Doctor Who: 7 Key Themes That Defined The Matt Smith Era
7. Fairy Tales
All throughout Eleven's almost four-year run, this is the motif that Moffat most consistently returns to. Series Five plays out like a classic fairy tale: it's the story of a young woman who goes on a whirlwind adventure with her imaginary friend, rekindles her sense of wonder, saves the world with the power of faith, and still finds enough time to wrap things up with a big, fat, fairy tale wedding. Fresh of his regeneration and stranded in the village of Leadworth, one of the first things the new Doctor observes is that Amelia Pond has "a name from a fairy tale." When he reunites with her years later, she has abandoned the fairy tale name in place of a simpler, more adult "Amy," ostensibly because she's become a bit disenchanted after years of therapy and abandonment issues.
The Doctor: So, coming? Amy Pond: No. The Doctor: You wanted to come fourteen years ago. Amy Pond: I grew up. The Doctor: Don't worry, I'll soon fix that.
This brief exchange pretty much defines Smith and Moffat's mission statement: to make Amy Pond (and by extension, the audience) believe in fairy tales again, even if it's only for forty-five minute increments. But it doesn't stop there. Story elements from the Eleventh Doctor's tenure might as well have been pulled right from the pages of Brother's Grimm or even Mother Goose. A mysterious man who crashes a magic box into a tiny village in England? An immortal centurion who guards the love of his life for two-thousand years? Two lovers, lost in time, never meeting in the right order? Check, check, and double check. When his stint as showrunner began, Moffat described "Doctor Who" as the "modern equivalent" of classical fairy tales, stating, "It's the way we teach our children that there are things in the world that might want to eat them." A common (and probably valid) criticism leveled at Moffat is that his plots don't abide by a logical framework and are prone to resorting to mystical mumbo-jumbo as opposed to the pseudo-science employed by previous writers. But maybe Eleven's tenure is more aptly defined as pure-blooded fantasy as opposed to the "sci-fi lite" pastiche that previous incarnations enjoyed and, in that context, the mumbo-jumbo kind of works. It's a fairy tale, after all.
