TV SHOWS- How Doctor Who, is Like Bugs Bunny.

Bugs Bunny, Superheroes, Cugel the Clever, and The Odyssey are not exactly the first things that come to mind when thinking about Doctor Who. But they all have a connection.

In this week’s post I’m going to write about this.

You can either watch the video below or you can read the post.  It’s the same thing, only I draw a picture in the video:

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Explaining  The Doctor

I was trying to explain the appeal of Doctor Who to a friend of mine who hadn’t watched the show.  I was a bit lost for words, I wasn’t sure how to describe the show.

I mean, I could just say,

“It’s about a Time Lord and his companion who travel through space and time and have great adventures,” but that doesn’t quite cut it.

I would then try to describe the character of The Doctor comparing him to a type of hero they might be familiar with.  That way they had a “feel” of what the character was like. But then, I couldn’t think of any.

Was that why he was so appealing? He was so unique that he created his own archetype?  This got me thinking.

Why did I like him so much? What did I like about the show.  What appealed to me?

Doctor Who is a Superhero

Well, for starters, his stories are Superhero stories.

What I mean by this is that, Doctor  Who is written in stories that Superheroes would feel perfectly at home in.  Some incredibly powerful villain, has some sort of plan to destroy, enslave, or conquer, the Earth, some race of people, Time itself, or the entire Universe and it’s up to The Doctor to stop it.

It’s something that you imagine Superman doing. But instead, you have some dude in a suit, tie and a screwdriver, with no superpowers at all, doing the job.

But how? How does he do it? Most superheroes end up having some kind of super fight to get the job done, but The Doctor has no powers.

Well, he does it with his wits.  The Doctor is really smart and really clever.  He solves these super villainous dilemmas with his brain.

Is there any other hero that does something like this?  Is this a preexisting heroic archetype?

The Doctor and Bug Bunny

At first, I thought, no…but then I remembered Bugs Bunny.

Bugs isn’t strong.  He often gets bullied and picked on. When the antagonists pushes him too far though, he pushed back.

Not with his muscle but with his mind.

He outwits his opponents and makes them look like fools.  This is very reminiscent of what Doctor Who does.

Okay so now we have two characters who are similar Bugs and The Doctor.  But are they it?

Doctor Who and Cugel the Clever

Well…no. Actually, Jack Vance wrote a fantasy character that I really love named: Cugel the Clever. He is a character in the Dying Earth series.

He’s a really wimpy, underhanded jerk and a thief who gets himself in all kinds of horrible situations, but then he would have to think his way out of them.

The personality of this character different than that of The Doctor. Cugel is no hero, but the archetype is the same.

So how far does this archetype go?

The Doctor and The Odyssey

Odysseus/Ulysses from The Odyssey is exactly this archetype. This famous tactician of the Trojan War got into all kinds of dangerous situations which he couldn’t get out off just by fighting. He would get into dangers that would do Superman proud.

He used his wits to get out of all those situations, just like Bugs, Cugel and The Doctor.

The Doctor’s Archetype

So it turns out, The Doctor does have an Archetype and it’s a very old one, which explains why he works so well.

I personally think that the ultimate appeal of this Archetype is the, “that could potentially be me!”  factor.  You think to yourself, maybe if I’m clever enough, I could be just like that guy. Heck, I know I want to be as clever The Doctor.

Well, realizing this has made me better able to explain The Doctor to people. Now I days,  when I describe Doctor Who to someone who is unfamiliar with the show, I say this,

“The Doctor is like a Superhero without any powers, who fight super villains through out time and space, by using his wit and cleverness. Like Odysseus from the Odyssey.”

And you know what I think would be cool? If at some point they write an episode  where The Doctor  teams up with Odysseus. That would be epic.

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