Hidden Depths (and Joys): Doctor Who Season 3

(NOTE: MILD SPOILERS -- DOCTOR WHO, SEASON 3)

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with the faint grind and thump of the TARDIS, and the Doctor's smile, and the knowledge that most people are actually pretty good.

As a child I spent a lot of time on a sailboat all around the Caribbean (it's a long story, but a wonderful one). I saw gorgeous things and scary things and terrible things but most of them were simply vivid and bright and out of time. I didn't think about yesterday or tomorrow, I just sat comfortably on the aft cabin, talked to the dolphins, and steered the wheel deftly with my feet.

The more I've gotten to know and love the new Who, the more I've remembered those days. More and more, I've found this show to be like sailing along, and idly watching the depth sounder on our sailboat as a child. You'd watch it, and it would flicker up the numbers registering from those pings along the bottom. 68 feet. 84 feet. 124 feet. And then every once in awhile it would go freaking DEEP. 154 feet. 182 feet. 248 feet. What the hell?

Well, that's "Doctor Who" for you. Watch it. Smile at those who tell you it's a kids' show. But don't take your eye off the depth sounder for a second. You'll smile and enjoy and nod and all will be just a happy few dozen feet, and then suddenly -- no warning -- the abyss will open up, and you are in very deep waters, indeed.

Hey, if you love labels then have at it. Doctor Who is a children's show, just like the Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings or His Dark Materials are children's books.

Feel better? Okay. Onward.

I love this show. I love this show.

I love that I never know what's gonna happen. I can guess the ending to just about anything I watch on TV, not because I'm so frickin' smart or anything, but because the world has grown predictable. Stories go a certain way, and we learn the feel and swim of them.

Then you have a show like Who, and I am a jumble of numbers, of confusion, of bad guesses, of errors. I always loved the phrase "at sixes and sevens," well, that is where Doctor Who leaves me each season. At sixes and sevens and eights and nines. Because it always, freaking always, takes me to places I could not have imagined, tells me stories that are foreign and strange and lovely, and goes where I least expect it.

Every season of the new Who has offered a clear arc. Season 1, with Nine (hi Christopher Eccleston, call me!), showed us a Doctor whose big grin, flirtations, exclamations ("Fantastic!") hid a bruised and mournful heart, and a sorrow and guilt larger than the existing universe. Season 2 brought us the unexpected dazzle of Ten, recovered and in love and able to pretend for a little while that he could live and love like everyone else. The chemistry between Tennant and Piper was lovely and believable, and the conclusion of that season incredibly moving to me. I know many Who watchers actively dislike the idea of romance where Companions are concerned, but to me this was a direct result of the final events of Season 1. Rose knows what it's like to be divine, she knows the TARDIS, she was able to see -- for one brief moment -- as the Doctor sees. No wonder the moment ended in love and death, and a kiss that would send us directly into the quiet madness of Season 2.

Then came Season 3, which was all about disconnection, loss, loneliness, and the ache and fear of being human. The Doctor gets to lose (and find) himself in "The Family of Blood" (the episode at the real heart of the season and encapsulating it gorgeously), to introduce Shakespeare to the nutty wonderfulness of J.K. Rowling, to bring a city out of the dark in "Gridlock," to a final series of episodes actually exploring what it means to be a Time Lord. We even get glimpses of long-ago Gallifrey -- and the music in these final episodes, from "Utopia" (my personal favorite of the season, and starring the fabulous Derek Jacobi as the kindly Professor Yana), to The Sound Of Drums" and "The Last of the Time Lords" is some of the most beautiful yet heard on the show.

The Doctor himself, Ten in all his gorgeous ratty glory, is at the heart of all the awesomeness, as always. Two seasons in with this new face and I still adore him, fear him, and ultimately find him as unreadable as ever. He is kind when I expect him to be thoughtless, terrifying just when I think he'll be kind, and merciful just when I think his eyes hold all the coldness of the edge of the universe. And here in Season 3, we gain insights into the Doctor that we've never had before. The writing is breathtaking, and Tennant is wonderful in bringing it to life.

Segue: One of my friends was watching TV with me, and a commercial for Who came on. I let out a yelp, or a squeal, or something equally dorky, and she wrinkled her nose. "I just don't get it," she said. "He's kind of funny-looking."

"Oh God, you have to see the show," I told her. "It's the perfect example of how an actor's talent and sheer charisma make someone absolutely electric." (Note: I think Tennant's gorgeous, personally, so she's crazy anyway.)

Generalizations are generally wrong. But all the same, I can't really fathom this show on American TV. And look, I love American TV. IT's the TV that brought Buffy and Battlestar Galactica and Angel and Homicide:LOTS and Freaks and Geeks into the world. I worship it.

But this is a show about people whose choices are not informed by or about pop culture or (best of all) other TV shows. And that's incredibly refreshing. Martha gives the woman who betrays her (and humanity) flowers, and the woman smiles, beautifully, and in this universe will never have to face that side of herself. The Doctor himself weeps at a key moment over a villain who attempted to destroy the world and kill millions. I can't help but feel that here in America we might have gone a slightly crasser direction, lord love us.

When Three wound down, when this season ended, with its gorgeous sweeping music and its bruised hearts and its loneliness, I cried. I cried for Martha, feeling that he'd never really seen her (and in her bright shiny beauty Martha is and was oddly reflective. You saw her and your eye kind of slid past her to the Doctor -- ever notice that?).

And I adored the final scene, in which she faces the Doctor and opens her heart to him -- no subterfuge or coyness to our Martha. There's no doubt about the way she will meet her future, that she will move on with her heart intact.

The Doctor moves on, too, still dreaming I suspect of the girl with the wolf in her heart and the TARDIS in her eyes, that he only kissed once. It's not perfect. But it's enough.

A beautiful season, go watch it. Like, now.