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Doctor Who : The Girl in the Fireplace, 2.04

The Girl in the Fireplace

In you I saw someone I recognized.

Had no idea what was in your mind.

I met your eyes and I was hypnotized.

I let our lives become entwined.

So I’m a Who freak, right. Not just of the Doctor variety, but more so of the The variety, as in the greatest rock band in the world. The words above are from Pete Townshend’s ‘Now & Then,’ off his 1993 album Psychoderelict. 

You see someone in passing and your eyes lock. It’s so romantic. An instant and silent communication shared by two meandering humans, each on different paths that magically intersect long enough to miss them. Remember that scene in West Side Story, when the room fades into impressions and Maria and Tony first meet? It’s like that. We like stories where the two end up together and we like stories where the two just keep walking. We especially like the latter in TV commercials and when we’re on vacation.

I met the girl that would become my wife in one of those now and then interactions. Come to think of it…my parents met that way too! There are a ton of songs and movies covering that sort of thing. What we love about it as a culture, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the thought that love is bigger than our own plans that makes stories like this so appealing. There’s a security in knowing that the greatest emotion is mysterious. We can’t manage love. Or plan for it exactly. It just happens to us. I don’t totally believe that, but there is something exciting about the idea that love is beyond our understanding. And it’s true that love can grip us in surprising moments.

The success of this episode is sourced in our love of those now and then stories. Of course, it’s given that wonderful Doctor Who twist. He’s a time traveler, so the encounters he has with the girl are especially tragic. He stays the same age and she gets older, pushing him further and further out of her reach. We know how this one ends. No hand-in-hand stroll toward the sunset. No issuing of the TARDIS key to this girl who waited. This is a string of shared glances that do not lead to true love. “Now and then you see a face, and you fall in love, and you can’t do a thing about it.”

Why is it so sad though? They weren’t really invested in each other. Not in any way that a couple that actually marries is. So why is the loss so acutely felt? And why does it impact the viewer so effectively? Their interactions were so few and brief, so the loss can’t have been all that bad. But we’re made to believe that it really was that bad. And our reaction to it is to be sad. So we’re either being manipulated emotionally or the story is legitimately sad. It is sad. So why? Where is the emotional investment? The Doctor never fully engages with the girl. He hovers over her life, patiently knocking on her door. While there was no long-term investment, as in a marriage, there was the will for that. He was willing to give up his power and be stranded on her dull plane of existence. The sadness comes from the potential for their love.

Without getting too far into the predestination debate, I think we can all agree that Scripture does indeed admit that “He is willing that none should perish.” (II Peter 3:9) Whether Christ’s sacrifice is totally sufficient or whether it requires our faith to activate is an ancient debate that is better left to the likes of Calvin and Zwingli than this geek blogger. And since we know the Creator’s desire for all to come to repentance, we can attach that concept to the imagery of this Doctor Who story for a nice metaphor for God’s love without stepping on any theological toes.

The Doctor, though he doesn’t save Madame de Pompadour, does exile himself on her world, similar to Christ’s self-imposed thirty-year exile when He was in pursuit of His Bride. The Doctor was willing to be de-powered, at least for a time, maybe indefinitely, to save her. The Doctor’s hovering is similar to the Holy Spirit’s. I can look back over the years before I admitted Christ was lord and see the working of the Holy Spirit in my life. Meetings with people, interactions with media, obsessions with certain stories all contributed to that moment I surrendered to Christ. And it was all orchestrated and carried out by the Holy Spirit. When I was a kid reading Superman stories, I was being prepared for my own Strange Visitor who would descend from the sky, save the world through His death, and pursue His cruel and unlikely Bride. The Holy Spirit was visiting me as I obsessed over The Who. Initially fixated by their sonic supremacy, I quickly graduated to obsession over their questions of identity, never answering them until becoming a Christian. Madame de Pompadour’s visits from the Doctor were profound interactions with a being greater than herself, who wanted to know her, to save her, and to be with her.

One last thing. The Doctor crashing through the mirror on horseback – that worked for me. Christ the hero did the exact same thing for me. He told me who He was at various points in my life and then, finally, He crashed through the last barrier to get to me. Shattering my own perceptions of myself, He said, “The new creation has come. The old is gone and the new is here!”

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Geeks of Christ Presents…January 25 edition

Here’s a list of what I’ve been reading, listening to, watching, whatever from around the web.

Stupid Snake

by Aviv Itzcovitz

Here’s a cool wordless web-comic I read sometime last week. If you like light fantasy, give this a go.

Lord of the Rings Timeline

By Emil Johansson

The Gallifreyan Perpetual Calendar

by Russell Walks

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Geeks of Christ Presents … January 18, 2013 Edition

Simulacra and Simile: This Post is Really, Like, Super Important

I’m going to focus on two characteristics about the German language that distinguish it from American slang, and reveal a particularity about American culture.

First, you have to listen to the entire German sentence to know what is happening! (Because the verb comes at the end. For instance, in the last sentence, the word “listen” wouldn’t come until the end).

The changing face of “nerds” (and autism) in popular culture

by Noel Murray

No, what bothers me is the hoariness of jokes about bespectacled weirdoes who know the details of every Doctor Who episode but will never know the touch of a woman. First of all, they’re about as cutting-edge as jokes about airline food. Second of all: Did you know that many autists find it uncomfortable to look other people in the eye, or to be hugged? So what’s the joke here exactly? That two recognized traits of people with autistic spectrum disorders—obsessive interests and difficulties with social interactions—are a thing that exists?

Perspectives: Regret And Hope ~ Press On

by Mickey Haist Sr

I don’t count regret to be in itself and bad thing, and I don’t count hope in itself to be a good thing – both regret and hope can be profitable, useful, and healthy when they are informed by reality.

Born of Hope

The above is a fan movie, based on some material from The Lord of the Rings books (the appendices of Return of the King, and various details revealed throughout the text of the books). The visual landscape that Peter Jackson established is revisited here, and faithfully. It’s a fan flick, so it looks shaky here and there, but the production quality is surprisingly high. Likewise is the story compelling and well-told.

My wife and I watched this last weekend and decided, un-popularly, that this prequel is superior to the Hobbit movie.