There is something about the idea of travelling through time that strikes a cord with virtually everyone. Perhaps that desire to go back and forth in one’s personal timeline helps explain the popularity of Doctor Who.
Everyone has those moments that they wish they could go back in time and correct. Perhaps there was an embarrassing incident in the past, or there we made a mistake that we wish we could go back and correct. Perhaps it is just a matter of wanting to spend one more moment with a loved one, much like how Rose wanted to go back and see her father. Or, conversely, maybe we would want to go forward, to see if all of the effort and hard work that we are putting in to whatever our passions are will end up being worth the struggles.
These desires likely help explain the popularity of shows such as Doctor Who. Even though it is a fictional universe, being able to see others travel through time and interact with the past can reinforce those thoughts. In a way, we can live vicariously through the Doctor and his companions, imagining what we would want to witness, or potentially set right, in our own pasts.
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This interest in time travel obviously does not end with Doctor Who. Movies and other programs with such a theme have remained immensely popular. Even when such an idea was first brought to the forefront by authors like H.G. Wells (The Time Machine) and Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court), the romantic idea of travelling through time captured the imagination.
Even now, almost 130 years after Twain’s novel, time travel still captures the imagination. We fantasize about what it would be like to travel with the Doctor, or even to go off in different adventures based on the novels we are reading and other television shows. We fantasize about making things right in our past, and insuring that our futures will turn out the way that we hope. And yet, here we are stuck in our own time, unable to do anything but look back at the times we had and hope that our plans for the future will not unravel, despite our best intentions.
Next: Doctor Who retro review: Survival
The popularity of Doctor Who continues through its interesting storylines and characters. However, the fact that the Doctor travels through time and space, touching a subconscious desire in all of us, certainly does not hurt.