9 Adult Themes in the New Doctor Who – Is It Still a Kid’s Show?

By Mary Ogle / October 4, 2012

7. Trauma

Almost from the very beginning, life is filled with traumatic situations both large and small. From a child€™s first€™s brush with loss €“ usually a favorite toy - to the ultimate traumatic experience of a parent losing a child - none of us can escape these heartbreaking moments. In Doctor Who, the Doctor himself is practically the poster child for trauma €“ an almost immortal figure who by his nature is forced to experience loss over and over again and has caused much of it himself. His companions Amy and Rory must deal with the loss of their daughter River€™s childhood and being forced to learn how to relate to her as an adult almost immediately after she€™s born. Many criticisms have been leveled at the way in which the Pond€™s relationship to their daughter is portrayed. Only in the last episode of Series 7a do we really see Amy relate to her daughter as a mother. This, however, makes perfect sense to me. One of the coping mechanisms people often use to deal with trauma, at least in the beginning, is simply to avoid thinking about it, otherwise the feelings are too overwhelming. River herself is highly traumatized €“ ripped from her parents and conditioned to kill the Doctor. She learned very early to be strong yet guarded otherwise she simply wasn€™t going to survive. How can one use Doctor Who to teach a child how to deal with trauma? By explaining that learning how to cope with all these feelings takes time, and that different people experience healing in different ways. And that€™s OK. The characters in Doctor Who are not stagnant. Amy especially was allowed to experience real emotional growth over time. It would have been much more unrealistic to portray her as magically turning into a maternal figure when presented with an adult daughter. She had to learn how to become that, and in the end I believe she did.