Caspin watches Dr Who - do you?

[Minty]

(08-10-2015 06:40 PM)RoxyMiller81 Wrote:  I've only really watched bits and pieces from Docs 9, 10, and 11 and I just can't into the show. It makes my head hurt. I don't understand why it's so popular. Some crazy guy running around in a phone booth that a lot bigger on the inside? Seriously??? Why is this still on the air and why the hell does BBC America feel the need to cram it down my throat every fall?

It's either that or more Star Trek: The Next Reboot!

The basic premise of Dr Who is a good one, a SF programme which shows no matter how far into the future & how advanced civilisations get, the same problems & sins arise to get them into bother.

I'm glad they brought Gallifrey back into it as it is central to the whole Dr Who story. To be concise, Gallifrey is home of the Time Lords, who invented & perfected time travel, only to discover the hard way how much worse the universe got with it as the early Time Lords abused their powers to either exploit other creatures for fun like Greek Gods, or by trying to help primitive civilisations advance with technology they weren't mature enough yet to handle responsibly.

A lot of wiped out planets & civilisations later, the Time Lords came to their senses & instead became the police force of time travel, making sure it was not abused & putting a stop to infractions by other races. However throught their history, individual Time Lords have gone rogue, bored with Gallifrey's rules & regulations for much the same ways as they did before.

The Doctor for instance stole an old Type 40 Tardis deciding he wanted to spend his life travelling throughout the universe seeing the wonders of it, all the great moments of its history, with the result that despite his best efforts, he ends up often interfering with events - a big Time Lord no no - because he'd rather bugger up the time line than see others suffer.

Other Time Lords ran away illegally from Gallifrey for other reasons.

The Master (changed s3x with his latest messed up regeneration to become Missy) - who was in the same class in school as The Doctor - wants to rule the universe, or as much of it as possible, & has been happy to ally with all sorts of nasty creatures like the Daleks & Cyberman to achieve it, passing on Time Lord technology secrets to those who would be destined only ever to abuse it.

The Monk turned rogue because he disagreed with the Time Lords' neutrality policy & believes time travel should be used to prevent the universe's great civilisation disasters & tragedies "for the greater good".

The Rani turned traitor because she sees nothing wrong in using the universe & the civilisations in it as lab rats for her experiments, no matter what the consequences. In some ways she's like the Daleks creator Davros, except without the megalomania.

There's probably lots more rogue Time Lords I can't remember, but you get the idea. Time travel is a good platform from which to explore lots of popular story themes about the use & abuse of power, progress vs happiness, the dilemma of interfering in others affairs to prevent trouble you know will happen at the risk of making matters worse or creating new problems, etc. That's why it's been such a popular show