Rubén Jarazo Álvarez
University of the Balearic Islands, Spain
r.jarazo@uib.es

 

 

Resurrection and Regeneration in Doctor Who (1963-): A Critical Approach to Christian Religious Mythology in the TV series

 

 

 

Abstract: This articles analyses the concept of regeneration and its bodily implications and the possible concomitances with Christian religious imagery and resurrection in British Sci-Fi TV series Doctor Who (1963-). It comprises an analysis of the most recurring topics and episodes both in Classic Who (1963-1979) and New Who (2005-present day).

Keywords: Resurrection; Regeneration; Doctor Who; Body; Identity.

 

 

 

When the Church’s Army – a British Evangelistic Anglican society – decided to organise a Doctor Who Conference in 2008, media, fans and scholars started to pay attention to a yet controversial topic: religion in this TV series[1]. The coverage, especially in national newspapers,[2] highlighted the cultural appropriation of many symbols and actions from the TV show. During this conference, vicars watched New Who clips (2005-) and analysed not only the possible Christian symbols portrayed in the show during Russell T. Davis’ era as Head writer, but also constructed many allegories between the TARDIS and the Church of England, Christ-like figures, as well as the portrayal of evil, ethics, personal sacrifice, or resurrection. But how reasonable is to read Doctor Who as a religious text in a secular age?

During those days, protests from the Christian Voice lobby group were common, especially after the episode “The Voyage of the Damned”[3] (2007) when the Doctor ascends in as a Messianic metaphor. The religious mythology is present in the show, from its early stages up – the concept of regeneration is somehow linked to the one of resurrection –, but more prominently in New Who, the show’s second interval from 2005-2014, when these references are more vivid and then, controversial. In fact, the universe is re-set in “The Pandorica opens”[4] (2010) with the Doctor’s ability, David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor dies again to save humankind, and his companion-apostles carry the word forward and revive him in – “The last of the Time Lords”[5] (2007).

However, these references are quite futile in the continuum of a show originally aired from 1963, with the exception of the concept of regeneration and the Doctor’s ethics, two concepts which are continuously present on the show from its initial seasons. Interestingly enough, Torchwood (2006-2011), one of the most successful Doctor Who spin-offs, has allegedly explicit Christian symbolism written out:

 

Ironically, while in the midst of contesting religious ideology, Torchwood has an abundance of, often jarring, Christian symbolism. For example, in the episode “Adam”, Jack passes “communion” to his team as they gather around a table, reminiscent of the Last Supper, but their bread comes in the form of amnesia pills to defeat a mind-altering alien. Also, to prove that he has died, Owen has the suicidal women from “A Day in the Death” touch his gunshot wound, a la the interaction between the resurrected Jesus and Saint Thomas. This encounter “saves” her from committing suicide. However, the most flaring example of Christian symbolism in the show is the found in “End of Days”. Jack acts as a Christ-figure through his wilful self-sacrifice and subsequent resurrection. He confronts the satanic figure of Abaddon, as the only one who can possible stop it, but the encounter costs him his life. The team, his disciples, wait patiently for his resurrection, but it doesn’t occur in a few seconds as is normal. In fact, it takes him several (possibly three) days to resurrect. His reunion with the team resembles Jesus’ return to his disciples who had all betrayed him prior to the event, particularly with Jack’s hugging of Owen, who, during their last meeting, shot him. The forgiveness of Owen’s betrayal by Jack seems to parallel the forgiveness of Saint Peter’s betrayal by Jesus.[6]

 

In the present paper, the Doctor’s ethics and his regenerations – process by which Time Lords renewed themselves, causing a complete physical and psychological change because of severe illness, old age and by choice – will be critically analysed under the religious Christian belief in order to state whether the show portrays Christian moral values at its core.

But the Doctor’s ability to regenerate presents a particularly thorny problem. This can occur up to twelve times, giving each Time Lord a total of thirteen different bodies. This theory is exercised by writers and head producer until the Doctor’s fourteenth regeneration (“The Day of the Doctor”[7] 2013). Then, how do we know that the Doctor is still the same Doctor after such a radical change? How can he visit his past and future selves then? Does the Doctor have a consistent set of moral or ethics? Is he above any moral implications? Are writers fashioning the Doctor’s personality as a god-like presence who is able to protect other galaxies and rule time and space? Davros, in fact, accuses the Doctor of fashioning his determinations and condemning his own companions to death in the “The Journey’s End”.[8] Is it possible to be considered both as the “destroyer of worlds” and as a caring god-like figure?

Let us start then with the mechanism of regeneration, with many concomitances with resurrection. The main initial difference would be set in the concept of death and body dysmorphia. Does the Doctor actually die when he regenerates? “I was dead too long this time”.[9] The idea of death causes such a cosmic angst in his persona; it becomes central to his natural condition. In addition, not only his physical appearance and quirks, his tastes and dress sense alters considerably each time, but also his disposition towards the people around him, his amiability, arrogance, or manipulativeness. In this sense, does this pose a problematic solution in terms of identity and continuity with regards to resurrection? Not necessarily, before Locke, the default assumption in Christendom was that the soul was the bearer of identity, though resurrection was still seen as a bodily process of some sort.[10] With Descartes, the soul found philosophical expression as the res cogitans, the thinking substance (if it exists). Yet, Locke went on to claim that if selves aren’t souls, they aren’t bodies either. Natural theory, however, states that personal identity is constituted by bodily identity, “to be the same person is to have the same body”.[11] But then, body discontinuity would pose a different problem in Science Fiction when characters transmaterialise from place to place: body cells cease to exist in one specific place to be coherently reorganised in a different time zone or location, for instance.

Nonetheless, the regeneration process in the show didn’t have the same implications it might have nowadays. Although it is an intricate cultural concept in present-day British culture – with million viewers worldwide gathering around the television each time the show performs this Deus ex machina technique –, its heavy tradition is initiated in the early stages of the show, and not commonly mentioned in the Whoverse, unless a leading actor wanted to leave the show. This took more prominence with the regeneration of the Third Doctor, making this concept central to the series, the naming of the whole process is mentioned for the first time, when the change of physical appearance is disclosed as part of the punishment inflicted by Time Lords on the Doctor, and thus becoming narratively relevant. It is however, more specifically, during Peter Davison’s regeneration in “Logopolis”[12] (1981), “Castrovalva”[13] (1982) and “Time Flight”[14] (1982), when the writers decided to deal with post-regeneration conflicts and consequences for the first time: the first two episodes are almost entirely TARDIS-set.

But there’s one regeneration which powerfully supports the death hypothesis: the Seventh Doctor into the Eighth in “The Doctor Who: The TV Movie”. Following an emergency landing in San Francisco, the Seventh Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS into the midst of a gun battle and is immediately shot in the chest. Badly wounded, he dies at hospital due to the main physiological differences between a Time Lord and a human. He is pronounced dead at 10.03PM. His body is taken down to the morgue and after 1.00AM his corpse is reanimated and he regenerates. A little later the Eighth Doctor offers Grace the following explanation: “I was dead too long this time. The anaesthetic almost destroyed the regenerative process.” This explanation confirms that the Doctor was dead, implying that regeneration always involved death. Could regeneration then be seen as a literal form of resurrection? Possibly not, since regeneration involves bodily changes but not a change of body. The Doctor’s body is reconfigured in the process of genetic reshuffling, but it is not replaced. The atoms of which the Doctor is composed immediately before the regeneration are exactly the same atoms of the next incarnations, but just a little bit “shaken up”.[15] It’s precisely this bodily continuity and a global memory – different doctors share most relevant memories, but only partially and at specific times – two key factors that support the similarities between regeneration and resurrection. However, where does the term regeneration come from?

 

Although mention of the Time Lords had been a common factor throughout the early-to-mid-1970s (especially with the involvement of the Master), little mention had been made of regeneration until Planet of the Spiders required another real-world change of actor. It was only then, as a fourth leading actor was sought for Doctor Who, that the concept of regeneration really took hold, both in the programme and with the public at large. The use of the term “regeneration” to describe the process of change that the Doctor undergoes is in keeping with Letts’ religious/philosophical take on the series. He felt it necessary to not only explain to viewers afresh about the Doctor’s ability to change (it had been five years since the last such occurrence), but also the need to codify the process, give it a name and normalise it for future producers (who’d be free to follow his template or not).[16]

 

As Robb states, the concept of regeneration was written and directed by Barry Lett’s under a Buddhist approach in “Planet of the Spiders” – Lett was a confessed Buddhist.[17] The meditation retreat is run by Abbot K’anpo Rinpoche and his deputy Cho-Je. K’anpo is revealed to be a Time Lord mentor of the Doctor. He is killed while protecting Yates from attack by the spider-controlled residents. In death, K’anpo is reborn as Cho-Je, his own future self. At the climax, K’anpo reappears to aid the Doctor’s regeneration:

 

All the cells of his body have been devastated… but you forget he is a Time Lord… His cells will regenerate. He will become a new man. […] Of course he will look quite different. […] You may find his behaviour somewhat erratic.” (Rinpoche on the Doctor’s new regeneration)[18]

 

In fact, Lett admits in an interview at the time that “The old man is destroyed and the new man is regenerated […] Yes, it was all a quite deliberate parallel.”[19] We might not forget that in the 1970s, interest in Tibetan Buddhism grew dramatically in English Speaking countries, partially because Western media agencies were largely sympathetic with the Tibetan Cause:

 

It is surprising that Doctor Who had not tackled religion in any serious way (while Star Trek seemed to deal with some alien pretending to be one god or another every other week). It is fitting, though, that the Pertwee era should have come to an end in a celebration of the most 1970s of all religious philosophies, Buddhism, which had grown in prominence (or, at least, in media coverage) in the West since the late 1960s. It seems appropriate, after half a decade spent helping UNIT defend the Earth from threats coming from ‘out there’, that the Third Doctor should end his time looking inward.[20]

 

However, different regenerations imply different identities. In “Time Crash” (2007), the Doctor himself thinks of an earlier incarnation as a different self, the Tenth Doctor also looks back on the Fifth as the point in which he stopped trying to be “old and grumpy and important” and acquired the traits he now thinks of as most centrally his own.[21] This is perceived during Classic Who as well: “So you’re my replacements? A dandy and a clown?” (The First Doctor to the Second and Third).[22] Four’s transition into Five in “Logopolis” (1981), to the “Zero Room” that Five ended to recover in immediately afterwards (“Castrovalva”, 1982). Five is poisoned years later by a murderous toxic and collapses on the floor: “I might regenerate. I don’t know… feels different this time…” He begins to hallucinate visions of his former companions. Then a flash of light permeates a new reincarnation wearing the same clothes, not fitting any more. His companion asks “Doctor?”, replying: “You were expecting someone else?”[23]

But bodily changes occasionally occur in real life, we grow old, new scars or injuries are common in a human body. Why should we take regeneration as a different process for a Time Lord? As a consequence, the person left immediately after a Time Lord regenerates is the same entity who was there beforehand. But is he the same man? “I’m definitely not the man I was”[24] declares Five after meeting three of his previous incarnations, not to mention Romana’s apparent ability to morph into a body from a different species.[25]

Locke’s sameness of consciousness across time is a key connection in the series and the identity of the Doctor in his past selves as he remembers being them – apart from episodes “The Three Doctors” (1973), “The Five Doctors” (1985), and “The Two Doctors”[26] (1985). All Doctors are connected in some mental continuity. Ten might not look like the original William Hartnell, but as we saw in “The Fires of Pompeii”[27] (2008), he still remembers that, as the first Doctor, he was responsible for the burning of Rome in “The Romans”[28] (1965). Some fans of DW would argue that all the different incarnations of the Doctor are different aspects of the same person. The problem here is to confuse the concept of person with the concept of personality. So the relation between person-stages and the person that they are a part of is somehow connected a monarchy, who in a sense never dies (“The King is dead. Long Live the King”) and the various people that held that title, all but one of whom are now dead.

 

Given this, it seems tempting to believe that bodily identity over time consists in being part of a single four-dimensional “worm” in four-dimensional space-time. It seems at least conceivable that a single person might be made up of spatiotemporally discontinuous parts (that means that they might jump about in time and space a bit – who does that remind you of?).[29]

 

However, this ambiguity around the personality of the character is consciously triggered by the writers of the TV series, creating an obscure atmosphere which is essentially at the core of the whole drama:

 

A frail old man lost in time and space… He seems not to remember where he has come from; he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignancy… He remains a mystery. From time to time the other three [time travellers] discover things about him, which turn out to be false or inconclusive… They think he may be a criminal fleeing from his own time.[30]

 

John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado[31] reassert this theory by describing the Doctor as the “other” (“An Unearthly Child”[32]). Clothes, behaviour, defined more by what is not said about him, the mystery,[33] with no name, home or identity for many years.

Nevertheless, resurrection is a recurring topic, not only in the flesh of the Doctor. In “The Hungry Earth” (2010), Restac mortally wounds Rory, one of the Doctor’s companions and Amy’s boyfriend. But ironically he is not only physically removed from his life, but also from previous existence, he will never happen. She is not able to regret her lost or remember him. However, the Doctor asserts: “Keep him in your mind. Don’t forget him. If you forget him, you’ll lose him forever […] Remember Rory. Keep remembering, Rory is alive in your memory. You must keep hold of him. Don’t let anything distract you. Rory still lives in your mind”.[34] Provided the concomitances between religion, memory and faith, Rory ends up resurrected as an auton – a type of cyborg with the same feelings and memories.[35]

With regards to his godlike incongruities and Messianic actions, it is easy to establish parallels between Jesus Christ and the Doctor at some specific episodes.[36] To start with, The Guardian described the “Doctor Who. The Movie” (1996) as making the Doctor “a gentlemanly Jesus [who] came to save the world as it prepared to party on December 31, 1999”.[37] Peter Wright pays specific attention to the iconography in the movie, the presence of white shroud, crown of thorns, Doctor’s ability to resurrect the dead, and the clear parallels between the Master and Satan. On the TV series, Steve Couch, Tony Watkins and Peter Williams have identified fifteen parallels between the Doctor and Jesus:[38] Five and Nine’s sacrifices to save their companions, or the fact that the Doctor always turns up at just the right time to make a difference.[39] Christian hymns are sung in “Gridlock”[40] (2007) and “The Family of Blood”[41] (2007) (“Old Rugged Cross and Abide with Me; and To be a Pilgrim, respectively), both episodes written by an admittedly practicing Christian. Even Fiske admits the Doctor’s “dislike of violence and his sexual abstinence are other shared characteristics, as is the fact that both are leaders”.[42]

He also allows Margaret, the Slitheen, to be reborn (“Boom Town”[43] 2005), tries to negotiate peace deals with the Sycorax (“Christmas Invasion”[44] 2006) and Sontarans (“The Poison Sky”[45] 2008) and offers Davros (“Journey’s End”[46]) a chance to come with him instead of dying. Through prayer of millions chanting his name in “The Last of the Time Lords”[47] (2007), he saves the world from the threat of the Master, and in “The Doctor’s Daughter”[48] (2008), he urges the people of Messaline to form a new society and found it in his image. The Doctor’s allies also spread his “gospel”, or story, to those they meet, most notably in “The Planet of the Ood”[49] (2008), where the Ood sing songs of liberators, Doctor-Donna, (“The Fires of Pompeii” 2008), where the Doctor and Donna are worshipped as household gods, and “The Last of the Time Lords” (2007), when Martha spends a year travelling the world telling the story of the Doctor and urging people to believe:

 

But if Martha Jones became a legend, then that’s wrong because my name isn’t important. There’s someone else. The man who sent me out there. The man who told me to walk the Earth. His name is the Doctor. He has saved our lives so many times, and you never even knew he was there. He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I’ve seen him. I know him. I love him. And I know what he can do.[50]

 

After Doctor Who hiatus, novels such as The Adventuress of Henrietta Street (2001) also promoted his demigod appealing. In this novel, the Doctor is described as an ageless, a changeable alien adventurer. Lawrence Miles presents him as a “fallen demigod”.[51] The Doctor is married in this novel to Scarlette, “half-sorceress and half-prostitute”[52] in a red wedding dress in a ceremony taking place in the crypt of a Caribbean church, attended by ritualists, tantrists, cabalists, and representatives of various arcane witch-cults and secret societies. The novel has more in common with folklore than with Science Fiction though.

Even Russell T. Davies stated that “The Doctor is a proper saviour. He saves the world through the power of his mind and his passion.”[53] However, that does not necessarily mean that the concomitances between the Doctor and Jesus Christ are linearly established. As Deller suggests: “We see that atheist show runner Russell T. Davies has projected onto the Doctor not only the power and majesty of a god, but the problems that come with such status.”[54] In fact, when any references to the Doctor as an “angel” or a “lonely god” appear, he immediately decries the idea: “Don’t worship me – I’d make a very bad God.” Margaret adds: “From what I’ve seen, your happy-go-lucky little life leaves devastation in its wake. Always moving on because you dare not look back. Playing with so many people’s lives; you might as well be a god.” [55]

In truth, this theory is more adequate to the Doctor’s case. In “The Satan Pit” (2006), for instance, the Doctor speaks of his belief in humanity, as being superior to the notion of God: “I’ve seen face gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods – out of all that – out of that whole pantheon – if I believe in one thing, just in one thing, I believe in her”.[56] Even his “apostles” are not so nice, when they agree to put an end to a whole species with the Osterhagen key and Warp Star. The caring nature of the Doctor, however, is in direct opposition to his own race, the Time Lords, who do not interfere in other species’ issues. In fact, we learn this when the Doctor is punished and exiled to planet Earth after interfering in Human affairs:[57]

 

The Time Lords only interfere when the conditions ensuring harmony and diversity in the cosmos are threatened, and excuse the lesser evils for being necessary in this grander scheme. Coincidentally it’s the Doctor who accepts the necessity of evil, rather than Time Lords, in the “Genesis of the Daleks” (1975), when, against the instruction of the Time Lords, he refuses to prevent the Daleks from coming into being. Clearly, the role of the Time Lords is analogous to Leibniz’s God in the respect of allowing evil in the universe.[58]

 

He doesn’t even like to carry a weapon and is against military rank – bear in mind the military in the new century is now “the Church”[59] –. In this episode, by the way, the Weeping Angels at spaceship Byzantium – a reference to the disastrous Christian crusades of the XIII century – are figures that use the Gothic to make sense of contemporary fears and concerns, and who feed on choice (absence of free will). They also operate as opponents within what, Moffat seems to suggest, is a futuristic religious jihad where “the Church”, presumably the Christian one, is a militarised force sent out to extinguish evil. Kelton Cobb emphasises this relationship between the Gothic and the demonising of non-Christian religious figures within media and news culture where he suggests that the Gothic is now being used as a “narrative form for defining the meaning of real event”.[60]

However, the Doctor’s intentions are always complex and not necessarily kind, since his main objective is protecting Time, and then Human race. Garry Gillatt notes that “in many ways, the Doctor is defined by our distance from him […] we are rarely given access to his thought-processes or motivations, which in turn only adds to the character’s enigmatic appeal.”[61] As a consequence, if the Doctor protects Time over all, it doesn’t matter whether his morals values are good or evil, Time necessarily goes first.

Secondly, the Doctor’s relationship to time clashes with morality, since a linear, cause-effect notion is not possible: Davros argues with the Doctor in the following terms: “Listen, if somebody who knew the future point out a child to you and told you that the child would grow up totally evil […] to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kiss that child?”[62] This moral dilemma appears in many episodes in New Who, for example in “Let’s kill Hitler”[63] (2011). According to Webb and Wardecker, the Doctor’s morality could be described as flexible, or utilitarian:

 

Humans can be monstrous enough to commit genocide. What of gods? It’s not difficult to perceive the practically immortal, time and space-travelling Doctor as god-like. His superior vantage point and detachment allow him to make horrible calculations, sometimes sacrificing individuals for the greater good.[64]

 

So, in the end, what defines the Doctor’s set of values is choice – another common pressing issue in many episodes, even some monsters feed on them, such as the Weeping Angels, the Time Beetle, or The Dream Lord –. In connection to choice and freewill, Ruth Deller believes that the Doctor could be defined as the imperfect Messiah Human kind needs:

 

We’ve shown that ‘gods’ may be powerful, but that power can easily be abused and also comes at great cost. On the other hand, we’re clearly shown that the universe needs the Doctor. The apocalyptic events of “The Last of the Time Lords”, and “Turn Left” make it clear that without him, the world would suffer from dictatorship, explosions, terrorism, poverty, alien invasions, and lot of unnecessary deaths.[65]

 

By the time we get to Moffat’s and the Tenth Doctor played by Matt Smith, the return of his extraordinary creations the Weeping Angels, the focus shifts onto Doctor Who’s long-established relationship with all things Gothic. The symbolism of monsters and religion, the power of the gaze, and the complexities and traumas of travelling in time with the Doctor are subjects that form the focus on genre in “The Time of the Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”. This new Doctor is referred as the “magic” Doctor on several occasions, and this emphasises a desire to a fairy tale where the Doctor is more a wise old wizard than a godlike figure. Moffat views are closer to Grimm’s original horror, violence and death as the source of tale inspiration. So, in the end, with the disappearance of Tennant – and Davies as Head writer –, the godlike concomitances completely vanished.

In this sense, the spotlight should be on Davies, a renowned atheist. In the words of Nicola Shindler, friend and colleague, “Russell’s ideology is that the root of all evil is religion and gods, and that the world would be a better place without them.”[66] And Davies primarily rejects Christianity at the core of the show. He mainly admits godlike concomitances in order to establish an ethical debate around the importance of power and responsibility. The idea that people can become moral and better without a god or religion can be found in Doctor Who. The series emphasizes the importance of ordinary people and their potential to become special:

 

The significance of the Doctor lies partly in his structured relationship to gods and man. He is an anomalous creature in that he is neither God (or Time Lord) nor man, but occupies a mediating category between the two. He has a nonhuman origin and many nonhuman abilities, yet a human form and many human characteristics.[67]

 

Although the subjects of religion and belief fascinate Davies, it’s purely from the viewpoint of an avowed atheist, as his own upbringing wasn’t of a religious nature:

 

Religious undertones can be found in many of Davies’ dramas. This, after all, was a writer who had once created a soap [opera] about a clergyman’s family and named it Revelations. The Second Coming, as you’d expect, foregrounds the issue. Previously, Springhill had been his most concerned tackling of religion, albeit often a sensationalist fashion. In its own way, though, the earlier series, with its battle between the forces and good and evil, with religion caught at the centre, was sowing the seeds for what was to come.[68]

 

Religion in Davies’ episodes is treated as any other fiction or mythology, without little or no similarities to Christian or Protestant Church.  Russell T. Davies answered against the accusations of religious overtones in Doctor Who after the Church’s Army conference in 2008:

 

Who came up with that one, in a godless world? People are so dumb about religion. Doctor Who is mythic, so it happens in a drama that naturally has things like bright shining lights and people rising in the air, and people go: Oh, that’s Christian; therefore the whole programme is Christian! I’m saying the exact opposite of that.[69]

 

All in all, there is religious iconography, as any other myths or religions included in the Classic and New Who (Romana is seen as a vestal virgin, a pagan, not Christian religion symbol, and Donna and Tenth Doctor are seen as household gods in “The Fires of Pompeii”, but never persistent of continuous; and rarely seen as positive systems. In the origins of the show, producers tried to deliberately avoid the overt “Christian moralizing of the 1950s heroes”.[70] Even in “The Satan Pit” (2006), Satan is common to all religious faiths: “which devil are you?”,[71] mentions the Doctor. The danger of this monster is thought to be emanating at the back of every sentient mind, for Davies, the danger also posed by the religion is ideological, not corporeal. Davies even prohibited his writers to use the word “evil” in the episodes, with one exception: “Fear her”[72] (2006).

It seems that apart a few concomitances on regeneration and godlike imagery in several episodes of Doctor Who since 1963,[73] Christian imagery is not present in the series as a catalytic to induce in the audience a specific religious undertone, quite the reverse. However, as Stewart Hoover suggests, media will always be a “symbolic marketplace”, where consumers are sometimes inevitable keen to expect that some unexpected sources might well be significant for those “seeking” or “questing” for religious meaning.[74]

 

 

 

Notes