Crimson Eleven Delight Petrichor

To me, one of the most important events in this episode is the sacrifice of sir Robert MacLeish. I find it a bit emotional, even if I have some problems with it.

One of these problems is that his sacrifice seems entirely unnecessary. Granted, he probably stopped the werewolf lupine wavelength haemovariform for a few seconds, and maybe – just maybe – these few seconds were exactly what was needed for the Doctor to manage to set up the telescope light chamber. On the other hand, he may have treated it as a kind of “penance” for his earlier betrayal – it probably makes sense for him to consider himself unworthy of living because of that, and then he decides to punish himself by attacking the werewolf (knowing that he wouldn’t survive that). I like that theory even if I think that he didn’t have the right to do that. The subject of capital punishment is an extremely delicate one, and I am by no means an expert on it, but I am fairly sure that even if you consider death penalty acceptable in certain circumstances, it must follow a thorough and fair trial. It is quite obvious to me that the old Roman rule that nemo est judex in re sua – “no one can judge their own case” – applies here. Interestingly, it is usually understood that any person will gravitate toward a bias favoring themselves, not the other way round – but people are often biased against themselves for various reasons. I know virtually nothing about English law from the Victorian times, but it is entirely plausible to me that an actual judge would not decide to punish sir Robert by death, given all circumstances. On the other hand, I can also imagine a completely different line of reasoning – that sir Robert died a honorable death he didn’t deserve, according to the contemporary law and moral standards (which both could well be wrong, but that’s beside the point). Either way, him deciding himself when and how to end his own life was wrong, period.

I committed treason for you,
but now my wife will remember me with honour!

That said, I would still not condemn him. The circumstances were extremely difficult, time was scarce, and he must have been under very strong emotions, so his actual moral responsibility must have been diminished by these factors. It is one thing to theorize about morality, which is a good thing to do – in fact, that’s an important reason to engage in art, to be able to assess difficult moral decisions in a safe and comfortable environment of one’s armchair – and another to place the blame on people from the same comfortable environment. Was his decisions wrong? Almost certainly. Was he to blame for making a wrong decision? Maybe, maybe not.

Taken all this into account, another (slight) problem I have with what sir Robert did is very mundane and not really very important… but why did he try to fight the werewolf with a sword, of all things? To a modern man, choosing a melee weapon and not a ranged one like a gun seems a bit stupid. On the one hand, sir Robert clearly saw the werewolf shot multiple times and not hurt by that – but on the other one, the shooting did slow it down considerably, and it retreated for a long while. Of course, the sword looks more dramatic, but using a gun could be much more effective, even if in the end sir Robert would die anyway. Well, Doctor Who has never been big on logic and internal consistency…

An important theme in Tooth and claw is that the Doctor and his companions often treat deadly dangers in a strikingly lighthearted manner. We will see this again very clearly at the beginning of spoiler for series 2The impossible planet and of course in spoiler for series 9Face the raven, but this is a topic which is hinted at many more times, for example in spoiler for series 2​The runaway bride (Donna’s “Are you enjoying this?” moment), spoiler for series 5​The time of angels (when Father Octavian says “And when you’ve flown away in your little blue box, I’ll explain that to their families”) or in spoiler for series 11​The woman who fell to Earth (when Grace asks, “Is it wrong to be enjoying this?”).

It is perhaps astonishing that I tend to side with the Doctor here a bit. Yes, there exist very serious situations. Yes, death is not something that should be treated lightly. But that does not mean that we should not approach even very serious topics with some sense of humor. I think it is a wonderful gift of God we can use especially in difficult times to deal with them more easily and with a bit less stress – maybe even with a bit less pain. In fact, jokes and funny comments are an important part of my own life, even if I do face a really grave situation now and then. And I often keep in mind this wonderful quotation from venerable Fulton J. Sheen:

However, there is a close relationship between faith and humor. […] Materialists, humanists and atheists all take this world very seriously because it is the only world they are ever going to have. He who possesses faith knows that this world is not the only one, and therefore can be regarded rather lightly: “swung as a trinket about one’s wrist.” To an atheist gold is gold, water is water and money is money. To a believer everything in this world is a telltale of something else. Mountains are not to be taken seriously. They are manifestations of the power of God; sunsets are revelations of His beauty; even rain can be a sign of His gentle mercy.

Treasure in clay: the autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, p. 314

So, even though I do understand Queen Victoria’s disgust – after all, she barely escaped death, and Rose, well, was amused, I think she definitely overreacted when exiling Rose and the Doctor. (Not that they cared about it too much.)

She may have not been amused, but Rose – and us viewers – definitely were.

One of the best moments of Tooth and claw is the presentation of the observatory. It starts with sir Robert being a bit emotional about his father (which is completely understandable), becomes funny with the Doctor “being rude again” and Rose trying to win her bet in an embarrassingly heavy-handed way, and then turns quite unexpectedly to philosophical with Queen Victoria’s comment.

This device surveys the infinite work of God. What could be finer? Sir Robert's father was an example to us all. A polymath, steeped in astronomy and sciences, yet equally well versed in folklore and fairy tales.

And in fact, I do agree with her here. It is tempting to only consider trivial issues like sustenance and shelter, but we humans need to spend time on higher matters, too. Science, literature, art, mathematics – and many others – are worth pursuing even if they cost us a lot and gain nothing (at least in terms of immediate and tangible profits).

This device surveys the infinite work of God.
And it’s very pretty, even if a bit rubbish, according to some.

Interestingly, the Doctor’s comment – “stars and magic” – is something I don’t like. Of course, conflating “folklore and fairytales” with “magic” is sort of understandable from a secular point of view, but they sound very distinct in my Catholic ears. While studying folklore, local legends and myths can be extremely valuable and help us understand people and their culture better, dealing in actual magic is a very dangerous thing. (Let us put aside the question whether magic actually works and hence is a sin because people practicing it are cooperating with demons, or whether magic does not work and hence it is a sin because people practicing it are lying when they claim they can achieve anything through it. The question is definitely interesting, several hundred years old and deserves a discussion – but I do not consider myself knowledgeable enough to discuss it.)

Coming back to the issue of the value of stargazing and other “pointless” activities like arts and theoretical sciences, let me also mention that this is something I personally sometimes struggle with. On the one hand, there is a widespread attitude of “worse is better”, where it is claimed that it is not economically viable to strive for perfection in a product, since it costs too much. On the other hand, there is a less common attitude that we should offer our work to God, and hence perform it in the best manner we can achieve. Here is how Saint Josemaría Escrivá put it:

It is no good offering to God something that is less perfect than our poor human limitations permit. The work that we offer must be without blemish and it must be done as carefully as possible, even in its smallest details, for God will not accept shoddy workmanship. (Friends of God, 55)

and later:

I used to enjoy climbing up the cathedral towers to get a close view of the ornamentation at the top, a veritable lacework of stone that must have been the result of very patient and laborious craftsmanship. As I chatted with the young men who accompanied me I used to point out that none of the beauty of this work could be seen from below. To give them a material lesson in what I had been previously explaining to them, I would say: 'This is God's work, this is working for God! To finish your personal work perfectly, with all the beauty and exquisite refinement of this tracery stonework.' Seeing it, my companions would understand that all the work we had seen was a prayer, a loving dialogue with God. The men who spent their energies there were quite aware that no one at street level could appreciate their efforts. Their work was for God alone. Now do you see how our professional work can bring us close to Our Lord? Do your job as those medieval stonemasons did theirs, and your work too will be operatio Dei, a human work with a divine substance and finish. (Friends of God, 65)

My problem is, if I were to “finish my personal work perfectly” every time, I would at least get a lecture from my boss, and it would be hard not to agree with him. It would mean that I spend time (and hence money of my employer) on things that do not benefit them, which by the way seems morally dubious to me, too. On the other hand, turning in half-baked products of my work would also be wrong (and bad). What to do, then? Frankly, I don’t have a good, universal answer. Maybe it is just a question of experience and wisdom to know when to stop perfecting a piece of work and decide it is good enough?

Before I move to the next topic, let me mention something slightly more light-hearted I learned about recently. There is a small station on one of the Japanese railways, called the Seiryu Miharashi Station, which does not have any roads (or even paths) leading to it. In other words, after you get off the train there, the only way you can leave it is board the train again. The only purpose of existence of the Seiryu Miharashi Station is as a viewing platform for the Nishiki River. I do not know much about the Japanase culture, but I love this example of spending a lot of money only to make it easier for people to appreciate the beauty of nature.

Death and sacrifice is a very common topic on Doctor Who. It is not surprising, that another death-related concept, the mercy kill, appears in the show, too. This is an important topic – especially in today’s world – where many people consider it acceptable to kill someone so that they can avoid suffering. Tooth and claw is (I think) the second episode of New Who (the first being Dalek) dealing with that subject, but definitely not the last. Did the Doctor do right when he essentially killed the boy who became the werewolf? Essentially, the concept of mercy kill is fundamentally incompatible with Catholicism – the right thing to do is to accompany a dying (and suffering) person as best as we can, not to shorten their life. I already mentioned the concept of not performing so-called “over-zealous treatment”, which is very distinct from euthanasia, but this is not the case here. Can we justify the Doctor complying with the boy when the latter begged him to “let him go”? I gave some thought to it, and I honestly don’t know. I think it may be justified as legitimate defense – after all, the wolf was intent on bringing the Empire of Wolf to the Earth, and presumably killing many (or all) humans. Containing it could be impossible (or at least extremely hard, without a good chance of succeeding), sending it elsewhere would be immoral (since it would probably just wreak destruction there), so killing it may have been the only viable option of defending the Earth – and apparently, it could not be killed without killing the poor boy at the same time… I don’t envy the Doctor that choice! I just hope I’ll never face a man turned werewolf, with the choice of killing the wolf without being able not to kill the man!

Unlike The end of the world, the cross-like imagery here
does not seem to make much sense.

As usual, in this section I’ll just briefly mention a few things that caught my attention, but for this reason or another I did not discuss them at length.

The scene with the monks fighting in an Eastern style is so utterly absurd and ridiculous that I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. I wonder what the thought process of the writers looked like. “– Let’s have these Scottish monks fight like stereotypical ninjas. – Ok, but let them be orange instead of black. – Great, but why a Christian monk would know martial arts? It doesn’t make any sense! – You’re writing for Doctor Who, you’re not paid for making any sense!”

And then the Doctor wants to take Rose to 1979, only ending up in 1879 instead. The subject of the T.A.R.D.I.S. “not being very reliable” will be brought up in the future, but here’s another thing. In quite a few episodes (first in Boom town, I think) we learn that the T.A.R.D.I.S. is not just a mechanical device, but (at least partially) a living creature. Does she not mind the Doctor repeatedly hitting the console with a hammer, then? I really don’t want to get deeper into that…

While I already said that I’m not a big fan of risqué jokes, I find the running gag about Rose’s “nakedness” actually pretty funny. Of course, what’s really funny is Rose trying to speak with a Scottish accent and the Doctor (or was it David Tennant?) being, well, very much not amused. spoiler for series 7This starts a trend continuing with several companions of Ten, and sets up an absolutely hilarious scene in The Rings of Akhaten where Eleven has the exact opposite attitude.

The “I’m Doctor James McCrimmon, from the township of Balamory.” quip seems not very funny unless you know that Jamie McCrimmon was an actual companion of the Second Doctor, and Balamory is a fictional place from a Scottish children tv show of the same name.

Another sentence from the Doctor – “I trained under Doctor Bell himself” – was a little baffling for me. Initially, I assumed it was about Alexander Graham Bell, who was indeed Scottish, but only received a (honorary) doctorate of the University of Edinburgh in 1906. In fact, he was only 32 in 1879. (And this, by the way, would not be the first time that Bell is mentioned in New Who.) After consulting the T.A.R.D.I.S. wiki, I learned that I was wrong – it was Doctor Joseph Bell, who actually worked at the University of Edinburgh and was an inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

The bet Rose made with the Doctor that Queen Victoria would at some point say that she is not amused was another great joke – made even better by the fact that Doctor clearly lied about the reasons he didn’t want to make that bet. Of course, Rose repeatedly trying to make Her Majesty to say the thing – and Doctor’s being more and more exasperated – were hilarious, too.

The “Am I being rude again?” quip from the Doctor was a great callback to The Christmas invasion. Such little nods to past episodes are among my favorite parts of the show, and it does deliver on that front.

Speaking of callbacks, it’s hard not to mention Rose remembering to ask Flora her name. Time and time again she shows that she cares about people, and asking them their names is a very good way of showing that. In fact, names are a big deal in Doctor Who, and I’m all for it – being steeped in Biblical tradition, I love when various works of art take up this subject.

Frankly, after Rose asked Flora her name and almost promised her safety,
it was rather astonishing that the girl survived until the end of the episode…

I also liked the moment when Rose said about the werewolf that “He's a prisoner. He’s the same as us”. Again, it showed her compassion. Here was what was basically a monster to lady Isobel and other captives – but Rose sees that he is enslaved, like them, and felt compassion for him, too. (The fact that the werewolf – or the lupine wavelength haemovariform, if you like – broke out of the cage with ease is irrelevant here, since Rose couldn’t have known that.) There is actually a deeper spiritual meaning behind this. In a villain-and-victim scenario, they are in fact always both victims. Every perpetrator harms primarily themselves – yes, they can kill the [victim’s] body, but in doing that, they are destroying [their own] soul, (compare Matthew 10:28). Obviously, this does not negate the fact that the victim deserves compassion and help, and that justice demands that the perpetartor is punished – but it does mean that the perpetartor needs compassion, too, even if they might not deserve it. (And frankly, I wouldn’t be sure about them not deserving it, either. This is a difficult topic, and I really hope to get back to it – this tends to come up in Doctor Who quite a few times, for example in spoiler for series 4Partners in Crime, spoiler for series 4The next Doctor, spoiler for series 5The vampires of Venice, spoiler for series 5Vincent and the Doctor, spoiler for series 6The rebel flesh/The almost people, spoiler for series 6The God complex, spoiler for series 7The bells of Saint John, spoiler for series 7Time heist, spoiler for series 8Mummy on the Orient Express, spoiler for series 9The Zygon invasion/The Zygon inversion – but probably most notably in spoiler for series 7A town called Mercy.

And speaking of the werewolf, the whole exchange between him and Rose is really good. From his “oh! intelligence!” to the mention of Bad Wolf, the whole scene is great. Not to mention the transformation itself, which looks really cool – you can tell that Doctor Who went a pretty long way since burping trash cans as far as the special effects go.

One of my favorite parts of the episode is the story of lady Isobel and her husband sir Robert. We don’t get too much of a backstory here, but what we can see from a few glimpses is really compelling: he is an honorable man, she is a resourceful woman, and what is most important, you can see how they love each other. I have a strong suspicion that their kiss in public was not something that would actually happen in Victorian times (though what do I know?), but you know what? I don’t care at all. As a married person myself, I love it when movies or tv shows have happy marriages. And I also like the fact that it’s important to sir Robert that his wife “will remember him with honour” – and though it is not mentioned explicitly, my personal headcanon is that she, in fact, did. It is yet another very subtle reminder that love transcends death.

One very minor tidbit I loved was that even when their leader was killed, the “brethren” just continued to work. This is a mark of a good organization, and villains or not, their competence must be applauded. I’ve seen many times a scenario when a visionary leader would start something great, and then after they die (or just get bored, or change jobs, or leave the project what whatever reasons), there is nobody to step into the role and the project crumbles. (I have to admit that I even was that leader once or twice – on a very small scale, of course, and I didn’t die, of course, just went on – but the mechanism stays the same.)

As a chronic bookworm, I cannot not love when the Doctor exclaims: “Books! Best weapons in the world.” This, in fact, is very true – while swords and guns can win battles and even wars, ideas are what wins in the long term. (History of the Church is an obvious example, but far from the only one. There are quite a few examples of civilizations conquering other civilizations only to absorb their ideas – language, beliefs, way of living.)

It was interesting to hear Queen Victoria say “I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me”. While understandable, it obviously makes me feel a bit uneasy – after all, killing oneself on purpose, a.k.a. suicide, is something that should not be taken lightly. As I have already mentioned twice on this weblog, this is another very difficult subject. I would presume that if you were a powerful monarch and a target of a werewolf-slash-alien evil creature who wants to install itself in your body to take your power and use it to destroy the Earth, you could be morally justified in killing yourself in order to avoid that, but I would not be surprised to hear some argument countering that.

I also noticed Her Majesty describe the Koh-i-Noor as “the spoils of war”. I am no history expert, but I think that could be said about quite a few things in Great Britain. I am definitely not competent enough to discuss this, but the question of what and how should be restored after taken by force after various conflicts seems an important one. (Well, as a citizen of a country which was much more often on the receiving end of various wars than an aggressor – in fact, that happened maybe once, maybe twice in our history – I’d naturally like some justice here – but I don’t hold my breath…)

And right after bringing up this heavy subject, we have a lovely piece of black humor from the Doctor – when the Queen says about the diamond that “it is said that whoever owns it must surely die”, he points out that “that's true of anything if you wait long enough”. It was hard not to laugh at this one! Of course, Doctor and Rose commenting on what might happen if Jackie was there was also pretty funny.

Another thing I absolutely loved is the scene of sir Robert’s death. In a blink-or-you’ll-miss-it moment we can see the Queen clutching a small cross and praying. This, my friends, is one of the best possible reactions when you see (or hear) someone die and you can’t do anything about it.

And of course, in the final moments of the episode, Queen Victoria banishes Doctor and Rose and says, “your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death, and I will not allow it. […] you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good, and how much longer you may survive this terrible life”. Seeing Rose laughing at the idea that the royal family might be werewolves just a few minutes later makes one think that Her Majesty was not entirely wrong…

Finally, there are some absolutely fantastic pieces of trivia related to this episode. For example, it gave the actress Pauline Collins a record for the longest interval between appearances on Doctor Who – she played a certain Samantha Briggs in the Second Doctor’s story The faceless ones, aired in 1967, and Tooth and claw, where she played Queen Victoria, aired in 2006. (This record was broken a few years later by Arthur Cox.) Also, I read that mistletoe is not something you’d naturally encounter in Scotland, which means that sir Robert’s father must have imported it on purpose to guard the house against the werewolf. And finally, this episode has a very nice callback to World War III, where Jackie Tyler commented that Rose should be knighted.

Now, this article is already much longer than I expected, especially given that Tooth and claw is not one of my favorite episodes. But there is one last thing I have to mention. When the company sit down and eat, we get this beautiful little speech by Queen Victoria about ghost stories.

And that's the charm of a ghost story, isn't it? Not the scares and chills, that's just for children, but the hope of some contact with the great beyond. We all want some message from that place. It's the Creator's greatest mystery that we're allowed no such consolation. The dead stay silent, and we must wait.

Queen Victoria contradicting herself, since prayer for the dead
is actually a form of contact with them – through God

And you know what? I said it was beautiful, yes, but not that it was true – since it’s not. The dead do not stay silent, since there was one Man who died and then came back to tell us “Peace be with you.” If that is not a consolation, I have no idea what is!

There are perhaps two and a half reasons New Earth is far from my favorite episode. If you are a regular reader of this weblog, you will probably guess that making members of a religious order the main villains is a sure way to irritate me. Perhaps surprisingly, I actually don’t have a big problem with that. I have lived long enough and I know enough history to understand that being a nun, a priest, a bishop or even a pope doesn’t automatically make you saint. (That said, treating clergy’s sins as an excuse for one’s own is one of the most stupid things people ever came up with – but this is of course not what New Earth is about.) Well, I am a very religious person myself (even though I’m a layman), and I’m painfully aware that I’m a sinner whose only hope of redemption is God – and the same goes for every other living person. So, evil cat-nuns are sadly not that far from reality as one might think (well, maybe apart from the “cat” part;-)), though watching people who should live up to their ideals doing evil is of course a bit disturbing. (Although Novice Hame is actually quite nice.)

“Who needs arms when we have claws?”

What problems do I have then with New Earth? First of all, Doctor Who is a family show, and watching it with kids is something I appreciate a lot. While I don’t have a problem with one or two innuendos which would fly over children’s heads anyway, the density of almost explicit sexual jokes in this episode makes me cringe. Too much is just too much. (Also, one of these jokes perpetuates certain annoying and even harmful misconception – but I’ll get to that later.)

Another reason New Earth bugs me is that the Doctor is clearly very much enjoying his “god mode”. Nine was much more humble and aware of his shortcomings. It is rather telling that even at his very start, Ten is quite the opposite. spoiler for series 4This, of course, will culminate in The waters of Mars and The end of time​. It’s most prominent when he blurts to Novice Hame, “if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn’t one. It stops with me.” It is actually a very well-written line, showing the vanity of the Doctor, and the fact that it makes me cringe is a testament to that – but it still does. Another moment when the Doctor’s god-like attitude is very visible is near the end, when he cures the patients. He is (probably intentionally) shown as a priestly figure, and it is interesting to compare him to the cat-nuns. While they are obviously the villains in this story, they do have some justification for their actions (that is not to say that I agree with said justification, of course!), and they – especially Novice Hame – seem to show a true sense of service and humility. The Doctor, on the other hand, is (again) full of pride – “I’m the Doctor, and I cured them!”. He really cares for Rose (obviously), for the “new humans” (which is also very typical of him) and even for Cassandra (which is perhaps a bit less obvious, but true nonetheless), but his conceit is really hard to stand. (One might argue that this line doesn’t show the pride of Ten but his genuine joy, almost like the famous “everybody lives” moment. I can certainly agree that there is a component of joy here, but he didn’t say “Look Cassandra, they are healthy now!” or anything like that – he did emphasize that he was the one who cured them.)

The third issue I have with New Earth is a bit nitpicky, but I’ll mention it anyway. Being a Whovian, I completely understand that expecting any sort of logic or scientific accuracy from Doctor Who is absurd, but the main premise of this episode is really egregious. The idea that you can cure terminally ill people by dousing them with intravenous solutions doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. And there are more questions! Now that the farm of “new humans” is gone, how will the hospital operate? Won’t there be a global pandemic there very soon? (spoiler for series 3Well, in fact there will, thirty years later, although not a “natural” one.) But of course, let’s not be too pedantic – after all, this is Doctor Who, not a book by Stanisław Lem.

Probably the main strength of New Earth is comedy. This is one of those light-hearted episodes where you don’t really expect too much drama or thriller elements – you just have some silly fun. Granted, there are serious moments here – more about them in a moment – but this is neither Father’s Day nor spoiler for series 4The fires of Pompeii. As I already mentioned, I’m not really a great fan of the density of sexual jokes in this episode (even if I admit that some of them are actually pretty funny) – but there’s more to it than them. I love the elevator scene (“watch out for the disinfectant!”) – this will certainly make my top ten funniest moments of Series 2. The Doctor’s comment about the lack of the little shop is also something to be appreciated (spoiler for series 3and it will make a return in about a dozen episodes, spoiler for series 4and then even later in the Library!). And of course, the “New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York” scene is, to borrow Nine’s favorite phrase, absolutely fantastic.

“Watch out for the disinfectant!”

On the other hand, there are a few very serious moments scattered throughout New Earth. And maybe just because they are very few and very short, their impact is even greater. The scene where Cassandra experiences the terrible loneliness of one of the infected is probably the most pronounced, but definitely not the only one. I love the Doctor telling the cat-nuns, “and I'm being very, very calm. You want to be aware of that. Very, very calm.” This definitely sends chills down my spine, especially knowing what the Doctor is capable of. We’ll get similar vibes very soon in spoiler for series 2School Reunion, much later in spoiler for series 3The family of blood and in many other episodes. The moment when a normally hyperactive person starts to act unnaturally composed is something very real, and the threat hidden in Doctor’s voice is really well acted. And of course we have the Face of Boe, who is supposed to tell the Doctor his “great secret” but for some mysterious reason changes his mind. (That reason will be easy to explain after spoiler for series 3the next series’ finale, though.) Having experienced caring for a terminally ill person myself, I may have shed a tear or two when Novice Hame discussed the situation of Face of Boe with the Doctor. It’s a pity that this aspect wasn’t expanded just a bit – it would be a great lesson to teach the younger part of the audience.

Now, let me get more serious myself. I’m normally a very positive person, and if you’ve read even a few articles on this weblog, you are well aware that I try really hard to find good things to say even about the weaker episodes. (spoiler for series 2Just you wait till we get closer to the end of this series!) That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t see their worse aspects. Sometimes I just have to call attention to them, not only because they irritate me, but more because they teach a wrong lesson. (Remember that cringey remark about Marxism in The empty child?)

Chip sees to Cassandra’s physical needs. Basically, he moisturizes her.

Here we have a similar (even if much less visible) situation. One of the attempts at humor by Russell T. Davies (and we all know that he likes jokes aimed at the… less mature part of the audience) was Cassandra’s remark about how “Chip sees to [her] physical needs”, to which Rose dryly responds “I hope that means food”. You may ask, why I don’t like it? There is a very subtle thing going on here. It is fairly obvious what Rose thinks the “physical needs” are, and chances are she is right. And here comes the misconception I mentioned earlier. Contrary to the popular opinion, sex is not just a “physical” thing. It is a very deep experience touching all aspects of humanity – it has its physical component (obviously), but it has also profound psychical and even spiritual aspects. I’m neither a theologian nor a sexologist, so I won’t try and pretend that I know a lot about these topics, but I’m a husband and a father, so I do know at least a bit from my personal experience. These quotes from the Catechism (CCC 2360–2363, but the whole chapter is well worth studying even if you’re not a Catholic, if not to admire the beauty therein, then at least to understand some of our perhaps less popular beliefs) sum it up much better than I could.

Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

Sexuality […] is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death.

The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.

The spouses’ union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life.

So, do not try to tell me that sexual desire is a “physical need”. It is much, much richer and more beautiful than that!

Before I get to my main point about New Earth, let me – as usual – mention in passing several minor things that caught my attention.

I quite like the very first few seconds of the episode when Ten manipulates the T.A.R.D.I.S. However, we then cut to the good-bye scene with Jackie and Mickey, which is full of cringe – especially the moment when Mickey says “I love you” to Rose, and she answers just “bye”. Poor Mickey.

“You’re hard work young!” (spoiler for series 4Professor River Song)
Young David Tennant driving the T.A.R.D.I.S. – not a sight to forget!

I love the exchange about the name of New New York, the city “so good they named it twice”. (Though I’m not sure New York is really a good place.) Also, Rose hopping and commenting on “different ground beneath [her] feet” is incredibly cute. The nostalgia and the “big revival movement” sound so close and so human to me… I’m a bit nostalgic person myself and I fully understand that – even though I am aware that you can’t really go backwards in time to the “good old days” of your childhood – yet still I like memories and things that remind me of them.

Also, as a mathematician, I cannot not smile at the subtle joke about numbers. See, thirteen episodes ago Nine said that “five billion years in your future […] is the day the Sun expands”. When we say or hear things like that, we obviously understand that “five billions” is a very rough approximation – it could well be off by a thousand (or a million) years. Here, however, it is implied that the world ended exactly in the year 5,000,000,000, since New Earth is set in the year 5,000,000,023, two decades later. Interestingly, all these calculations are off anyway, since technically “five billion years in the future” during the events of The end of the world would be 5,000,002,005. Also, year five billion being called 5.5/Apple/26 in the future means that the future calendar in the Whoniverse is most probably no longer based on the date of birth of Jesus, which is not surprising given RTD’s views. And while we’re at anti-religious sentiments of RTD, substituting the red cross with the green moon seems to be yet another case of that. When I think about it, New Earth seems to be one of the most anti-Christian episodes of Series 2. Funny how its main message – which we’ll get to in a few minutes – is so in line with Catholic teaching and against the popular beliefs of today! I cannot not think of John 11:49-52 and the story of Caiaphas, who wanted to get rid of Jesus, but inadvertently said a prophesy…

The Doctor also mentions that they are in galaxy M87. This is a real one, and Wikipedia told me that it is pretty far from Earth – some 53 million light-years. This means that either humans will have invented FTL travel by the year 5,000,000,023, or they just started much earlier and took their time to get there, or they had some other means of traveling such vast distances. (In fact, all three possibilities may be correct. spoiler for series 4​The waters of Mars establishes that humanity sent their first lightspeed ship to Proxima Centauri in 2088, and spoiler for series 2in The girl in the fireplace the Doctor, Rose and Mickey will visit a 51-century spaceship utilizing warp engines​.)

I keep thinking whether the rule that “cuttings from the gardens are not permitted” is a subtle allusion to Jabe’s gift.

I like the short exchange about illnesses, where Rose says, “I thought this far in the future, they’d have cured everything”, to which the Doctor replies, “The human race moves on, but so do the viruses. It’s an ongoing war”. It reminds me of sentiments of “progress”, as if humanity was just marching forward and becoming better and better. Sadly, it does not work this way. (Well, in certain areas it does. When it comes to scientific and engineering knowledge, for example, we basically build upon what we already have, so the sum of that type of knowledge is more or less steadily increasing – even if some of it is lost for various reasons. But unfortunately humanity does not always progress morally. Our own times seem to be a deep regression in quite a few pretty fundamental aspects, for example.) And speaking of progress, there’s yet another moment which seems a jab at conservatists, when Rose has this to say to Cassandra: “You stayed still. You got yourself all pickled and preserved, and what good did it do you?”. Well, my personal stance is that conservatism (and I think I would call myself conservative) is not about trying to avoid any change, but rather about believing that change for change’s sake is not really valuable, and that (as I said a moment ago) not every change in our society is necessarily for the better – and many are definitely for worse. (Also, whenever you want to change something, you should really consider if you aren’t accidentally demolishing a Chesterton fence!)

Much like in Series 1, the “futuristic” look of the hospital says more about 2005 than about the future. And even though the hospital looks (a bit) futuristic, the lift exterior certainly does not. One would think that lift technology a billion(ish) years in the future wouldn’t look exactly the same…

I have to say that I have rather mixed feelings about Frau Clovis. On the one hand, as her name suggests, she couldn’t be more stereotypical German lady, which is funny indeed. On the other hand, jokes utilizing stereotypes like this are a bit risky. (On yet another hand, we live in very strange times, where simply stating your own opinions on general, non-personal matters seems to offend some people, so going to great lengths not to offend anyone is futile anyway, and I don’t think her character is really offensive to Germans – especially that she doesn’t actually do anything bad.)

I absolutely love the fact that the Doctor remembers the Face of Boe, even if that’s not surprising at all. It is even better that Rose seemed to remember Lady Cassandra well enough to recognize her voice on the film! It shows that they are both very attentive to the people around them, and that’s really great. On the other hand, Rose’s rather snarky remark about Chip (calling him “Gollum”) is funny, but not exactly respectful, so there’s that. Even taking that into account, the contrast with Cassandra, who accuses Rose of murder (well, when she says “you murdered me”, she might have meant both of them, Rose and the Doctor, but still) despite the fact that Rose was the one to plead with the Doctor to save her on Platform One.

I have to admit that I quite like Novice Hame, and the scene when she talks with the Doctor about the Face of Boe is particularly good. I can’t help but giggle, though, when she says “I can hear him singing, sometimes, in my mind. Such ancient songs…” – my personal headcanon is that one of those “ancient songs” is a certain “traditional Earth ballad”;-).

New Earth is the first episode when Ten says “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”, which we’ll hear many, many more times during his tenure.

Matron Casp saying (with a hint of amazement), “fascinating, it's actually constructing an argument”, as if that should be one of the moments convincing the audience that the “patients” are actual humans, aged rather poorly now that “constructing an argument” became somewhat cheaper due to the spread of LLMs. This, however, reminds me of a very important truth: humanity does not depend on intelligence. You don’t need to be able to “construct an argument”, speak language, or, say, perform algebraical operations to be considered human and to have rights as a human being. (And apparently it is possible for non-humans to “construct an argument”, although it seems that LLMs are not really “constructing an argument”, they just generate a stream of letters and words which sometimes look reasonable.)

Interestingly, this episode was the first one of New Who which did not take place on or near Earth. From now on, every series will have at least one episode happening in space or on another planet, but Nine and Rose never went further (in space) than to the Earth’s orbit.

The last two things I'd like to mention here are more about the filming process than the episode itself. Firstly, it's not easy to spot it because of the heavy makeup, but Sister Jatt was played by Adjoa Andoh, who will go on to play spoiler for series 3Francine Jones, Martha’s mother, in the next series. And secondly, the "intensive care" scenes were filmed at the Ely Paper Mill in Cardiff, which served as the Nestene base in Rose and will be visible in quite a few more episodes of series 2 and 3. (It would probably be used more if not for the fact that it has been demolished 15 years ago.)

It is perhaps surprising that they main topic of this rather lighthearted episode is something very, very serious. As with many other episodes of Doctor Who, this one is mainly about life and how we should respect it, even if it’s life in a form we are not fully comfortable with. I don’t know how other people interpret New Earth, but for me, the story of the “flesh” (interestingly, the same term will be used to describe apparently unrelated creatures in spoiler for series 6The rebel flesh and spoiler for series 6The almost people, but that two-parter can be interpreted in a quite similar way) is a very clear metaphor for people conceived using the IVF technique.

First of all, even if they are “artificially grown” (a tiny bit like in the case of IVF, though obviously the analogy breaks here), they are obviously humans – even if some people may not treat them as such. That should go without saying – although the common practice seem to show that it sadly does not. As far as I know, more embryos than necessary are usually conceived during an IVF procedure, which means that several persons start to exist – but are either “destroyed” (in other words, killed) or “frozen indefinitely” (which most likely means they will be killed in the future anyway, probably depending on economic factors). It’s not really different than Matron Casp casually ordering Sister Jatt to incinerate one of the “patients” – of course, in that scene the humanity of him was reinforced by his ability to talk, but from the moral standpoint, the situation is basically the same.

On the other hand, I would not dare to accuse parents of children conceived via IVF of murder – I have a very strong suspicion than very many of them are not fully aware of what is really happening. As Novice Hame puts it, “think of those humans out there, healthy and happy” – and indeed they are, oblivious of the inhumane process that made them happy. On the other hand, what Doctor says in response (“if they live because of this, then life is worthless”), is very, very, very wrong. To keep using the metaphor, neither the lives of children conceived using IVF, nor the lives of their parents are “worthless”, even if a grave evil was committed. Similarly, even if we treat the story of New Earth literally, you can’t say that the lives of inhabitants of New Earth is “worthless” – even if they were aware of what is going on underground. Nobody’s life is “worthless”, and every person has a great value, which does not depend on the morality of whatever they do. According to Isaiah, this is what God says to you and me: “Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4a) – and I think that this is true irrespective of whatever evil anyone could commit. Just one more Bible quotation confirming that is Romans 5:8: “but God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us”.

The most charitable way I can think of to interpret the Doctor’s words is that he is intentionally exaggerating to shake Novice Hame up (which is probably not a great idea anyway). The more probable theory is that he usurps God’s authority (again!), which (as I already mentioned a few times) is a common theme in Doctor Who, and especially during the Tenth Doctor’s tenure. This seems to be confirmed by his very next sentence (which I already mentioned earlier): “I’m the Doctor. And if you don’t like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn’t one. It stops with me!”, which he says very angrily to the completely justified and sensible question of Novice Hame (“who are you to decide that?”). By the way, Hame herself calls him “the lonely god” in an earlier scene with the Face of Boe, although not directly.

To sum it up, if my interpretation is correct, then neither the Sisterhood’s attitude nor the Doctor’s is the right one. Somehow I have the suspicion that nobody saying the most reasonable thing – that what’s going on in the “intensive care” is unacceptable, but that does not make the humans above ground monsters whose lives are somehow less precious – may be connected with the fact that Rose is absent from most of the episode…

“And don’t patronise me because people have died, and I’m not happy.”
– oh, wait…

Before I finish, let me mention one more scene, very much in line of the “lonely god” interpretation of the Doctor’s character. One can argue (and in fact people do) that when the Doctor cures all the “patients”, he seems to be a Christ-like figure. That is true to some extent, but I don’t like this analogy because it doesn’t really work that well. The reason is simple – Christ actually died for us, and the Doctor risked much less. (Although I can imagine someone arguing that regeneration can be viewed as a distant parallel of resurrection, and I can see that point – but that is another topic which I might expand, well, closer to spoiler for series 4The end of time – pun fully intended;-).