Doctor Who: Time travel through faith

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24924746

Doctor Who: Time travel through faith

As Doctor Who fans celebrate the series's 50th anniversary Dr Andrew Crome, lecturer in the history of modern Christianity at the University of Manchester, explains how the time-travelling Doctor allows us to explore different beliefs and ethical viewpoints.

A near immortal crossing space and time, followers split over interpretation, characters in strange hats... Perhaps it is no surprise Doctor Who is sometimes described as a form of surrogate religion.

However, behind this light-hearted comparison lies a grain of truth, as Doctor Who has continually engaged with important religious themes across its 50-year run.

At times religion has been addressed directly. For example, 1970s producer Barry Letts, a practicing Buddhist, worked ideas from his faith into the show's narrative: witness Jon Pertwee sharing a version of the Mumonkan's sixth Zen Koan with companion Jo Grant in the 1972 episode The Time Monster.

When Jon Pertwee regenerated into Tom Baker, elements of the episode were set in a Buddhist meditation centre, with a fellow Time Lord clandestinely living as a Buddhist monk in close attendance.

These themes continued in later episodes, for example in Christopher Bailey's Kinda in 1982 and in Snakedance in 1983 where once again the episodes were strongly hinged on Buddhist mythology. Kinda focuses on escaping the Wheel of Time and characters are named after Buddhist concepts such as Anatta (not-self), Anicca (impermanence) and Dukkha (suffering).

Doctor Who has a more complex relationship with Christianity. Clergymen have often been suspect - whether its the Master disguising himself as a vicar in The Daemons (1971), or the unfortunate Reverend Golightly in 2007's The Unicorn and the Wasp, who - much to his surprise - discovers he is a giant alien insect in disguise and dies cursing humanity's "tribal sky gods".

(continued)