Doctor Who Series 11: 10 Huge Questions After 'The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos'
2. Why Did The Ux Fall For Tim Shaw's Lies?
The Doctor is made up to meet the legendary Ux. She is full of admiration for their faith driven feats of dimensional engineering which makes the TARDIS seem primitive in comparison. The Doctor admires their philosophy on life, and we can imagine her agreeing with their opening exchange about the world needing to be experienced not understood.
But despite their age and psychic abilities they are incredibly gullible. It’s not as if Tim Shaw is making any effort to appear to be good. True, Delph does feel conflicted and questions the wisdom of their actions, but given that he is willingly adopting a crucified position, fear of being a heretic has stopped him acting on those suspicions.
Are the Ux in a state of denial, so wedded to their religion that everything has to be made to support it? Under the atheistic leanings of Russell T Davies we would expect this to be a parable about the folly of faith, and under Steven Moffat one about the corruption of power, but here it is neither. The validity of the Ux’s faith as a whole is never challenged. The Doctor might have called them the true creators, but she doesn’t question their return to superstition after Tim Shaw has been exposed.
The Doctor has her own faith, one surprisingly similar to the Stenza, with both seeing the universe as a godlike entity. The Stenza says “the universe provides” and the Doctor even prays to it for help.