Today I watched "The Beast Below," the second episode of Series 5 of Doctor Who. Doctor Who was my favorite show when I was seven, and it's my favorite again at 37.
There's an old philosophical question that posits a city where everyone is healthy, secure, prosperous, and happy. The price for this is that in the center of the city there is one child who must be made to suffer unimaginable tortures. The question, of course, is, "Is it worth it?" Does that much good for so many balance or justify such evil?
I never thought I'd see this philosophical question (with some modifications, of course) become the plot of what is ostensibly a kid's show. I've worked most of my career on kids' shows. My credits include several of The Disney Channel's biggest hits. What I've never been able to stand, what causes many of the worst decisions I see made all the time is the act of condescending to children. Kids are smart. Kids are clever. And kids sure as hell deserve to be treated like they are.
In "The Beast Below," the people of the UK, the queen of future England, the Doctor, and the audience face an impossible question which they must answer. We're forced to make an impossible moral choice, one most adult programs wouldn't have the courage to ask of their audiences.
That clever Doctor finds a third answer, slightly less horrible than the original two. Amy, however, finds a fourth answer. The right answer. One that seems, at first, to let everyone off the hook. Though, when you think on it more, it makes the horrors up to that point so much the worse because they were always unnecessary.
This is heavy stuff. Themes like this ask a lot of the viewer, they assume a lot of the viewer, and they show remarkable faith in the viewer. Steven Moffat plainly knows kids are smart, kids are clever, and they sure as hell deserve to be treated like they are. (And us adults, too.)
And that why, thirty years on, Doctor Who remains my favorite program.
There's an old philosophical question that posits a city where everyone is healthy, secure, prosperous, and happy. The price for this is that in the center of the city there is one child who must be made to suffer unimaginable tortures. The question, of course, is, "Is it worth it?" Does that much good for so many balance or justify such evil?
I never thought I'd see this philosophical question (with some modifications, of course) become the plot of what is ostensibly a kid's show. I've worked most of my career on kids' shows. My credits include several of The Disney Channel's biggest hits. What I've never been able to stand, what causes many of the worst decisions I see made all the time is the act of condescending to children. Kids are smart. Kids are clever. And kids sure as hell deserve to be treated like they are.
In "The Beast Below," the people of the UK, the queen of future England, the Doctor, and the audience face an impossible question which they must answer. We're forced to make an impossible moral choice, one most adult programs wouldn't have the courage to ask of their audiences.
That clever Doctor finds a third answer, slightly less horrible than the original two. Amy, however, finds a fourth answer. The right answer. One that seems, at first, to let everyone off the hook. Though, when you think on it more, it makes the horrors up to that point so much the worse because they were always unnecessary.
This is heavy stuff. Themes like this ask a lot of the viewer, they assume a lot of the viewer, and they show remarkable faith in the viewer. Steven Moffat plainly knows kids are smart, kids are clever, and they sure as hell deserve to be treated like they are. (And us adults, too.)
And that why, thirty years on, Doctor Who remains my favorite program.
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Best to ya!