Jealousy

Last night I stayed up way past my (lame, freakishly habitual) bedtime to drive out to where it was pitch black and watch the Leonid meteor shower. It was gorgeous – completely clear and not so cold that it was uncomfortable to wait around for a little bit, and there were several very bright, impressive meteors. I sat outside in a nature preserve at two in the morning watching shooting stars, and I thought to myself, “I am really jealous of Doctor Who.”

Or, to be more clear, I am jealous that the Brits have a protagonist who zips around the universe in a spaceship that looks like a police call box, and that this protagonist has become part of the national culture. Americans have plenty of mythic space-travelling television, most significantly Star Trek, but for the most part we carefully segregate it into a big, locked box of genre fiction and put a giant “FOR NERDS ONLY” sign on the outside. From what I understand about Doctor Who, though, the Doctor’s relationship with British national identity is a crucial aspect of the entire series, whereas Star Trek goes out of its way to abolish nationality by the time the 23^rd century rolls around. The difference is reflected in the plotlines. While Captain Picard’s out there in the future representing humanity as a whole, the Doctor is capable of traveling through all of time and space and yet somehow keeps ending up in London. Even at his most distant and inhuman, the Doctor’s deep love for humanity seems to be perpetually deflected into a fondness for fish and chips or a nice cup of tea.

Slitheen spacecraft crashing into the Thames (after knocking a chuck out of Big Ben)

Maybe I’m grasping, but I think the differences have important ramifications for how we view these shows and, in turn, how we feel about space and the future. Star Trek is idealistic and distant, and gives us an aspirational vision of the future, but its persistent remoteness from our world makes it very easy to shove off into the scifi corner. Doctor Who’s world is all about shoving the known and unknown into the same place and watching them try to work it out. I don’t think it imparts the same feeling of manifest destiny that Star Trek conveys. Still, for Doctor Who, space can’t really be the final frontier because it’s already here, even if we’re not paying attention. I love American scifi, but Doctor Who is all about connecting the aliens and sonic screwdrivers and the majesty of space with the world we already have. So yes, I’m envious that the British have Doctor Who. Nothing much to do about it, I suppose, except drape myself in a Union Jack and join the Doctor for fish and chips.