Doctor Who Series 11: 10 Huge Questions After Kerblam!
4. Why Did Love Fail?
The remarkable thing about this episode was the extent to which it subverted so many standard Doctor Who tropes. It might have come across as the standard, classic Doctor Who type adventure, but time and time again it did so in order to confound our expectations.
The people in positions of power were not the villains, this time – an assumption the Doctor herself even makes, the System was not a force for evil, the reprogrammed robots had blue, not red eyes. Even the last scene was a clever twist. Yaz in sombre mood makes a request of the Doctor. Given her conversation with Dan about family earlier in the episode, this could have been the moment she decided to go home. The tone is certainly reminiscent of Tegan’s departure in Resurrection of the Daleks or Martha’s in The Last of the Time Lords. Instead her thoughts are not about herself, but about Dan’s daughter. It’s a rare moment of hope in the face of a relentlessly grim episode.
One of the most talked about endings in modern Doctor Who is the love triumphs over all trope – seen for instance in Victory of the Daleks, Night Terrors, Closing Time, and The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. All is set up for this story to follow suit, with Charlie’s love for Kira expected to make him call off his act of terrorism. But it all goes horribly wrong. The System takes extreme measures to move Charlie, but it backfires causing him to become even more entrenched in his beliefs and more determined to stick with his plan.
In Demons of the Punjab love stood in the place of hope. Here, even love fails. It is about as bleak as Doctor Who gets. Yes, reforms are set into motion to partly lessen the chances of another angry and disenfranchised Charlie from rising up, but it is hardly a fundamental change in the ethos of Kerblam.