Fear

I think most of you would think that this post is being brought on by the fact that I am going to be heading to college in about a week and a half. Well, yes that is a little true. However, this whole thought process you are about to read began because of an observation I made while watching my new favorite TV show, Doctor Who.


Basically what it is, is this alien (who looks human) who can travel through time and space, constantly saving the universe. He has a profound love for humans so he spends a lot of time around Earth and with humans. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the basis.

There you have it, now onwards with my post.

Fear. Fear is definitely addressed in this show what with the aliens, monsters, chases, and such. The writers of the show are the gods of creativity when it comes to monsters, particularily Steven Moffat. Moffat has come up with so many monsters and creatures and situations that put the Doctor Who fans (known as "Whovians") into panic when they are on screen. But why? Why are certain episodes so scary?

I'll tell you why. A lot of the episodes are the same. The Doctor and his companion(s) land on a planet, get mixed up in some sort of predicament that could change history or endanger thousands of people's lives, so they run around avoiding the creature/situation while trying to figure out how to fix the problem. Most of the time, the Doctor knows exactly what the creature is and how they can defeat it so the episode is about them trying to avoid the creature long enough for him to get the plan/trap in order. Of course all the episodes are a little intense with the chases and such, but some are extremely frightening for some reason. This is because they address different types of fear rather than just "oh no, are they going to escape?" and "ooh, is it going to work?"

Now down to my observation. The episode Blink is probably the most famous Doctor Who episode. It is also one of the freakiest. This episode is so scary for a number of reasons, but I think number one, because the Doctor is hardly present. As the hero, the Doctor always gives the viewer hope that he will save the day. As I mentioned earlier, the episodes usually are about the Doctor, who knows exactly what he's doing most of the time, dealing with the situation. This gives the viewer some comfort while watching, no matter how intense the situation may be. Blink involves one of the most feared ceatures of the Doctor Who fandom, the Weeping Angels. Statues that move when you aren't looking at them. The episode is about this poor girl living in the present, Sally, who is called upon by the Doctor to send his time machine back to him in 1969 where he is trapped. All the while she must avoid the Weeping Angels. However, this is no an entirely easy task since he is stuck in the past and has to figure out ways to contact Sally and give her instructions. He tells her via recording: "Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck." Good luck. In other words, he's saying he can't help her. She's all on her own. The angels are scary enough coming towards you every time you blink, but the fact that the hero of the show can't help the protagonist of the episode is what is truly terrifying.

The biggest fear is when the Doctor is fearful. This is an extremely rare occasion, almost non-exsistant. I can only think of one instant, which is the one time that put a pit in my stomach. It was in the episode called 42. At one point, the Doctor get possessed by a sort of Sun monster that's burning him from the inside. It's trying to take over him so it can kill everybody on board the ship they are on. He knows it's inside him since it's causing him a lot of pain and he knows what it's going to do. He tells his companion that she needs to freeze the monster out of him. While she prepares the freezing chamber, he begins to panic as he fights the pain and realizes that he could kill everybody. Never before has he panicked like that. He has lost his temper, been concerned, and has cried, but he has never panicked. So in this one instance, when he is panicking, the viewers panic as well. The moment that really did it for me was when he told his companion: "I'm scared! I'm so scared!" Kudos to David Tennant (who was playing the Doctor at the time) for that scene. He gave me chills, I wanted to start crying. If your fearless hero is scared, it's guaranteed that you are scared too.

So those are just a couple of examples of my observation. We really depend on our hero/hope. In Doctor Who, the Doctor is always our glimmer of hope because he always knows everything and he always has a solutions and he is completely level headed. So what happens when that hope dims or is taken away? Fear increases.

I hope those of you who haven't seen this show (which I'm sure is about 99% of you) aren't getting the wrong impression of this show. It's not a pure horror, drama, intensity intense show. I laugh my head off a lot of the time. There's a lot of comedy and wit. The Doctor is such a quirky character. There's even occasional romance. Not really though because the Doctor's usually pretty oblivious (besides, he's a 900 year old alien meeting [usually] 20-40 year old humans). Most of the stories are extremely clever and they all connect. And as a plus, everyone speaks with some sort of British accent :D

Now just for fun, if you're at all curious of what to say to freak me out:
Although I think "Are you my Mummy?" should be a little bit bigger D: