We all have some parts of our mind that we consider unworthy, some memory that makes us shudder and squirm.
The above quote from the character Quillam in the Doctor Who episode “Vengeance on Varos
We find this mirrored in a society that has some of humanity’s worst features prominently displayed: our voyeurism when punishments or executions occur, or when accused criminals are on the run from authorities and we can watch the exciting high-speed chase.
It is a society that evolved from a penal colony. They are being exploited by the mining company represented by the entertaining character Sil, who takes full advantage of the fact that none of the humans on Varos knows the true worth of the ore they export. And in the face of the hard lives of the people of Varos, working hard in mining and dealing with scarcity of food, they find diversion from discontent in watching the suffering of others.
There is a humorous section in which, prior to the Doctor’s scheduled execution, he and a fellow prisoner are led to the gallows with much ceremony, with a priest chanting a parody of religious verse, including lines such as “In the name of the great video…” The devotion people give television in real life, and the ability of TV to distract us from the troubles of life, makes the parody poignant.
The ending of the episode is even more poignant, as a couple whose lives we’ve seen snippets of, as they watch the events in the episode unfold on their television screen, realize they are free. They ask what they should do now that they are free, and the wife’s face falls as she answers honestly, “Dunno.”
In my First Year Seminar class this past week, we finished Plato’s Republic
Oh, one last thing. Long before there was Neo, stopping illusions with his outstretched hand, there was the Doctor:
Tags: Colin Baker, Doctor Who, exploitation, Sil, Varos
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One feature that young-earth creationists, mythicists, and other proponents of pseudoscholarly ideas have in common in the way they treat the writings of actual experts in the field in question.
It is then revealed that the aim of the experiment was not, as the Doctor had thought, to identify the human factor so that the Daleks could benefit from its supposed advantages. Rather, it was to help single out the Dalek factor and have that spread on Earth to turn human beings into obedient servants of the Daleks, like unto the Daleks themselves.
Students of the Bible learn about the Documentary Hypothesis, the view that the Pentateuch was put together using multiple earlier written sources, traditionally identified using the abbreviations JEPD. Sometimes challenges have been raised to such source criticism on the grounds that varying the way one refers to God is quite common within unified religious traditions and their musical expression of their faith.
