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Doctor Who: It's About The Monsters and The People They Once Were

Doctor Who has always been about monsters and the fear of turning into them, with the monsters as metaphors & symbols for recurring themes.

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Doctor Who may have started out with the intention to educate kids about History, but the show's appeal has always really been about the monsters. Kids love monsters. Kids love to be scared by monsters. Sometimes kids identify with the monsters like Guillermo del Toro did growing up. Where would Doctor Who be without the monsters? Not just the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, or even the Silurians and Sea Devils but the newer ones as well.

Doctor Who is Really about Monsters and the People Who Turn into Them
Still from "Doctor Who", BBC

Monsters are metaphors. To be transformed into a monster represents losing control and losing yourself. Transformations are often horrifying and a bit of a safe scare for the kids. Turning into a monster should be scary. It's a bit of the ol' Hammer Horror moralism at play as well. That's what the latest half-hour compilation video on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel is all about. Showrunners Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall were all very hip to the metaphors of the monsters they wrote, more knowingly than the classic show, though the writers then knew it too. The modern show was more postmodern about it all.

Thus, the victims who turned into gas mask monsters during the Blitz in World War II are commentaries on the horrors of war and the civilian casualties of bombings in London. An alien werewolf changeling cult is a look at colonialism in the Victorian era, especially when Queen Victoria herself (Michelle Collins) is there to witness it. The Autons being exposed in normal life are about the fear and shame of war refugees in the UK who face persecution from their own people. Daleks in Depression-era Manhattan are once again about bigotry and fascism as they bake a human into a Dalek-human hybrid to shore up their numbers. The meaning of fighting assimilation by the Cybermen is pretty obvious. A tycoon transforming into one of the Ood that he made a fortune out of enslaving is poetic justice. Being turned into monsters as a viral infection has been a common theme in the show, even in the classic series stories like "Meglos" and "The Ark in Space," combining body horror with colonialism. The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) turning into a Weeping Angel is about her worst fears of becoming the monsters she fights.

Doctor Who and people turning into monsters are like pizza with cheese. The show really is not enough fun without it.

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Adi TantimedhAbout Adi Tantimedh

Adi Tantimedh is a filmmaker, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote radio plays for the BBC Radio, “JLA: Age of Wonder” for DC Comics, “Blackshirt” for Moonstone Books, and “La Muse” for Big Head Press. Most recently, he wrote “Her Nightly Embrace”, “Her Beautiful Monster” and “Her Fugitive Heart”, a trilogy of novels featuring a British-Indian private eye published by Atria Books, a division Simon & Schuster.
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