Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

Starting at the most recent!

For me the most powerful exchange of the episode is the following:
Doctor:  I imagine you'd prefer to be alone?
Madge:  I don't believe anyone would prefer that.

Closely followed by:
Madge:  I don't know why I keep shouting at them.
Doctor:  Because every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be.  And it breaks your heart.  Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?  The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.

The Doctor often acts goofy and carefree, but he so understands the heart of sadness and loneliness.  Doctor Who, especially in the rebooted series, is the story of an alone and lonely man who keeps trying to find ways to fill the void and try to believe the front he puts up for everyone.  So he tries to live through others, saving them in ways that he cannot be saved.  Afraid to actually reflect, because pain and guilt will drown him.  So moving on, always moving on.

The new series touches on that theme relatively often.  How he flies away in his blue box as soon as he's done with the action, that he doesn't face consequences or clean things up, that he doesn't dare look back.  And in "Let's Kill Hitler," he's confronted too directly with guilt, having to confess how much he's screwed up, because he can't run away from the voice interface at the time.

So, back to this one.  The Doctor comes to return a favour when somebody who helped him when he needed it loses somebody so important to her.  He tries to brush away her pain and that of her children under wonderful things.  The method he uses to distract himself from his own pain.

But the thing is, is protecting himself from such pain, he doesn't connect with others the same way that many others do.  Like Madge.  She's immersed in her pain, and isn't having any of this.  She doesn't want to be alone, but at the same time, she doesn't want any of this fake or temporary joy.  Conflicted, but unwilling to deal with that through emotional separation.  She wants to help the world and take home all the strays, but not because there's something missing.  She may lash out under extreme sorrow, but she is such a good person, without any real darkness.  The type of person the Doctor is inevitably attracted to.

It's interesting that those who he has the strongest connections with (in the new series, for sure) are those who have lost a core person in their life.  In distracting them and keeping them awe-struck and happy and impressed, he distracts himself.  Martha was helluva impressed with him and adored him, but the closest she came to loss was divorced parents.  She didn't need him the same way the others did.

The Doctor needs to be needed.  But in a way, don't we all?

I was relieved for the Doctor that River had told Amy and Rory about him being alive.  That they just accepted him, and welcomed him in.  He has enough guilt without going through that explanation.