Doctor Who 10: 7 Big Questions About The Pyramid At The End Of The World
6. Is The Doomsday Clock Real?
For the last 70 years, The Doomsday Clock has been a symbol
of how close we are to triggering the end of days. A perusal of The Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientist’s website makes for some truly scary reading, showing that
the furthest we’ve been to midnight was seventeen minutes (following the breakup
of the Soviet Union in 1991).
We are currently at just two and a half minutes to doomsday. That means that the possibility of alien invasion in the Doctor Who universe was considered less of a threat, at three minutes, than current concerns over climate change, the rise of nationalism, nuclear testing by North Korea, and US/Russia relations. Perhaps having the Doctor to call upon as World President in times of crisis adds at least half a minute.
In reality the threat level was changed from three minutes to two and a half minutes shortly after the episode was recorded. But Harness and Moffat have succeeded in tapping into a genuine climate of fear, adding a poignancy and relevance to Doctor Who that controversially but absolutely rightly grounds the program in contemporary politics.
It is an approach that Peter Harness is rightly developing a reputation for, following his brave take on issues of immigration and terrorism in The Zygon Invasion/Inversion.