I’ve been reading around 70 Doctor Who scripts in the last week or two, and there’s a particular line that I think sums up that show — and every drama. On page 45 of “The Eleventh Hour” by Steven Moffat, the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) have this exchange at a crucial moment:
THE DOCTOR: I’m the Doctor. I’m a time traveller. Everything I told you twelve years ago is true. I’m real. What’s happening in the sky is real! And if you don’t let me go right now everything you’ve ever known is over.
Amy staring at him: frowning, struggling with this.
AMY: … I don’t believe you.
THE DOCTOR: Twenty minutes. Just believe me for twenty minutes.
It’s a simple and great line, a simple and tremendous request made to us far more than to Amy, and it is said with quite incredible conviction by Smith. The situation is absurd, the situation would be absurd in real life and actually equally so in any other drama. But in this show, at this time, in this way, you believe.
I think that’s absolutely remarkable and while Doctor Who is a very variable series, I think it has a torrent, a break-neck rushing tsunami of imagination piled up on top of imagination. At its regular best, it reminds me of the Barbie movie and that film’s sense of reaching out its hand to us and inviting you and me to come along for a storm of a ride.
I’m working on writing that well.