The result was a typical example of the series’ approach to glamorising the past. This is the new Doctor Who, currently enjoying a renaissance after a sixteen-year hiatus (the original series, originating in 1963, was cancelled in 1989 due to low audience figures), and in being reworked for modern audiences has catered for shorter attention spans and higher expectations of special effects and action sequences. Story arcs have been shortened (the original stories could feature episodic adventures of up to twelve weekly parts, while the modern series prefers to complete a story within one episode, or two at the most); more action scenes and romantic entanglements have been inserted; men in rubber suits have been replaced with CGI; the actors playing the main part are significantly younger than their predecessors; and the treatment of history and historical figures is equally symptomatic of sexing up.
This last point is the latest parry in a losing battle between the show’s original intention of being an educational show for children, and the subsequent response from audiences. When it began, the producer’s aim was to have ‘no bug-eyed monsters’, but instead to alternate thought-provoking science fiction episodes with purely historical stories set in Earth’s past, an idea that eventually was dropped in the mid-sixties when it became apparent that monsters and aliens were a much bigger draw; the Doctor would still visit Earth’s past, but always, coincidentally, at a time when an extra-terrestrial threat was at large.
When the series was revived in 2005, historical episodes would still feature, but in a form even further departed from the ideas presented in 1963, and a manner more symptomatic of modern celebrity culture. The show’s writer, Russell T. Davis, wanted each series to have an episode featuring a famous historical figure, hence the episode with Dickens, ‘The Quiet Undead’, and the following year ‘Tooth and Claw’, an episode starring Queen Victoria. In each instance, the focus of history was on one recognisable figure, rather than an atmospheric exploration of the entire period which they were visiting (as had been the case in the history episodes of the early sixties). Moreover, these figures were not treated with reverence, nor showcased as austere figures, but were quickly assimilated into whatever alien threat was driving that particular show’s plot. Hence Dickens and the Doctor battled ghost-like aliens on Christmas Eve, whilst Queen Victoria was besieged by an angry werewolf and a horde of ninja monks. This was not educational as the series was originally intended to be in the 1960s, but rather a vigorous, sometimes patronising, effort to make history cool. At best, young children might be encouraged to find out more about Dickens or Victoria having watched the programme, but the immediate impact was of reducing inspirational characters from the past to action-hero sidekicks.
Interesting, then, that as the episode continued, the Doctor’s attempts to rewrite the past still led to the outcome of Sardick as a misanthropist. The message of the story, voiced by the Doctor’s companion, Amy, and Sardick in conversation is that while ‘Time can be rewritten’, ‘People can’t’. The necessary change of heart was, like the original, an internal event, as the adult Sardick was brought face-to-face with himself as a child, with a montage of memories displayed on screen illustrating his own remembering of the past. For all the shark-chases, crashing spaceships and guest appearances from Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra (don’t ask), the tale reverts to its original, introspective conclusion. To have changed Sardick/Scrooge by force would be to rob the story of its moral and its example to others watching/reading the tale; the decision to save the people in peril had to come from within Sardick, not without. It seems, ultimately, that Dickens knew best.