image of the fendahl

January 28, 2013

Out of Eden

Jack Graham borgias, christianity, daleks, darwinism, evolution, genesis, genetic determinism, ghost light, image of the fendahl, outside in, publishing, snakedance, the ark in space, the borgias 1

From the October 2011 issue of Panic Moon. As ever, lightly edited and titivated… ‘cos I just can’t help tinkering.

When Doctor Who talks about evolution, it doesn’t usually bother getting the facts right. ‘Evolution of the Daleks’, for instance, seems to think species change when genes mutate morally because of lightning bolts. Such ideas go right back to ‘The Daleks’, in which the two races on Skaro have changed totally in mere “hundreds of years” of mutation, with the warrior Thals becoming natural pacifists in the process. (Incidentally, it’s ironic that this supposedly anti-Nazi parable speaks of blonde, blue-eyed, athletic specimens as “refined” and “perfect”.)

Real evolution does involve mutations, but they’re not sudden and drastic as depicted in, to pick another example, ‘The Mutants’. Instead we’re talking about tiny replication errors in genetic code which are preserved or rejected by natural selection, leading to big changes over very long periods. This creates staggering variety on our planet alone. However, most aliens in the Doctor Who universe look like British actors, which (accidentally) implies that the humanoid shape is a universal pinnacle or goal of evolution. Again, real evolution teaches us the opposite. There’s nothing “perfect” about humans. We’re no ‘better evolved’ than worms. Species succeed when they fit their niches. ‘Full Circle’ alone understands this. The Alzarians are humanoid only because they evolved to fit inside the Starliner.

Doctor Who has sometimes been sceptical of such human hubris. In ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’, humans encounter ‘advanced’ reptiles who see them as errant apes. ‘Inferno‘ implies that snarling beasts lurk beneath the lab coat or uniform. ‘The Invisible Enemy’ equates the “Great Break Out” of humanity with a viral epidemic. In ‘The Ark in Space’, the Doctor praises humans as “indomitable”, but the Wirrn confront humanity with a lethal reflection of the same evolutionary urge to survive and inherit the Earth.

‘The Ark in Space’ retells the Old Testament myth of the flood. ‘Genesis of the Daleks‘ also adapts the book of… well, Genesis. Both stories are about species changing, about them subsuming and defeating other species. But ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ is also fundamentally about creations disobeying their creator. Hence the lack of scientific accuracy: the science isn’t the real interest of the storytellers. Instead, evolution takes on religious connotations. This is understandable. Evolution, as a scientific origin story, thrives in the gap in the cultural ecology left by the decline of religion. And, like much science-fiction, Doctor Who uses scientific and technological idioms to retell myths and legends.

‘Genesis of the Daleks’ also reiterates original sin: the Daleks are cursed by their genes to be bad. Mutations of morality again! This sort of thing mirrors tabloid stories about ‘genes for crime’, but Doctor Who has also tackled reactionary appropriations of evolution. ‘Survival’ critiqued Thatcherism by exploring what happens when the values of ruthless Darwinian competition are applied to society. The term ‘survival of the fittest’ was coined by Herbert Spencer, a 19th century pioneer of libertarianism. …

December 7, 2010

Flat Earth Society

Jack Graham chris boucher, evil, evolution, fendahl, genetic determinism, image of the fendahl, louise jameson, natural selection, nigel kneale, occult, rutan, science, the stone tape, tom baker 0

The greatness and uniqueness of ‘Image of the Fendahl’ is shown in the scene where the Doctor “explains” what’s going on to Adam Colby. Of course, he doesn’t actually do any such thing. He suggests two possible explanations. He favours the first but his listener is sceptical so the Doctor offers an alternative which his listener finds more plausible. The Doctor also says that it might all be a coincidence. His tone is flippant but there is no real reason to suppose that he isn’t being serious. It is clear that the Doctor is theorising and that he doesn’t have the final answer.

This is fascinating and, as far as I can recall, unique in classic Doctor Who.

The Doctor has often been seen to behave superficially like a scientist (mucking about with test tubes, talking about oscillators, etc.) but this is the first and only real occasion when he really acts like one (like an idealised, Baconian one, that is). The Doctor is admitting that he doesn’t know and doing his best to come up with workable explanations which fit the facts. Moreover, the person the Doctor is speaking to is a scientist who has demanded answers and is coming to his own conclusions about how plausible the Doctor’s ideas are. No final decision is reached or stated as to which solution (if any) is correct. Fendleman’s rant to Stael before his death tends to support the Doctor’s idea about genetic manipulation (Colby’s preferred option, possibly because he heard Fendleman speak) but the Doctor seems to prefer his first idea about a “biological transmutation field” which Colby might doubt simply because he doesn’t know what one is.

This is all highly appropriate in a story that is preoccupied with the tensions between science, evidence, theory, supposition, superstition and belief.

The story opens with Colby fretting over a dissonance between established scientific facts (the age of the skull) and the apparent impossibility of their implications. (Someone once asked J.B.S. Haldane if any scientific finding could disprove evolution; “Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian” was his gruff response.) Meanwhile, Fendleman spends much of the story trying to convince Adam of the validity of his theories. Wonderfully, Fendleman gets it partly right and partly wrong (something else that doesn’t usually happen in tales like this). His theory about the pentagram being a neural relay seems to be borne out, but his idea of the nature of the power it contains is woefully mistaken. Nobody is really entirely Right or Wrong about anything in this story, which is very refreshing.

Stael is an interesting character. His employment of the occult ritual is self-consciously ironic and cynical. He rejects Colby’s taunts about being a Satanist and claims to be unimpressed by “the grimoires”. Nevertheless, he employs occult language and ceremonies… this might be meant as showing unconscious drives. Scott Fredericks (an actor with a lot of interiority) even seems to be working to endow Stael with a repressed sexual interest in Colby. Stael’s ideas exist on that deeply-70s line of thinking along which the occult, paranormal phenomena and science intersect.…