{"id":4417,"date":"2011-11-05T17:07:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T21:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=4417"},"modified":"2011-11-05T17:07:52","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T21:07:52","slug":"doctor-who-the-reign-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/11\/doctor-who-the-reign-of-terror.html","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The final episode of season 1 of Doctor Who was \u201cThe Reign of Terror,\u201d in which the Doctor, having decided to return Ian and Barbara to their own time, lands them all in France in the midst of the French Revolution.<\/p>\n

Most of the various parts of the story, like many of these early ones, is spent caught up in historical events trying to figure out how to get out of those entanglements and imprisonments and back to the TARDIS.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t too much to note related to religion in the episode. But there is one quote worth sharing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

JULES: There are only two sides today, Barbara. Those who rule by fear and treachery, and those who fight for reason and justice. Anyone who betrays these principles is worse than the devil in hell!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"We also have further exploration of the subject of history and the inability to change it. The Doctor says at one point that \u201cIt will happen exactly as it is written.\u201d While some have regretted the move away from this stance towards a view of time as capable of being rewritten, it is quite clear that in the show\u2019s early days, no one had given adequate thought to what time travel means. The lives of these time travelers are part of that history, and so does this mean that they cannot do otherwise than they do? From the very beginning their lives are the past from the perspective of people in the future. Is this to say that all of time is a block universe in which freedom and even personhood are illusions? There is something preferable about a view that says that time can<\/em> be rewritten at least sometimes and in some small measure. And it may be that the Doctor\u2019s statement is about the broad sweep of things, not the minor details. It will happen as it is written in the history books, because for it not to would create paradoxes. But that need not mean that each individual\u2019s freedom is an illusion, only that it is constrained by forces greater than one\u2019s own individual will and decisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The alternative would be to take the Doctor\u2019s words in a predestinarian sense. And if one does that, then we would have to ask who<\/em> it is that has written<\/em> history and predetermined how it must unfold.<\/p>\n

Carol Ann Ford, who played Susan, narrates the audiobook version, and it was refreshing to hear her complain that she had been disappointed with the way her character was written for: Her role seemed to be to scream a lot and to get into trouble from which other characters had to rescue her. They didn\u2019t know how to write for her character as it had been originally described, an alien whose wisdom and intelligence was far beyond what a human being her age would have had.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final episode of season 1 of Doctor Who was \u201cThe Reign of Terror,\u201d in which the Doctor, having decided to return Ian and Barbara to their own time, lands them all in France in the midst of the French Revolution. 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