ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ART5

THE MAN IN THE BOX

Fifty years of Doctor Who.

BY JILL LEPORE

ehind the door labelled Studio Four, Lewis Carroll, and typewriters with B where "Doctor Who" is filmed, it missing keys. smells of glue and paint. Industrial- On November 23, 2013, "Doctor gauge steel chains hang from the ceiling, Who" will celebrate its fiftieth anniver­ which is painted black and is so impos­ sary with a seventy-five-minute, 3-D sibly high that it feels more like a night special called 'The Day of the Doctor," sky than like the underside of a roof, the which BBC Worldwide is billing as a chains like falling stars. The only light is "global simulcast," meaning that it will artificial, slanted, and green. The con­ be seen at the same time in almost eighty crete floor is speckled and spattered. countries—a new frontier in the history Surrounding the set, cameras, lights, and of television. For many people around microphones stand on tripod legs of the world, "Doctor Who" is the face of smeared chrome like an army of giant the BBC. At the height of its first run, arthropod invaders, patiently waiting. In which ended in 1989, "Doctor Who" the stillness, a stagehand wearing a black was seen by a hundred and ten million hooded sweatshirt and black cargo pants viewers in fifty-four nations, including rummages through a Tupperware stor­ the United States, where, beginning in age box, making an awful clatter. He the nineteen-seventies, it was broadcast pulls out something metal and rusted, by PBS and watched by the kind of quis­ cradling in his tattooed hands the part ling American kid who hadn't the heart that would roll away if you were to guil­ for "Happy Days." lotine a robot. "This, this," he mutters in "'Doctor Who' is the story of a lovely quiet triumph, "is the head we need." world in which a kind man saves every­ "Doctor Who" is the most original one from harm," Steven Moffat says. science-fiction television series ever Moffat, a fifty-one-year-old Scot, made. It is also one of the longest-run­ started watching "Doctor Who" when ning television shows of all time. (Vir­ he was a little boy and is now its execu­ tually every other marathoner is a soap tive producer and head writer. He says opera.) It was first broadcast in 1963, that it has two things: "scary monsters three years before "Star Trek," and, with and a funny doctor." Every week, it's the apologies to Gene Roddenberry, is same: the Tardis lands; the funny doctor smarter and, better yet, sillier. The pops out; he meets scary monsters; and U.S.S. Enterprise, for all its talking then he defeats them, because he is very, computers and swooshing doors, is a very clever. A scene from the first season of "Doctor Who," in 1963, with William Hartnell as the Doctor, outside the Tardis, his time-and-space ship. crabbed and pious Puritan village; Doc­ From the start, "Doctor Who" was tor Who tumbles through time and meant to be a "loyalty program," a show dustry term "3G TV doesn't mean tele­ tory of television: the end of the age of sion and averts every atrocity, except ment in 1962. Newman, who'd created space in the Tardis, a ship that from the that people reliably tune in to every vision enjoyed by three generations of the box. In 1999, when "Doctor Who" when he can't. Doesn't that story ever "The Avengers," for ITV, in 1961, was outside looks like an early-twentieth- week. Lately, TV people schedule your family, it means television you can was off the air (if thriving in fan fiction) get old? brought in to produce television that century British police box, painted blue around what is known as "event televi­ watch on a mobile telephone with third- Moffat wrote a spoof called "Doctor could meet the BBC's remit as a govern­ and bearing a sign on its door that reads sion," and it's not necessarily a weekly generation wireless data service. "Doctor Who—The Curse of Fatal Death," star­ "An Unearthly Child," the first episode ment-owned broadcasting service as well "POLICE TELEPHONE. FREE FOR USE OF affair; instead, it's often a one-off, like Who" is BBC Worldwide's top-selling ring everyone from Rowan Atkinson to jtV. of "Doctor Who," was broadcast— as its need to win viewers from ITV, a PUBLIC. ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE OB­ the instant-to-internet Netflix release, iTunes download. In the United States, Hugh Grant, in which one character live, in black-and-white—from a BBC commercial rival that had begun broad­ TAINABLE IMMEDIATELY." Inside (it's earlier this year, of all thirteen episodes "Doctor Who" airs on BBC America, tells the Doctor, "You're like Father studio in London on November 23, casting in 1955. By 1960, the BBC had bigger on the inside), the Tardis has of the first season of the American adap­ but here and around the world viewers Christmas, the Wizard of Oz, and 1963, one day after John F. Kennedy was not a single program among the top ten something of the character of the tation of the BBC's "House of Cards." watch the series on platforms that defy Scooby Doo!" But Doctor Who is also shot in Dallas. The BBC had never be­ ratings earners. Newman had an idea programming schedules and that don't reading room of the British Library, if "Doctor Who" began as family televi­ | Great Britain. The world's longest-run- fore done anything like it. for something that could be both educa­ require families or sofas, or even TVs. the British Library had a swimming sion: a show that kids and their parents | ning science-fiction television series is, "Doctor Who" was the brainchild of tional and entertaining: science fiction. pool and were a pub designed by and grandparents can all watch, maybe The fiftieth anniversary of "Doctor I among other things, a fable about Brit- Sydney Newman, a Canadian who be­ His department commissioned a re­ someone who adored Frank Gehry, even together, on the sofa. But the in- Who" marks an end to an era in the his­ u ish history: the Doctor halts every inva­ came head of the BBC's drama depart­ port on the state of the genre. It proved

56 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER II, 2013 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER II, 2013 57 where Barbara, a history teacher, and Ian, of twenty-first-century terrorism. Super­ chedelic kookiness. Its corridors are sized discouraging. "Several facts stand out a least one character capable of giving the children, and to revolve around a hero a science teacher, are puzzled by one of man, who firstappeare d in 1938, thwarted to accommodate, side by side, two mile," the report began. 'The first is that explanation." It might not be a bad idea if who is a fully realized dramatic character, their students, fifteen-year-oldSusan : she gangsters and thugs and criminal master­ Daleks, the half-robot, half-mutant SF is overwhelmingly American in bulk." this character were to have something "of not a disembodied idea. A flying saucer knows a great deal more about history minds. But Doctor Who, created in the monsters from the planet Skaro who Also, "SF is not itself a wildly popular the feeling of Sherlock Holmes." But, if was proposed and rejected. "Bug-Eyed and science than they do. Following her postwar, postcolonial, atomic age, inher­ have been stalking the Doctor since Lyn­ branch of fiction—nothing like, for ex­ so, he ought to have a female Watson, Monsters" and "Tin Robots" were dis­ home after school, Barbara and Ian dis­ ited the agony of helplessness: he believes don B. Johnson strode the halls of the ample, detective and thriller fiction." In because "S.F. is deliberately unsexual; couraged (a suggestion not always hon­ cover that Susan lives with her grandfa­ he can use his power to travel through time White House. And some of the build­ particular, "It doesn't appeal much to women are not really necessary to it"— ored). And a narrative structure was ad­ ther inside the police box. and space to undo unspeakable slaughter, ing's porthole windows are frosted so that women." Then, too, "SF is largely a short and so it would be wise to "add feminine opted that allows not only for extended Why a police box? It was bizarre. It only to find that, very often, he cannot. the fans can't see into the ground-floor story medium," in which, as Kingsley interest." but for infinite treatment. needed explaining. "Therefore here is "Imagine you were in Pompeii and you cafeteria, where, I hereby report, actors Amis had pointed out, the heroes are A time machine was firstsuggeste d at Newman hired Verity Lambert as a some phoney science," one of Lambert's tried to save them but in doing so you dressed as the metallic cyborgs known as ideas, not people, and the ideas are often a meeting held on March 26,1963. From producer. He'd worked with her on staff wrote, offering the sort of gobbledy- make it happen," he says, trying to explain Cybermen can indeed be found eating "so bizarre as to sustain conviction only an educational point of view, this device ITVs acclaimed Armchair Theatre (a gook you'd come across in an Arthur C. to a woman who is about to die in a nuclear Cornish pasties. with difficulty over any extended treat­ had a significant advantage: a hero who forerunner of PBS's Masterpiece). Clarke story 'The outside appearance of explosion that he is powerless to prevent it. Backstage in the gloaming of Studio ment." In other words: adapting for tele­ travels through time and space can offer Lambert was the only female producer the machine is a police box because when "Everything I do just makes it happen." Four, four Cybermen have collapsed onto vision an existing work of science fiction lessons in both history and science. "Doc­ of television drama at the BBC, and, at the machine is made and before it goes (He tries anyway. Moments after he saves folding metal chairs, resting in between was impossible and hiring any science- tor Who" is distinctly British, and in­ twenty-seven, also the youngest. She critical it is given an anchor in a definite her life, she kills herself.) takes. They stretch their legs wide. They fiction writer inadvisable. debted to H. G. Wells. It was also cast a fifty-five-year-old character actor age and space, without which there can "Doctor Who" is a chronicle of the are very hot. An intern comes by with a Newman decided to flout the genre's influenced by the 1951 Hollywood film named William Hartnell as the Doc­ be neither past nor future, and the time/ impossibility of rescue. Yet it contains fan, but the rotator is broken so he waves conventions. In a flurry of memos (now "The Day the Earth Stood Still," in tor. (He never gives his name. "Doctor space traveler would go mad—or meet within it both a liberal fantasy about the it around by hand. He announces, "I am stored in the BBC's archives in Reading), which an alien who travels with a shiny Who" was meant to sound groovy: the God." Lambert let that pass. Instead, she heroism of the West in opposing atrocity the Oscillator-in-Chief." members of his staff explored the possi­ metal robot lands a flying saucer on the first James Bond film, "Dr. No," had has the Doctor and Susan explain that the and a conservative politics of self-con­ I share a toolbox, by way of a bench, bilities. 'The essence of S.F. is that the Washington Mall, in the hope of ending just been released.) To play the doctor, Tardis is supposed to change its shape to gratulation, which, in the end, amount to with Ailsa Berk, the show's choreogra­ wonder or fairytale element shall be given war on Earth. But the series, as it devel­ Hartnell wore long white hair, a ribbon blend in with the local surroundings but the same thing. 'You act like such a rad­ pher. Berk has pale, spiky hair and rim­ a scientific or technical explanation," one oped, was meant to appeal to women as tie, a striped waistcoat with a watch fob, that its chameleon circuit is broken, so it's ical," an alien said to the Doctor, not long less glasses and is so elegant and lithe that reported. "To do this there must be at much as to men, to adults as much as to a dark cloak, a streaming white scarf, stuck being a police box. The real prob­ and, on top of his head, a black hat that, ago, "and yet all you want to do is preserve she looks as if she had pipe cleaners where lem, it was widely believed, was that according to a recent BBC America the old order." her bones are supposed to be. She was an Lambert's production budget could not blog post titled "How to Dress Like "Doctor Who" is also a TV show exoreptilian bounty hunter in "Star Wars: possibly accommodate building a new the First Doctor," "looks a little like a about TV: a fantasy about the bounds of The Return of the Jedi." In "Greystoke: ship for every adventure. tea cosy." fantasy. In "An Unearthly Child," after The Legend of Tarzan," she played a fe­ That's how the Tardis got stuck as a Susan's teachers force their way inside the male ape. For the BBC's "Chronicles of HartneU's doctor, mincing and fusty, police box, but it doesn't explain why it police box, she explains that the Tardis— Narnia," she worked the animatronic was more Micawber than Holmes, more started out that way. That explanation the name is her acronym for Time and Asian. She arranges the choreography for Dickens than Conan Doyle. The Doctor may he in the history of policing. Beat Relative Dimension in Space—exists in a most of the monsters in "Doctor Who." I was supposed to be hundreds ofyear s old, policing is a British invention. British po­ different dimension from the outside. ask which is her favorite. She thinks it and it was important that Hartnell look lice are called bobbies because the Lon­ When Barbara and Ian still can't under­ over carefully. and act antique, so that the Doctor's rela­ don Metropolitan Police, a model for po­ stand how a box so small can contain so tionship with his travelling companion, a The Ood are very beautiful," she says. lice forces all over the world, was created much, the Doctor instructs them by way spunky, wide-eyed teen-age girl, would (The Ood are telepaths from the thirty- by Home Secretary Sir Robert (Bobby) of an analogy. 'You say you can't fit an be unimpeachable. (Another long-stand­ ninth century who have tentacles grow­ Peel, in 1829. Doctor Who polices enormous building into one of your ing "Doctor Who" dictum: No hanky- ing out of their noses and hold one of worlds. The idea of a world's policeman smaller sitting rooms," he points out, "but panky in the Tardis.) To this end, it was their two brains in their hands.) "And the dates to the First World War and began you've discovered television, haven't you?" also decided that the girl ought to be the scarecrows are very scary. Because it's to come into common usage near the end Doctor's granddaughter. something so familiar." (The scarecrows of the Second. In 1943, during a birthday octor Who" is no longer produced are scarecrows.) She leans closer. She Most of what works best in "Doctor dinner for Winston Churchill, F.D.R. in London; it's produced at BBC whispers, "I don't do Daleks." Who" comes out of ancient forms of se­ D called upon the allied powers—the Wales, in Cardiff. Roath Lock, a hun- rial historical writing, from the Odyssey United States, Great Britain, the Soviet dred-and-seventy-thousand-square-foot to the Old Testament. The Doctor and pstairs and along the hall from Stu­ Union, and China—to serve as the facility housing nine state-of-the-art stu­ his granddaughter are part of a diaspora. Udio Four, I sit down with Steven world's "four policemen." In 1945, the dios, is one of the BBC's largest televi­ "We are not of this race," he explains. Moffat in the Dalek Room, where the four policemen became the United Na­ sion-production centers. It opened last "We are not of this Earth. We are wan­ walls are papered with blueprints of the tions Security Council. year. So did the Doctor Who Experience, derers in the fourth dimensions of space original Daleks. Moffat is wearing a a tourist stop next door: an all-in-one in­ and time, cut off from our own planet "Doctor Who" is, unavoidably, a prod­ black suit and a blue striped shirt. He teractive entertainment center, museum, and our own people." uct of mid-twentieth-century debates has to do a lot of swanning about on be­ about Britain's role in the world as its em­ and gift shop in a building that, from the half of "Doctor Who." Comic Con. The The first episode of "Doctor Who" pire unravelled. It is also one of the stranger outside, looks like a giant blue tube of TV Choice Awards. Talk shows. This opens in present-day London. "An Un­ means by which British culture has reck­ toothpaste. It is not bigger on the inside. is how event TV works: buzz, buzz, earthly Child" begins with a bobby walk­ oned with the horrors of the Second Roath Lock is "Doctor Who" H.Q. tweet, tweet. "Every day here is a day ing down a foggy street. He enters an World War, the apocalyptic doomsaying Its neo-faux-retro-Edwardian facade is a away fromwriting, " he complains to me. abandoned warehouse; he finds a police of the Cold War, and the lasting madness tribute to "Doctor Who"'s hammy, psy­ Moffat is thickset and funny and full sms box. Title credits then dissolve to a school THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER II, 2013 59 of "Doctor Who" bluster. "In the history tions: to the past, to the future, and side­ spoilers. When a little boy from Canter­ Daleks in the Great Time War, leaving of all science fiction," he says, "the Dalek ways (for instance, a parallel universe). bury wrote that he was going to miss the the Doctor the last of his race. is the best alien that's ever been done. Ev­ The future was expensive. So was side­ end of "Dalek Invasion" because his fam­ THE LANDSCAPES OF VILHELM HAMMER5H0I The rebooted "Doctor Who" has a erything else is just a guy in a suit." ways. The past was cheap, especially when ily was going on holiday to America, different vantage on British history from The Daleks were invented by Terry stock footage was available. "The Time Lambert wrote back, "I am sorry you are Between water reading itself a story the original. For a long time, Britain, like Nation, who was bom in Cardiff in 1930. Meddler" uses footage shot during a 1949 going to miss the end of'DOCTOR WHO.' with no people in it the rest of the world, paid not a great deal His mother was an air-raid warden. In reenactment to show Vikings landing off I cannot give you any detailed information of attention to the slaughter ofJew s dur­ 1941, he survived the Cardiff Blitz. In the northeast coast of England in 1066. on how it ends, but if you promise not to and fields, illegible, and a sky ing the Second World War. It isn't that 1955, he moved to London and started Also, at least originally, the history was tell anybody..." And then she told him. that promises nothing, no one reported on it; it's that there was a writing for the radio comedy program meant to be real history and, because the Soon there were Dalek costumes, public-relations preference and a popular "The Goon Show." He took a job writing science was nonsense, the educational stuffed Daleks, and blow-up Dalek beach least of all what will happen now, prejudice for depicting the victims as for "Doctor Who" in 1963. He once said value of "Doctor Who" derived almost toys. The Daleks went on tour. They vis­ are the trees nonspecific. In 1945, when the British that he got the name "Dalek" from an en­ entirely from its exploration of the past. ited Cardiff. "Thousands of children Ministry of Information hired Alfred cyclopedia volume that ran from "dal" The Time Meddler, who is disguised as a lined the route—12 deep at times," BBC that do not believe in Hitchcock to make a filmabou t the exter­ to "lek." He made that up. ("It's abso­ monk, is from Doctor Who's home planet Wales reported to Lambert. "The Beatles any version of themselves mination camps, he was instructed, in a lute rubbish," he confessed.) Really, (his Tardis, which has a functioning cha­ had nothing like this." Trading on Dalek- memo, "It is especially desirable to docu­ he was just trying to think up a word meleon circuit, is disguised as a Saxon sar­ mania, the BBC was able to sell "Doctor not even the one in which ment the extent to which non-Jewish that sounded super-creepy. He'd been cophagus). Like the Doctor, the monk Who" to affiliates all over the world. By they are apparently everyday trees German nationals were the victims of through a blitz; he'd been close to people can't stand to see suffering. He would like 1965, the show could be seen in places as the German concentration camp system." in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarma­ to thwart the Norman Conquest. far flung as Australia, Gibraltar, Singa­ and not a sequence of wooden frames (The filmwa s never shown.) In the nine­ ment. He invented a race of creatures "I want to improve things," he says. pore, Barbados, Sierra Leone, New Zea­ for ordinary leaves. teen-sixties, after Eichmann's trial was mutated by an apocalyptic nuclear war "Improve what?" the Doctor asks. land, and Nigeria. widely reported, by, among others, Han­ who, in order to survive, live inside ro­ "King Harold, I know he'd be a good There have been complaints over the —Vona Groarke nah Arendt in The New Yorker, "the Ho­ botic shells and are so convinced of their king. There wouldn't be all those wars in years that "Doctor Who" is too violent, locaust," as it was now called, became own purity that their object is to extermi­ Europe, those claims over France went and the Daleks, in particular, are too something of an American obsession. Not nate every other race. on for years and years." scary. Moffat finds this exasperating. budget for an episode of "Doctor Who" of more than six hundred episodes, is that so in Britain, where, in 1961, even a small "I've had this brilliant idea for some There's a fair bit of history here. But "There's always this nonsense in which was about a seventh of the budget for an the next episode needs to be fun to watch exhibit about the Holocaust in Coventry baddies," he said to his wife. "I'm going to an audience survey reported that viewers people say, Watch out because kids may episode of "Star Trek The Next Gener­ even if you've never seen the show before. Cathedral proved controversial. In the call them Daleks." found the historical episodes boring. One not know it's not real!'" he says. "As if kids ation." It showed. Moffat calls himself a "demented, hard­ nineteen-seventies and eighties, while the She said, "Drink your tea while it's housewife said, 'The sooner he gets back don't know what playing is." In 1964, a But the fate of "Doctor Who" in the core fan," but he figures that the only pos­ Holocaust became "the benchmark of op­ hot." to the future the better." pint-size Dalek was the must-have nineteen-eighties and nineties is charac­ sible thing he can do, as a writer, is to ig­ pression and atrocity" in the American The original Daleks were designed by The first installment of "Dalek Inva­ Christmas gift. Children wrote to Lam­ terized less by decline and disappearance nore people like him. "If we really hate it, imagination, as the historian Peter Novick Raymond P. Cusick, who got the job sion of Earth" aired on November 21, bert begging for Daleks to visit their than by preservation. By the time it began we'll only watch it thirty-five times," he has argued, it was largely ignored in the when Ridley Scott, then a set designer at 1964. It bound together a cherished na­ birthday parties. Sometimes she sent to look as though the series might be can­ says. The audience that Moffat's really United Kingdom. The nineteen-nineties the BBC, left the corporation. Lambert tional narrative about the Second World them. One woman wrote, about her four- celled, video recorders had become avail­ after has barely heard of "Doctor Who." saw a reversal; schools in Britain became had four monsters built and then tried War—Britain is the last defense against year-old son, "He was heartbroken last able for home use. Nostalgic fans began He has told reporters, "The guy who more dedicated to teaching the Holocaust them out in a car park, actors crouched in­ totalitarianism—with panic-induced Saturday when they were all killed off." trying to collect old episodes. In the nine- wrote 'The Wire' said, 'Fuck the casual than schools in the United States. But this side, scooching along on hidden casters. Cold War preparedness. In 1964, the At the height of the Cold War, three teen-sixties and seventies, the BBC had viewer.' And I understand that. The ca­ schoolroom treatment often works the The Daleks made their first ap­ Home Service began broadcast­ years after Eichmann was tried in Jerusa­ customarily wiped tapes after broadcast. sual viewer cannot catch up with a show same way as that memo sent to Hitch­ pearance in "Doctor Who" in a ing what was known as the lem, while Britain prepared for an atomic Collectors discovered that the BBC had like that, or 'Breaking Bad.' 'He's a chem­ cock the story of the Holocaust becomes seven-part series that began on Civil Defence Information Bul­ day of doom, radiation-damaged Nazi sometimes made copies of the tapes first; istry teacher? Huh?' But on a show like not the story of a particular people but ev­ December 21,1963. It attracted letin: seven short films about robots became inflatable bath toys. these had been sent to the former British this, we want the casual viewer." eryone's story, an all-purpose atrocity. an average of nearly nine million what to do in case of a nuclear colonies, where they had not always been Moffat has been writing for "Doctor The revival of "Doctor Who" makes viewers, catapulting "Doctor attack. In "Dalek Invasion of ne reason that "Doctor Who" has destroyed. "The Time Meddler" was Who" since 2005, when the series was re­ that move as well. When Doctor Who, a Who" into the top twenty rated Earth," the year is 2164; the Ospanned a half century is a casting found at a television station in Nigeria. At vived by Russell T. Davies, who read The character who operates as an allegory for programs. The first Daleks were Daleks roll all over a post-apoc­ trick written into the plot. When Wil­ the urging of fans, the BBC began releas­ Doctor Who Weekly as a kid. Davies cast, Britain, becomes a remnant of a nearly ex­ about five feet high. They have alyptic London, raising their liam Hartnell could no longer play the ing old episodes, first on videocassette, as the ninth doctor, Christopher Eccle- terminated race, a timeless atrocity is no legs; instead, they're built of plunger-arms in Third Reich role, it was decided that the Doctor would next on DVD, and, finally, online. For ston, who had played the Messiah in a folded into the national narrative. Davies's what look like shiny, polka-dot­ salutes and screeching about the be able to regenerate when he is on the the BBC, the archive has been a gold TV mini-series that Davies wrote and Doctor is consumed by grief, regret, and ted skirts about the size and shape of the Final Solution. More than twelve million verge of death, returning to life in another mine. Only last month—as part of the produced called 'The Second Coming." compassion. In one episode, he meets a base of an industrial-grade floor-waxing people tuned in. body. Between 1963 and 1989, seven ac­ fiftieth-anniversary media blitz—the (The eighth doctor appeared in a TV space pirate who has murdered the inhab­ machine. One arm looks like a plunger "Please, please will you tell us what tors played the Doctor. The show earned BBC announced that nine missing epi­ movie in 1996.) Before "Doctor Who," itants of an ark, the last survivors of a and the other like a whisk If they weren't happened in last Saturday's episode of Dr. a cult following. A "Doctor Who" Ap­ sodes from the late nineteen-sixties had Davies was best known for creating doomed planet. psychotic mutant alien murderers, a Dalek Who," one letter in the BBC archives preciation Society was founded in 1975; been discovered. (Ninety-seven episodes the series "Queer As Folk." (Conserva­ "Piracy and genocide," the Doctor would be useful to have around the house, reads. 'We were away from here ccmissed a magazine called The Doctor Who Weekly remain at large.) tives worried that he would bring a "gay says, grimly. unclogging drains, scrambling eggs, and it. The Thome Family." At Roath Lock, began appearing four years later. In the "Doctor Who" was cancelled in 1989. agenda" to the show.) The biggest change "Very emotive words, Doctor," the polishing the floors. I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement nineteen-eighties, "Doctor Who" got The series that began in 2005 is usually that Davies made concerns the Doctor's pirate says. As the show was originally conceived, to get past the Dalek who guards the campy, then it grew threadbare. By the referred to as the "Doctor Who" "reboot." backstory. He decided that the Doctor's Tm a very emotive man." the Doctor could travel in three direc­ door. Lambert had a different approach to time it went off the air, the production A trick, with a series that has an archive home planet had been destroyed by H. G. Wells used science fiction to

60 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER II, 2013 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER II, 2013 61 critique industrial-era class relations. A tirely take that gas mask off, ever again. lance. Moffat says that "Doctor Who" vulnerable Britain, the more vulnerable /^A^r-. century later, a campaign of racial exter­ "The Empty Child" is a haunting story never offers any commentary: "Doctor the Doctor. mination became the go-to sci-fi plotline. about damage. Who" is a fairy tale, and nothing more. Lately, Moffat has been shooting The Tardis lands, the funny doctor pops An acute tenderness toward children "Our science is mad science," he insists. stories in the United States. In "The out, and bears witness to genocide. pervades Moffat's stories. (Moffat has "Our history is mad history." If you keep Angels Take Manhattan," the Statue of two children at home.) Davies has said your eyes shut. Liberty is revealed to be a very scary he first "Doctor Who" story that that the difference between his "Doctor monster from another planet. But there's TSteven Moffat wrote for Davies is Who" and Moffat's is that Moffat's stories teven Moffat has got the icons of no risk of "Doctor Who" becoming "The Empty Child." The Tardis lands in are all about being a parent. I asked Moffat S British genre fiction sewed up in his American. "This show is British," Moffat London in 1941. The Doctor looks around. about that. "I'm good at writing about two pockets. The train ride from Lon­ says. 'We make a British show because He makes a speech. "Right now, not very what I'm doing," he says. "I used to write don to Cardifflasts about two and a half we're British." far from here, the German war machine about dating. Then about being married. hours; it was during that ride, while This summer, Moffat had to cast a new is rolling up the map of Europe. Country I'm good at writing about what I'm working for Davies, that Moffat and doctor. Christopher Eccleston left "Doc­ after country, falling like dominoes. doing. I don't say, 'I shall now do a giant another "Doctor Who" writer, Mark tor Who" after one season. The tenth Nothing can stop it—nothing. Until one space metaphor about what it's like to be Gatiss, got the idea of reviving Sherlock Doctor was David Tennant, who had tiny, damp little island says, 'No, no. Not a dad.'" Holmes. "Sherlock," starring Benedict played the lead in Davies's television series here.'" There's other trouble brewing. An In "Blink" another story written by Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, "Casanova." When Tennant left, Moffat, alien spaceship, which turns out to be a Moffat, the monsters are weeping angels, debuted in 2010. It is jointly produced having taken over from Davies, cast Matt medical-supply ship, has crashed nearby, statues who come to life the second you by WGBH, in Boston, for Masterpiece, Smith as the eleventh doctor, Smith was a robotic cloud of nanogenes, attempting close your eyes, send you back in time, and, for the BBC, by Hartswood Films. twenty-seven when he started, makng to save the life of a mortally injured little and then, as the Doctor explains, "con­ Hartswood Films is run by Moffat's him the youngest doctor ever. Last spring, boy, have altered his DNA so that his sume the energy of all the days you might wife, Sue Vertue, and her mother, Beryl Smith said that he would not return. In face has become melded to the gas mask have had." When the weeping angels Vertue, who in the nineteen-sixties was August, the BBC announced that the he was wearing when he was hit by a fall­ steal the Tardis and send the Doctor back Terry Nation's literary agent. twelfth doctor will be Peter Capaldi, best ing bomb. The boy-monster wanders the to 1969, he effects his rescue by makng a "'Sherlock' is 'Doctor Who' an hour known for playing Malcolm Tucker in the city askng everyone he meets, "Are you video recording and sending it to the fu­ later," Moffat likes to say. I asked him British political satire 'The Thick of It," a my mummy?" If you let him touch you, ture. "Blink," which Moffat wrote not how he keeps the two characters separate character he introduced to American au­ you become a monster, too. The Doctor long after the 7/7 London bombings, in his head. They've even got a similar diences in the 2009 film "In the Loop." fixes everything but he also fixesnothing : might seem to lend itself to a reading arch-nemesis. Moffat says that he has to Capaldi, at fifty-five, will be the oldest no one who has endured a blitz can en­ about terrorism, sleeper cells, and surveil- pretend to be two writers, except that, re­ doctor since William Hartnell. He is the ally, he doesn't have to because—and only actor Moffat auditioned. Moffat here he cites Sydney Newman, because says, "He came round to my house. I Steven Moffat is a crackerjack "Doctor made him coffee. And then he capered Who" historian—Sherlock Holmes and about, being the Doctor for a bit. It's not "Is there an ex-wife somewhere in there?" Doctor Who are the same character: the that you need to see if he can act. You Edwardian amateur. Their stories follow want to see, Can 'Doctor Who' dialogue the same formula. Moffat loves the for­ come out of that mouth?" Sure it can. mula, and each of its rules. "Could there Capaldi is tremendously talented. But be a Bond film in which Bond does not Moffat has taken some guff for not cast­ "The story of technology going bad pie, a TV salesman, is doing a brisk busi­ go to M's office?" he asks. Moffat likes a ing a woman, and he's testy about it. He's really works as a 'Doctor Who' story," ness because everyone is buying TVs to hero who comes with plot constraints. also sick of hearing that nearly all of the Moffat says. "I can get a scary robot out watch the coronation of the Queen. 'The best story ever told is the story of Doctor's companions are a version of of that." Mr. Magpie says, cheerfully, "We may Clark Kent," he says. "He can do every­ spunky fifteen-year-old Susan, from "Doctor Who" has been around for be losing the Empire but we can still thing except this one thing: be with the 1963, with her miniskrts and bobby almost as long as there's been TV. "Oh, be proud!" woman he loves. Why don't they ever socks and doe eyes, but they are. The lat­ this is a brilliant year!" the Doctor an­ It turns out that Mr. Magpie is being make the movie 'Kent'?" est companion, Clara Oswald (played by nounces as he bounds out of his box controlled by a scary alien. And the TVs There is no movie called "Kent" be­ Jenna Coleman), could turn out differently, and gets his bearings in an episode writ­ he's installing really are suckng people's cause American filmmakers prefer su- in some past, future, or other world—it's ten by Mark Gatiss. The Tardis has brains out. perheroes who remain changelessly in­ as yet unclear which—she's been trans­ landed in London in 1953. The Doctor The Tardis is always broken. There's vincible, the diminished status of the formed into a Dalek She likes to say that takes stock of the moment in time: "A never a world policeman around when world's last superpower notwithstand­ everyone's an android now, anyway. In an nation throwing off the shackes of war you need one. The Doctor can go any­ ing. Doctor Who, on the other hand, is episode aired and set in 2013, the Doctor and lookng forward toward a happier, where in space and time. There is only a creature of history. Iraq and Afghani­ discovers that aliens are using wireless In­ brighter future!" Nearby, inside a row one thing he cannot do. He cannot stop stan wound him. At Syria, he pauses. ternet service to upload the contents of house, a grandmother warns a boy about the killing. Should he really be meddling with time? computer users' heads. a newfangled machine known as a tele­ Weeping angels have invaded Man­ He has begun to think that maybe he "Human souls trapped like fliesi n the vision: "I hear they rot your brains, rot hattan. People wear earbuds. Cybermen only ever makes everything worse. Fi­ World Wide Web!" he cries. them into soup, and your brain comes are coming, uploading, downloading. "This neighborhood has a strong sense of community nancial meltdown, suicide attacks, Clara shrugs. "Isn't that basically pouring out of your ears. That's what And we carry our televisions in our hands, that borders on siege mentality." chemical weapons, cyberwar. The more Twitter?" television does." Meanwhile, Mr. Mag­ like an Ood, cradling its second brain. • THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER II, 2013 63