christopher bailey

March 11, 2011

Darkness in the Garden 2.0

Jack Graham buddhism, christianity, christopher bailey, deva loka, freudianism, guest post, kinda, mara, psychoanalysis, season 19, vgrattidge-1, wanking 0

To celebrate the DVD release of ‘Kinda’ (alongside its sequel ‘Snakedance’) here is a guest post by Rob, also known at Gallifrey Base as vgrattidge-1.

ADDITIONAL: The text below is different from that originally posted, having been revised and expanded by the author. 25/4/11.

‘Kinda’ raises a lot of questions and embraces an unusually (for Doctor Who) complex approach to its subject matter. It’s a rich script by Christopher Bailey – one that looks at invidualism vs collectivism in two (very different) societies; colonialism; propaganda; History; male aggression, and madness, while drawing on Freudian theory, Christian imagery and Buddhist concepts in order to explore these ideas in multiple ways. A stylized theatrical piece, if one inflatable snake and a pot plant jungle gets in the way of some of the most interesting writing (not to mention performance, music and direction) of the classic series, then that’s to lose sight of one of its greatest, most thoughtful and arresting serials ever.

‘Kinda’ is about many things. It’s about the power of the community over individuals (in this case men, reversing a convention but avoiding the ‘Planet of Women’ trope), so as to prevent aggressive, warlike behaviour. This is couched in the idea of an alien tribe who, if they don’t share everything (especially their dreams), are prey to monsters who will use them as mediums to pass into the real world from the darkest corners of their Id.

The Mara (the Buddhist word for temptation) is certainly a “real” creature here, but is the evil it revels in to be found within us or beyond us? Is it a demon of our minds, or something that uses our minds as a way of gaining access to the material world?

Bailey bats around psychosis, the Oedipus complex and paranoia both within the parameters of Freudianism (the scenes with Hindle in the base) and via several Buddhist concepts (the scenes in Tegan’s dream and with Panna, the wise woman of the Kinda tribe) in order to explore this dichotomy. Brilliantly, he sticks to posing questions without offering pat answers.

Initially, this seems like a reactionary message about war-like men needing to be contained and about a pre-agrarian community being superior to a high-technological society; essentially, the message of the egregious Avatar with its noble savages and BIG BAD COLONISTS. But while the Kinda are indeed a bunch of “serene dream catchers” (winks at Jack Graham) with odd bits of knowledge (they are aware of DNA – perhaps a leftover from a time before the Mara was first unleashed), they also have to halt progress and exist in a state of enforced servility in order to survive. The ‘ideal’ they most certainly are not! Dr Todd may see innocent children in a Garden of Eden but this is a romanticized view of a society forcibly held in stasis in case the wheel of History starts up and brings the conflict that Panna fears will change things irrevocably on Deva Loka; we should note how her vision of the Mara’s return is brimming with nuclear-era countdowns to apocalyptic destruction (‘Kinda’ being a near-contemporary of Threads and Z For Zacharia).…

March 8, 2011

Abide With Me 2.0

Jack Graham alienation, christopher bailey, entropy, gothic, gridlock, macra terror, marx, religion, russel t davies, walter benjamin 7

This is an edited and partly-rewritten version of something I posted at the old site.

In a world in which 99% of all TV is 99% predictable 99% of the time, ‘Gridlock’ seems like an impertinent rejoinder to everything else on the screen, as though the Doctor Who production team are blowing contemptuous raspberries at the people who churn out all the beige wallpaper that constitutes most modern telly. ‘Gridlock’ hammers every bit of mass-produced, by-the-numbers, formulaic drama that clogs up the channels. Then, just for good measure, it laughingly refuses to play by the rules of Doctor Who, old or new.

There is no invasion and no tyranny to topple; there are no corridors and no captures (well, there’s one… sort of) and no escapes; there are no fascist guards, no rebels, no evil masterminds; there is no ticking time-bomb, no race against time, no evil plot for the Doctor to foil. Other writers might have made the story about the Doctor trying to stop everyone dying because of the BLISS patches. In ‘Gridlock’, RTD has the Doctor arrive when this is all over and almost everyone is long dead. Imagine what ‘The Ark in Space’ would’ve been like if the Doctor had arrived years after the Wirrn had already eaten almost the whole of the human race… mind you, even then there could’ve been a Doctor-and-rebels-fight-monsters tale. In ‘Gridlock’, there are no monsters in the proper sense. The cat people are both nice, the Face of Boe is without malice. Even the Macra are not allowed to take over the script or be this week’s baddies. Their fate is not even alluded to at the end. The Doctor’s priority is to clear the gridlock. The death of the Macra that feed on the exhaust fumes is a by-product of his main aim (one assumes that some of the unscrupulous entrepreneurs of the undercity are going to get rich selling lots of crab meat). Some fans have criticised what they perceive as the way the Macra were underused… but really, did we need another story about the Macra running a colony of slaves? I know the original Macra tale is sadly missing, but a story that was all about CGI Macra being naughty wouldn’t have brought it back. Besides, ‘The Macra Terror’ is a tale of its time, expressing the anxieties of the 60s generation about brainwashing, conformity and consumer culture. Putting the Macra at the centre of ‘Gridlock’ would’ve made ‘Gridlock’ a story about the Macra, yet another bad old monster stomping about.

‘Gridlock’ is almost unrelentingly surprising, even to people me who, let’s face it, watch far too much telly. Not only is ‘Gridlock’ unpredictable, it’s tricky too. It deliberately leads you down blind alleys and then presents you with a basket of kittens. Just when you think it’s going to be about urban guerrillas kidnapping Martha, the urban guerrillas turn out to be a nice guy and his pregnant girlfriend who just needed an extra passenger.…