Christian Themes in Dr. Who

As a child I adored Dr. Who. I read a ton of the books, dreamt of having a sonic screwdriver, and even wrote to Jim'll Fix It to see if I could get to meet my favourite Dr. - Peter Davison. When, in one climatic episode, the Dr.'s assistant Adric was killed (to save the others IIRC) there were tears. I was inconsolable.

I enjoyed the Colin Baker and Slyvester McCoy eras too, although never as quite as much. Baker always seemed coarser than Davison (and this was before he was sacked for growing a beard) and by McCoy's time it was more something I watched for my younger brother's sake.

Then there was a long gap and by the time Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston stepped out of the TARDIS I had lost all but a modicum of curiosity, and was without a TV to satisfy any remaining interest. I could imagine Eccleston being good, however. He always was.

Then, before I'd had time to really get used to the idea he'd gone too and we were onto David Tennant. A Christmas Day special finally gave me the chance to catch a glimpse of the latest incarnation – albeit the end of the episode. I have to admit though I was unimpressed and found Tennant's acting melodramatic at best and in places it was just plain awful.

It seems I'm in a tiny minority however. With Tennant at the helm, and writer Russell Davies on board, the series has gone from strength to strength, topping the ratings, winning a cabinet full of awards and even spawning a spin off series. This week's been no less uneventful. On Monday the Guardian's list of the 100 most powerful media people included both Davies and Tennant at a staggering 16 and 24 respectively.

Then yesterday it made it onto Mark Goodacre's New Testament Gateway. Mark's been a fan for a long time, but has posted an interesting piece on some of the Christian themes that have surfaced particularly in this last series (spoilers):

The subtlety of that imagery from those (previous two) episodes did not prepare me for the remarkably blatant Christian imagery of the final episode, The Last of the Time Lords, a classic good versus evil, super-hero / super-villain match-up between the Doctor and the Master with a clustering of themes that have raised a few eyebrows, defeating evil through "faith and hope", "prayer" (the Master's terms), Martha travelling the world to tell the good news of how the doctor has often saved people without their realizing it, and the Doctor rising from humiliation to defeat evil, and forgive its perpetrator

All of which sounds very interesting. One could argue that Adric's sacrifice for others, Baker's beard, and Eccleston's lead performance in Second Coming (2003) constitute a continuing relationship between Dr. Who and Jesus, but that would probably be pushing things a little too far. It's also notable that the Dr., like (say) Superman, is a "man" come down from the heavens to save humanity.

It's something that's been said before, for example by Sylvester McCoy. I'm not sure it's enough to make me go out and hire the DVDs, but it's certainly something I'll bear in mind should I ever find myself in front of the repeats on Telly.