For some reason, it seems unfair to recap the first half of an unfinished story like this weekend’s Doctor Who, “The Hungry Earth,” and not just because there wasn’t much more than set-up to talk about (That said, the concept of Amy dying and leaving the Doctor and Rory traveling together? I would’ve loved to have seen the series follow through on that, even if it would’ve meant giving up Karen Gillen and her apparent willingness to allow completely gratuitous outfit choices. “Dressed for Rio,” indeed). But something that did catch my eye was the interaction between the Doctor and Elliot, the little boy who (of course) ends up kidnapped by the underground original “owners” of the Earth, which led me to wonder: What’s with the kids in this season?
I’ve talked, before, about this season of Who returning the show to its roots as a kids’ show, and I still think that’s the case; there’s so much more of a fairytale feeling to everything that’s going on, and the threats seem less traditionally sci-fi or blockbustery, and more based on kid fear – There’s something wrong with old people, in “Amy’s Choice,” statues being scary in “The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone,” or that authority equals danger in “The Beast Below.” But there’s something more to it than that: “The Eleventh Hour,” “The Beast Below” and “The Hungry Earth” featured children as central characters; “Victory of The Daleks” saw, essentially, the children of the Daleks rebelling against their parents, “The Vampires of Venice” showed the lengths a mother would go to to ensure the continuation of her race and, in “Amy’s Choice,” Amy was pregnant. Only the Weeping Angels’ two-parter lacked anything to do with offspring, as far as I can tell.
So what does it mean? Am I reading too much into it, or is there some importance this season is bringing to children? I’m convinced that Amy-as-a-child is central to the season-long arc about the crack in reality that eats time – Not just because of the Doctor telling Amy that she had to remember what he told her when she was seven, in “Flesh and Stone,” but because “The Eleventh Hour” left a massive plot-thread dangling in the shape of an apparent re-appearance by the Doctor when he wasn’t supposed to – but is Amy’s importance a red herring? Maybe it’s more than Amy was a child, and there’s something to the innocence/imagination/potential of childhood itself, and Amy just happened to be the child in question? I could be wrong, and the recurring children could be both coincidence and the fact that Matt Smith’s Doctor is very good with younger co-stars (Anyone whose heart didn’t melt slightly at the “I’m dyslexic, I’m not good at reading”/”That’s alright, I’m not good at making meringues” exchange is cold, heartless and dead inside), but I hope I’m not; this season has been very impressive, so far, at laying clues throughout that feel like they’re playing fair. I’d like to hope that this is just the latest in an explanation as to what lies ahead.
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