Join my King Arthur talk on Zoom, 8pm Friday 24 May
Plus my thoughts on the opening episodes of RTD2's Doctor Who plus highlights from Hutchmoot UK 2024
Right now I’m taking a break at L’Abri Fellowship in Hampshire, a wonderful place of Christian community that gives space to think and reflect. I’m giving a lecture on Friday night, and you can join online! Here are the details – and read on for highlights from Hutchmoot UK 2024 and reflections on the return of Doctor Who.
L’Abri lecture: King Arthur and the Dangerous Dream of Christendom
8pm, Friday 24th May, watch online on Zoom – will be published subsequently on the
.According to the legends, King Arthur was traditionally the Christian king of a Christian kingdom. But as the story has been retold in a post-Christendom culture, that's often been radically reinvented. How can the legend of Arthur help us think about the tension between the two cities, the city of man and city of God? How does the Arthurian mythos give us an index of changing attitudes to Christendom? From Geoffrey of Monmouth to recent retellings, the story of Arthur can both inspire us with dreams of a better kingdom, and warn us of the dangers of confusing earthly and heavenly kingdoms.
The password for the Zoom meeting is ‘Lecture’.
Doctor Who: Space Babies and The Devil’s Chord
So I’m a little behind, not having seen Steven Moffat’s Boom yet, because I’m trying to take a digital break while staying at L’Abri Fellowship apart from writing/studying, in keeping with their “no devices policy” to keep a spirit of retreat and shelter at the community. But here are my thoughts on the opening two episodes:
For me, the big strength returning showrunner Russell T Davies brings to Who is an emotional literacy and strong sense of character. He’s great at going big and bold, but it's his handling of characters that makes us care. That was partly present, but RTD's emotional resonance was more present in specific scenes (that desolate version of 2024!), than in the dramatic arc of each episode as a whole. I enjoyed the bright, fun campiness, but to me they lacked an overall emotional clarity needed to tie them together.
Space Babies is very much in the Doctor Who tradition of “wacky space episode that lets the new companion discover more about the Doctor” – the episode had several callbacks to RTD’s original stab at the genre, The End of the World, where the Ninth Doctor took Rose Tyler to witness the destruction of Earth, observed by a party of aliens. That episode, like Martha Jones’s trip to New Earth in Gridlock or Amy Pond’s trip to Starship UK in The Beast Below, both helped establish the relationship between the Doctor and his companion, and introduce some of the Doctor’s backstory.
To my mind, this was one of the clunkier examples of the story, with the Doctor doling out big chunks of exposition upfront. It lacks the emotional elegance of, say, New Earth, where the Doctor’s initial lie to Martha covering up that he’s the last of his kind gives way to a heartfelt account of his lost homeworld as he learns to open up to her. It doesn’t afford Ruby the same leap of insight into the Doctor’s modus operandi as Amy Pond makes in the The Beast Below, when she realises the Doctor “never interferes in the affairs of other people and planets, except when there are children crying”. Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson deliver spirited, engaging performances, but the hooks laid out here seem to me to be plotty ones, rather than clear character motives and conflicts.
I don’t mind a lighter, sillier plot (bogey-man, indeed) but it needs just enough logic to hang together satisfyingly, and enough character-work to engage emotionally. The potential is there with their shared mysteries around their origins and parenting, but it felt more mystery-box than drama to me. I worry that some of the Bad Wolf-ing of plottier arc elements was getting in the way of the core of Ruby’s emotional story in terms of her desire to find out about her parents and past, and how that plays into her relationship with the Doctor.
The Devil's Chord had similar gaps in terms of character motivations, conflicts and payoffs. There was too little of the Beatles, who I thought needed to be at the emotional core of the episode – they appeared at the beginning, disappeared in the middle, and popped up again for the climax of the story, but it lacked weight because they had been uninvolved, we hadn't been on the journey with them.
I hope things snap into focus character-wise, but it feels to me less focused and more busy than the first few episodes for Rose, Donna or Martha, and less compelling as a stepping-on point for new viewers. It's fun, but not quite firing on all cylinders as I hoped for from RTD. Will it be enough to crack a mass global audience via Disney+? I hope so, but as a stepping-on point, it falls short of the brilliant reintroduction that RTD made for the show in 2005, which I’ve recently been using to introduce my daughters to Doctor Who. It’s still a big step up from the writing in recent years though, so for that I’m grateful.
Hutchmoot UK 2024
I had a great time again at Hutchmoot UK, a Christian arts and creativity conference, this year – below is a gallery of highlights, including Andrew Peterson, Jessie Dipper, Nate Orr, Esther Meek, Ned Bustard, Naomi Ruth Floyd and Ted Turnau, who were just a few of the wonderful people whose performances, talks or conversation I enjoyed this year. Plus we saw the Northern Lights – an amazing glimpse of another echo of God’s glory in creation!
To read more about “what is a Hutchmoot?” and why I enjoyed it so much, check out my article from Hutchmoot 2022:
It was great to see you Caleb! We need to find a way to make it more than once a year!