regeneration

Date: 03 January 2010 23:40:15

So Doctor Who regenerated the other day.

(aside: look, alright. Let's get this out of the way. The character's name is Doctor Who. It IS. I know you think he's called “The Doctor”, but he's NOT, right, he's called DOCTOR WHO. That's why the PROGRAMME is called DOCTOR WHO. OKAY? Right. Good.)

Anyway, as I was saying, Doctor Why regenerated. The real-world upshot of this is that David Tennant left the show and Some New Wacky Bloke took over. So we're onto the eleventh doctor now.

The difference this time is that he seemed to take regeneration awfully seriously. Loads and loads of foreshadowing has been built into the series about the mysterious “end of the song”, the “four knocks”, and eventually, the Doctor's “death”. And the last two-parter episode was a massive farewell tour-de-force blast of tragedy and longing. The only trouble is, the Doctor (sorry, Doctor Who) has regenerated ten times before, and I've seen plenty of them, and he never seemed all that bothered. Well, you wouldn't, would you? If my “death” just involves carrying on living, but I have to look like Sylvester McCoy instead of Colin Baker, what do I care? I don't, that's what. I can get a new set of self-consciously wacky clothes and go about my business.

There is a certain tone of disrespect in this, I know. I vividly remember being eleven and confronting my Sunday School teacher in exactly the same tones when I argued that Christ's crucifixion wasn't that big a deal because he came back, didn't he?

So I was loudly broadcasting this snide little revelation out loud to the whole room while the show was on, and my daughter, who is seven and had been taking in the full scope of the Doctor's woe, turned round and fixed me with a sad eye: “He's not frightened because he's dying, he's frightened because he's dying on his own.”

I just froze. I'm still not sure on what level it hit me first. She got it, and she got it completely. I'm still unpacking it in my head.