In order to understand this entry, head over to the Stratosphere Lounge and watch episode 67 starting at the 23:48 mark. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Done? Good.
Bill mentions that Star Trek is all about the frontier and exploring. Everyone has guns because you can’t just trust that the natives will be friendly. The crew of the Enterprise (a ship named after the American strength of commerce and trade) is genial and magnanimous, open to working with anyone peacefully but ready to defend themselves or their ideals against any enemies. Also, anyone can eventually become part of the Enterprise crew. Kirk is a farm boy from Ohio. McCoy is a doctor from Mississippi. Scotty is an engineer from Scotland. They’re normal people in extraordinary circumstances.
He also mentions that the Doctor is an aristocrat. He’s a Time Lord from Gallifrey. He’s got the power of a god and is pretty much immortal. His TARDIS is a hidden, magical world tucked away in a perfectly ordinary police call box. It’s done that way because it’s very British. London (and most of the rest of the United Kingdom) had been settled and explored since the classical era — there is no frontier in the American sense. The Doctor takes on companions who could be anyone but no one can become the Doctor. That divide is much like the British divide between commoner and royalty — nothing can breach it.
Or so Bill says. I think he’s wrong. Let me explain why before you lynch me.
Great Britain and the Northern Enlightenment are what gave birth to the foundational ideas of the United States. The Founding Fathers were all loyal British subjects before they rebelled against a tyrannical Parliament and Crown. They were almost all educated in the traditional British aristocratic manner. George Washington was part of the aristocracy through his family and his service to the King. He was called “His Excellency.” And, only in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland could a commoner, through uncommon courage and wisdom, be raised up to the aristocracy. Hell, my own distant paternal ancestor Baird was raised up by King William of Scotland1. You didn’t see that happening much in the Mediterranean or Iberian areas of Europe (and yes, I include France and Germany in that). Embracing a commoner and disdaining pure blood and breeding in favor of action is a very Anglo-Saxon-Celtic-Gaelic thing. But the Norsemen and the Gaels recognized that uncommon valor could be found in the most common of men2. So they raised them up an example to the rest of their followers.
Britain’s ideals prior to the Great War are very much a part of the American DNA, if you will. Yes, we have diverged from our Islander cousins in the past few generations but we still have more in common with them (and the Canadians, the Aussies, and the Kiwis) than we have with any other country on this planet. And, the Doctor — he’s a bit of a rebel. He has the power of a god but he rarely uses it to force his will on anyone. He does have more in common with Scotty, McCoy, and Spock than he has with Kirk. After all, he has a police call box so that he can be called to help out. He carries a screwdriver to fix things instead of a gun to blast enemies. He has two hearts so he can love all the more deeply. But, at the end of the day, he is willing to fight for what is right — even using a gun or sword (NuWho: Dalek, Bad Wolf, The Parting of the Ways, The Christmas Invasion, The Family of Blood, Journey’s End, The End of Time Part II). He’s willing to lay down his life to save the life of a friend. He could have become the ruler of Gallifrey and all the Time Lords but he turned his back on that to explore time and space. No matter his incarnation, he’s filled with wonder at the cosmos and curiosity to see it all. Yes, sometimes, he’s a bit of a controlling git and manipulates those around him. But he’s a god who wants very desperately to be human. He would give up everything just to live a common life, to marry, have children, grow old, and die. As a matter of fact, he does this in Journey’s End when he convinces the meta-crisis to go off with the one woman the Doctor will always love and live out a human life with her.
The Doctor is not just a British superhero — he’s a very American figure. He holds himself to a standard far higher than that which everyone else uses. He refuses to use his power (with the exception of him going a bit mad during The Waters of Mars) to force anyone to do his bidding. Instead, he continually risks his life to save mortals from peril. He continually risks his hearts in taking on companions he knows will leave him for the very kind of life he envies — a life with a house, doors, carpets and things.
The Doctor, like the crew of the Enterprise, is the best that both Britain and America have to give to the world. Just look around today. There are only two countries continually turning out movies and TV series with heroes — the US and the UK. Are our heroes the same? No. Are our stories the same? Again, no. But we are much closer to our British cousins than we ever will be to the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese, or any other nation or race on this planet. We have so much in common, so many shared dreams. It is truly a shame whenever an American discounts one of the greatest British television series as being “too British” instead of embracing it as part of his own cultural heritage.
Only two peoples on the face of this planet have had the power to subjugate it and dominate it, enslaving the rest of the nations to their will. Those two nations are Britain — who had an empire until they discovered that imperialism took too much energy and gracefully allowed their colonies to go free (as opposed to the French who fought it tooth and nail and dragged an ally into a losing war in Vietnam) — and America, who, right now, could demand that every nation worship her as an Old Testament style god or face wrath, fire, and destruction3.
And yet, neither of us has done that.
Yes, we might bicker over our trifling differences. Yes, the British are much more socialist and collectivist than Americans — that comes from being crammed together on a tiny island for centuries. But, we are both nations that understand the frontier. We are both nations that dream the big, impossible dreams. And we are both nations that believe that there are true heroes out there. Sometimes it’s an alien Time Lord and sometimes it’s a farm boy from Ohio. But, at the end of the day, they’re both good men which circumstances have forced to become great men. The Doctor belongs to America just as much as Captain Kirk belongs to Britain. They’re both part of our cultural DNA.
And I hope to Cthulhu4 we always remember that. The day we turn our back completely on our cousins, our shared history, and our common heritage is the day we will lose a very precious and very vital part of who, and what, we are as Americans.
— G.K.
1 If I recall correctly, according to my elderly cousin James Beard, our family hails from Lanarkshire in Scotland. Our ancestor, Baird, was raised up by King William of Scotland for killing a boar threatening his royal party.
2 The Anglos and Saxons were a bit unique in that, since primacy in war was paramount to their societies (due to the Norse worship), commoners who showed uncommon valor were prized above nobles who failed to show that same valor. American culture has been shaped quite heavily by this meritocratic view.
3 Seriously — this is why I get pissy with people who are like “but America is Imperialistic.” No, we’re not. We saw how much trouble this was right after the Spanish-American war. We let the Philippines go without a fight. We continually ask our commonwealths (who are not states) if they want to stay, go, or become states. We have enough firepower and enough nukes that we could go to the UN tomorrow and say “Hey, ya know what? We’re sick of all the bullshit. China, you’re gonna become an open democracy or else you’ll all die. And Russia, seriously, stop with the bullshit or you’re all dead. Europe? You wanna quit that shit or die? By the way, you have three minutes to decide before the missiles are on the way.” *insert Jeopardy theme music here.* “Oh, and all you fuckers in the Middle East hating on Israel? Tell Allah we said ‘hey, shitface’ when you and your people see him in *checks watch* oh, about fifteen seconds.” We could force the rest of the world to bow to us and do whatever we want but we have absolutely no desire to do so. We just want to be left alone. Name me three other nations that have had this power and refused to use it and maybe I’ll hear you out about how imperialistic the United States is.
4 I said I wasn’t going to swear to real deities anymore which is why I’m always swearing to ones that don’t exist.