Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): "The God Complex"

Remember that old cliché about how only people with a faith in a certain ism -- for example, Communism or Zionism -- tended to survive the trauma of the Nazi concentration camps?

In this episode, we see a reversal of that cliché in which faith in something -- anything, in fact -- proves deadlier than faith in nothing at all. Granted, the show stretched pretty hard to make its point. Almost too hard.

Nor is it always that logical. At one point, it shows a young Muslim woman being haunted by the ghost of a father who demanded high grades from her -- yet most Muslim women nowadays are not known for being from families which demand great educational efforts from them, much less straight As. I must admit to admiring the chutzpah it took for the episode's writer -- Toby Whithouse of Being Human fame -- to create a sympathetic Muslim character in this day and age but it was all ultimately a wasted effort.

Oh, well. This episode did make for an interesting thought experiment. I just wish there was a little more thought.