Immortal Doctor Who

One of the most famous immortals of modern fantasy is The Doctor of "Doctor Who".  Although in the original series he was said to have a limited number of regenerations like the rest of his species, it now appears that he will live forever, or at least until the franchise stops making money.  His immortality or longevity is presented in different ways at different points during the series, being much darker and despairing in the new version than in the old.

Really, very little was made of his long life in the old series, although his rival The Master was presented as a villain for daring to seek immortality after having used up all his regenerations.  Another Time Lord, President Borusa, was also presented in the same light - the bad guy, stealing another life or lives to prolong his own.  While The Doctor, like other Time Lords and other races, lived an enormously long time compared to humans, an everlasting life was something not to be coveted.  His long list of experiences was used to expalin how he was familiar with history and technology far beyond any human glimmer of a dream, how he knew all about different planets and civilizations.  In many cases, he had visited previously, in an episode not made for television.  Still, The Doctor was an explorer and an adventurer whose knowledge was the result of a fully lived life, not merely an unnaturally long one with events coming upon the passive creature.  He even laments, in his fourth incarnation, how little he has done with his life.

The new series, especially in the first two Doctors, shows a bleaker view of his long, now eternal existance.  Both the Nineth and Tenth Doctors are shown sorrowful and angry, considering how their/his existance must inevitably include loss, and great loss at that.  His loneliness is mentioned by several other characters, in passing, but the reaction he shows is one of frustration at being so easy to read.  He is a much angrier Doctor, having seen war and destruction, and having been left as the last of his kind, or so he thinks.  In the past, he had been generous to his enemies, although sometimes ruthless when left with no other choice.  Several times in his first two new incarnations he attempts genocide of races he has found to be irredeemably cruel and destructive.  The Daleks, for example, have been exterminated more than once, only to rise again at another point in the timeline, or through manipulation of it.  He is also a dealer of poetic vigilante justice to the Family of Blood, leaving them supended in agonizing eternal lives, granting their wish in a most Poeish or Dahlian way.  He also despises the accidental immortal Jack Harkness, calling him an abomination, yet oddly refusing to help him find a way to escape this immortality.

The Time Lords themselves are also shown in a somewhat unearthly light.  Of course they are not  Earthlings, but to say ungodly would also be imprecise.  In fact, the Time Lords do seem to be standing in the place of gods, as they are practically all knowing and if not all-powerful, much moreso than any other species in the universe.  The Doctor himself is sometimes roped or coerced into doing tasks for them, since they prefer not to interfere, like a number of human gods we might mention.  This is also similar to human behavior in another classic of modern science fiction, "Star Trek", although in that case it is at least slighly implied that we humans should not interfere because we do not actually know what we are doing.  The Time Lords, in their godlike omniscience, could very well gather the appropriate and relevent information, but choose to merely observe - until they choose to act, that is.  They have fallen into a state of inaction which appears devine.  It is mentioned that they once fough wars, and those experiences are the basis for their attitude, an the same is.  Show inother species, but their long lifespan leads them to a sort of frozen existance in which everything is tradition and nothing changes, forever.

Despite the message of immortality leading to solitude, there may be a positive side to The Doctor's enhanced life.  His companions are taken with him almost immediately, in spite of the fact that their first contact is typically dangerous and even life threatening.  He has an undeniable charisma that charms his companions, even while other people in their lives warn them about the strangeness and danger The Doctor poses.  This attraction is echoed in other immortal characters in literature, although they do not typically offer such an exciting period of friendship.  Without knowing it, we may be attracted to things that have what we do not even admit that we want, and we attach ourseves to the and follow them, looking for the secret, the answer to the question we refuse to ask even in our minds.

So what is the message about immortality in the end?  There are more sinister characters searching for it than good or generous ones, there are more characters who hate it when they have it than "enjoy life to the fullest".  Immortality means there is no pressure and if we take our time, we will do everything we want.  It also means we will be constantly losing those who make our lives great, or even just bearable.  The latest Doctors have not all been overjoyed to have companions tagging along, until they have their first adventure, death-defying included.  Perhaps he/they are starting to tire of always losing that close friend after such a relatively short time.  The immortal enjoying life is always in the company of mortals, those who will soon be gone.  If there is any mesasge, perhpst is "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."