Meme Analysis

 

The above-presented meme posted on Kappit states that the Doctor tends to have more interesting adventures in cases when he lands in places where he originally was not supposed to land. This meme is rather incorrect because there are multiple examples of episodes when even “planned” landing led to absolutely unpredictable but intriguing chain of events.

            While landing on unknown planets or other locations and subsequent attempts of main characters to resolve unexpected problems indeed play a significant role in plot of most Doctor Who episodes, that is not a compulsory part of every episode, and many episodes have interesting plot despite the absence of this peculiarity. For instance, in episode, “The End of the World”, the Doctor and Rose successfully travel to the year 5,000,000,000 to an event dedicated to destruction of Earth by the expanding Sun. Nevertheless, despite being planned by the Doctor, the trip still has unexpected consequences as robotic spiders begin to disable main systems on a space station, threatening to kill everyone.

            The necessity of an unplanned landing as a precondition of an adventure is further denied in episode “Aliens of London” when the Doctor and Rose arrive back to London to visit Rose's mother only to discover that aliens murdered and impersonated few members of British government. This episode demonstrate that even when the Doctor makes planned trips to seemingly well-familiar and ordinary places, things can get extremely interesting.

            Similar pattern can be observed in episodes filmed decades ago. For instance, episode, “The Androids of Tara”, shows that interesting events might occur even when the landing was planned and main characters managed to stick to their original plan. Indeed, the Doctor and Romana successfully land on Tara. The Doctor feels so confident in the ease of obtaining another piece of the “Key to Time” that even decides to go fishing and allows Romana to go alone to retrieve the missing part. Everything goes as smoothly as one could only expect, and Romana successfully finds the missing part of the Key. Nevertheless, such a “perfect” beginning does not prevent the Doctor and Romana from being dragged into a conflict between legitimate Prince Reynart and his enemy, Count Grendel.

            In conclusion, examples from different episodes of Doctor Who prove that contrary to what the presented meme states, the Doctor can experience extremely interesting adventures even when he lands where he is supposed to and sticks to the original plan because unexpected events can happen anywhere even in places that seem safe and familiar.

 

 

 

“Aliens of London.” Doctor Who. BBC, London. 16 Apr. 2005. Television.

“The End of The World.” Doctor Who. BBC, London. 2 Apr. 2005. Television.

“The Androids of Tara.” Doctor Who. BBC, London. 25 Nov. - 16 Dec. 1978. Television.

“I don't always land where I'm supposed to. But when I do it's not nearly as interesting.” kappit.com, n. d. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.