Torchwood, Dr. Who and Nietzsche

[Warning, this post has Dr. Who seasons 1-4 spoilers!]

I recently posted the following on my Facebook notes:

I finally watched Season 3 of Torchwood last night -Children of Earth. Despite my criticisms of the 5th Dr., I still prefer Dr. Who over Torchwood. At the core of Dr. Who is an immortal who believes unshakably in the Good of Man, and whose death and resurrection events envelop him in a magical glow of white light. At the core of Torchwood is an immortal who believes in nothing, and whose death and resurrections only take him in and out of a dark, empty void.



The Dr. Whoniverse is designed fundamentally around theism. Torchwood on the other hand, lives in atheism, even nihilism. It is interesting that Russell T. Davies can write in opposite paradigms - certainly a sign of a good writer. Ultimately Dr. Who lives in hope, while Torchwood lives in hopelessness (don't ever watch it if you're depressed!). Needless to say, I prefer the Dr. to the handsome Jack Harkness, which just goes to show looks aren't everything!

After doing some research, trying to put my literary finger on my observations above, I made some eye-opening discoveries. The two shows are actually examples of classical paradigms, as described by Frederick Nietzsche in his work on dramatic theory, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. Basically Nietzsche held up classical Athenian tragedy as the most balanced art form, because it allowed its audience to rise above their meaningless existence by proclaiming the value of human suffering, and therein finding joy. He broke down Greek tragedy (and life) into two psychological polarities, Apollonian and Dionysian, or culture and anti-culture, which keep each other in check, in a cosmic dance. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy was a complete art form, because it balanced the static, ordered Appollonian world view in the form of speech and dialog with the chaotic Dionysian world view in the form of music and dance.

When we apply this idea to my earlier observations, Torchwood emerges as singularly Dionysian, while Dr. Who retains a nice balance of Apollonian and Dionysian world views. Jack Harkness is himself a Bacchanalian, bi-sexual, lusty sort-of guy, who suffers from an inconsolable emptiness. The Doctor, being the last of his kind, also suffers existentially, but lusts more for adventure than sex, (he's generally asexual, his sexual preference left vague). He upholds Humans as his high ideal and great hope for the Universe. His tragic flaw is his tendency to go too far, getting a bit holier-than thou, but his companions serve to keep that dysfunction in check. Jack doesn't profess faith in anything, except perhaps his team, but the fact that they keep getting killed off speaks volumes. These respective lead character traits infuse each show thematically, making Dr. Who a mix of drama and comedy, (or speech and dance), and Torchwood a dramatic dance with darkness.

While this seems like a basic distinction, defining one show as comedy-drama and one as drama, I do not mean to say that I don't like drama. However the drama of Torchwood is palpably soul-less, often leaving this viewer unsatisfied. The focus is more on the chaos of the Universe, rather than the order, and while the Torchwood team tries to impose order, they are overwhelmed by their alien adversaries time and again. Both lead characters inadvertently hurt the people they care about, but the Dr. always manages to save his people in some compromising way. Rose survives, but only in another dimension. Donna goes back to being herself, but at the cost of losing all memories of the Doctor and their adventures together. The compromise illustrates the balance I mean. But Jack fails to rescue his team members in this way. Ultimately he is less god-like than his counterpart, for he lacks the Deus-Ex-Machine powers of the Tardis to come to his aid. He is immortal but not divine. (In some versions of the Greek myth, Dionysus is only semi-divine, being the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele).

If we look more at the Tardis and its connection to the Doctor, we see a parallel to Apollo and his chariot. At the heart of the Tardis is an energy like the sun, which gives the Doctor his regenerative powers. Apollo is the God of the Sun. He is also the God of medicine (he is "the Doctor" after all!) and healing, as well as plague (the Doctor generally shows up at some catastrophic event in time, and is sometimes the catalyst of that event).

Perhaps Russell T. Davis consciously created these shows with these classical themes, but I tend to think they just came out that way. All writers do it. It's in our wiring, the ancient, mythological "hero of a thousand faces" archetypes are imprinted on the human psyche - so say Jung and Campbell. Perhaps that's why I am so drawn to the Dr. Whoniverse - it encapsulates the cradle of Western Civilization. If Nietzsche were alive today, I think he'd get a kick out of it, too.