be put in the “black archive” tower room, are thoughts that
reach beyond linear causality. This is flight of the Imagination, thoughts that
come from three doctors acting as one in a Moment of inspiration, an instant
(like instant “cup a soup”) out of time or consciousness when the toothed geers
of the clocklike time bomb (“galaxy eater”) stop in a Moment that weighs
heavily on the war doctor as Conscience, the measure of a man inside, a “deadly
weapon few are brave enough to face”, says the Timelord Commander, “unless a
fool or a madman”, necessary heroic qualities of those who think outside the
norm.
(Three in One)
In the end we are back in the beginning and the wandering
war doctor of the wilderness years, alone with his conflict of whether to press
the red button of mass destruction or not, isolated in a geographical and
metaphysical desert, the missing doctor of those 15 years when BBC suspended production and
consigned the programme to the television limbo of a wasteland, rejected and
denied ,“me, the other me, the one i don’t talk about; Ive had many lives, many
faces but there’s one ive tried to forget”. In depth psychology this doctor
represents the negative side of the self that is unacceptable and repressed,
cut off in the divided self of an inner war.
(war doctor of the surreal wilderness years)
Trapped in the duality of his thought, he can see “no other
way” until the Moment reunites him with the two other doctors who then take
responsibility together, “This time you dont have to do it alone, what we do
today we do because there is no other way”. So the war doctor is finally
acknowledged and at one with himself, restored to his rightful place in the
pantheon as doctor of the missing years before regenerating into Eccleston. For
one day he becomes Doctor 9 and changes the order, “for this moment I am the
doctor again, thank you”. This moment of reconciliation/ restoration/ integration
releases a tremendous amount of energy that enables them to think creatively in
a “eureka moment” that comes to each as a revelation out of nowhere, “This time
there’s three of us; I change my mind”. The Mind literally changes its duality
and has a moment of inspiration that rebalances. If they can think as three in
one, then they can act as three in one. That’s the power of three! Each flies
their own tardis in their own way but pulling together,(“Geronimo/ allons-y /Gallifrey
stands”), to save Gallifrey.
("I change my mind")
So there is another way to solve the dichotomy of warring opposites. It is found in a Moment of inspiration out of time and consciousness, in a leap of the imagination that operates by synthesis, not seeing either/or but both. The doctors freeze themselves into a 3D painting that will be carried into the black archives to give them access to intervene in the stalemate between humans and the zygons. They also freeze the planet Gallfrey into a 3D painting using the combined power of their three tardis’ to avoid its destruction in the stalemate between daleks and Timelords. Both times they use the power of 3 in 3D Art, instead of two dimensional art. Imagination has this power of synthesis, inclusion, unity, an affirming life force unique to the human spirit. More than anything else, this “Day of the Doctor” is a celebration of that enduring human spirit and the power of the Imagination to transport us, like a tardis, beyond the duality of existence.
It’s this same Imagination that now tackles the regeneration
question, whether there are 13 doctors or not, whether Hurt is doctor 9 or not,
whether the order of doctors changes or not. This is conventional either/or
thinking leading nowhere, because the truth is it doesnt matter, it’s
both. Whatever the number, they are all
leading to the completion of a cycle which is an end and also a beginning,
paradoxical.
(regeneration process of war doctor)
Finally, in a very
personal moment of reflection on his painting, a young Doctor 11 meets an old
Doctor 4 as curator of the gallery against the backdrop of a wall sculpture
that integrates the circles and hexagons of the tardis’ history. Doctor 11 is “having
a moment” reflecting about “The Great Curator” of Art, an important protective role,
not unlike himself as a doctor (warrior/ hero), in fact very like himself but
older! This enigmatic figure appears charged with significance like an
archetype. He is the “humble curator” who “acquired the painting in remarkable
circumstances”, suggesting something magical.
Thinking in the old way, Doctor 11 says the painting has two titles,
either “No More” or “Gallifrey Falls”, equally glum. But the inspired curator
says, “That’s where everyone is wrong, it’s one title, “Gallifrey Falls No More”.
What do you think that means, eh?” By changing the order and bringing the two
titles together as one, he changes the meaning and the story. It brings hope
and clarity. Classic Doctor Who and New Doctor Who are brought together in this
cameo between Tom Baker and Matt Smith “I can only tell you what Id do if i
were you....and perhaps you are me...and perhaps it doesnt matter either
way...WHO KNOWS” he says ending with two words that are a statement AND a
question; both at the same time. This is a different way of thinking that
liberates and illuminates.
(synthesis. Tom Baker meets Matt Smith,hexagons with circles!)
Here the story links back to the earlier mention of Marcus Aurelius by Clara in Coal Hill School, ”waste no more time thinking about what makes a good man, be one”, she quotes from his “Meditations” to himself, writings that focus on how to be a man in the middle of conflict, and how to find one’s place in the Universe, issues central to this episode. A “good man” knows himself and knows his place.
This deeply personal encounter frees Doctor 11 to perceive
his own greater significance, his purpose in life as he becomes fully aware of
his destiny, that he is not “just wandering about, as Clara says”, but that he
is “making his way home the long way round”. This conclusion was long known to
the writers of mystical epics like Attar’s “Conference of the birds”; “Pilgrim,
pilgrimage and the Way/ are but myself towards myself”.( It’s also the
conclusion of that other visionary programme from the 1960’s,Patrick McGoohans
“The Prisoner”, where in the end no 6 realises he is no 1,that they are the
same, not enemies.)
The scene now expands
to show a confident,focused Doctor 11 stepping into place as 12 in 1 ( or 13) manifestations
of the one heroic figure semi circled round the planet Gallifrey. This really
is the “day of the doctor” showing his astronomical significance in a cosmic
drama as the archetypal solar hero who travels through the 12 signs of the
Zodiac, traversing the primordial duality experienced as day and night, born in
the east, rising to a height of ordeals and dying in the west, a perpetual
reassuring cycle of renewal that is an ending AND a beginning; both.
One doctor becomes another, one cycle becomes another.
Regeneration as renewal is the enlightening imaginative concept to the problem
of an individual actor leaving the series or a chronological cycle ending it. “In
my beginning is my end/what we call the beginning is often the end/and to make
an end is to make a beginning/the end is where we start from”(TS Eliot Four
Quartets).
In answer to the daleks question about the doctor’s writing
of the Sars words “No More War”, “The Day of the Doctor” is a celebration of
the unique power of the human spirit to fly with Imagination beyond the
confines of conscious thought, forming innovations that offer “another way” to
the warring opposites of existence, an approach that operates on all levels and
that also resolves the programmes own longstanding dichotomies of plot.
