The Doctor is a classic hero. Decent, honest and brave, he despises intolerance in all its forms and stands up for the oppressed wherever they need saving. Sure, he’s made mistakes. You don’t traverse the farthest reaches of the universe for over a thousand years without cracking a few eggs and causing the odd rip in the fabric of time and space. But, as current show-runner Steven Moffat says, “He’s such a moral man. He’s a good, clever man, that’s all he is. I think that’s about as positive a message as you could possibly give.
Right now, we need Doctor Who more than ever. In times of social crisis, when the world is frightening and unpredictable, stories about super-beings swooping down to save the human race from itself are reassuring. Hollywood has been pumping out superhero movies faster than Clark Kent can change in a phone booth; this summer alone, we’ve had Green Lantern, Thor, X-Men: First Class and Captain America. After a summer of scandal and civil unrest, The Doctor is fairly obviously how [the UK would] still like to imagine ourselves, and certainly how we’d prefer the rest of the world to see us: tweedy, morally upright, loveably camp, much cleverer than everyone else, and quietly, planet-shakingly powerful, zooming around sorting out the world’s problems but never making too much of a fuss about it. Unlike superhero movies, though, Doctor Who retains its sense of moral complexity. Laurie Penny: The best future would be the one imagined by Doctor Who - The Independent UK
