Published by In the Gospel According to Who and Witness from Gallifrey, we discussed how Doctor Who, particularly Doctors 9 and 10, reflects a Christian message through typology. At a reader’s request, we now turn to Doctor Eight. We first meet him in the made-for-television movie which opens with Doctor Seven picking up his old enemy, the Master’s, remains from Skaaro, where the Daleks have exterminated him for his crimes. His last request was for the Doctor to take what was left of him home to Gallifrey. Though the entire set-up is odd, the Doctor consents. However, in a serpentine form, the Master escapes the casket in which he has been placed, causing the TARDIS to crash land on Earth at the turn of the Millenium. The Doctor stumbles out of the TARDIS and into a gang shoot-out in which he is injured. When the paramedics arrive, the Master latches onto one of them, a young man named Bruce, and later takes over his body until he can get the one he really wants, the Doctor’s. The Doctor is taken to the hospital for treatment of his minor injuries, but when his double heartbeat is heard, the decision to perform open-heart surgery is made, and the best cardiac surgeon on staff is called in, "Amazing" Grace Holloway. However, when she encounters two hearts and the unusual, alien anatomy, she panics and the Doctor dies on the table. When Grace breaks the news to the young man, Chang-Li who came to the Doctor’s rescue, he steals the Doctor’s things and escapes. Hours later, amid a lightening storm, the regenerative process, though delayed, kicks in and Doctor Eight rises from his table in the morgue. He wanders around, lost, until he sees Grace, who has just quit because her boss has chosen to cover-up the whole incident. The Doctor forces her to give him a ride to her home. He does not know who he is, but he knows she is important.
Meanwhile, the Master has found Chang-Li and convinced him to help the Master regain "his" body that the Doctor stole. Using the stolen TARDIS key, they entered the ship and Li has been tricked into opening the Eye of Harmony, which will allow the Master to harness that power and steal the Doctor’s lives. For now, it lets him see what the Doctor is doing and it also triggers the Doctor’s memory to return. He attempts to persuade Grace he is not a lunatic, but she is not buying the whole Time Lord story or the one he tells her next; that the Master must be stopped or not only will he kill the Doctor’s soul, but will destroy the Earth. She calls for an ambulance, and of course, "Bruce" comes. Only when he reveals the snake inside does Grace believe the Doctor and fully throw her support to his cause. They race towards the only Beryllium clock accessable to them so they can repair the TARDIS with a component inside it. The Master and his lackey are on their heels the entire way. As the Doctor and Grace try to jumpstart the timeship, the Master enters and possesses Grace, forcing her to tie up the Doctor so the devilish switch can begin. After using both humans to accomplish is will the Master kills Grace and Li, but not before Grace is able to help free the Doctor. He fights the Master and defeats him, throwing his enemy into the Eye of Harmony. The Doctor is then able to restart the TARDIS and move back in time to revive the two humans as well as saving the world. It is then time for him to depart and finish his mission.
Though obscure, there are references to Christianity scattered throughout the story. The Master is the most obvious. He is snake-like in his natural form, lies constantly, and wants to replace the Doctor, thus fulfilling his role as the devil in the story. One term for Satan is the Anti-Christ. One meaning for the prefix anti is not only against, but also to replace. The Master is both against the Doctor and wants to replace him, to steal all the Doctor has. That is exactly how the Devil operates.
Secondly, the Doctor, filling the role of Christ as one who saves the world, works with Grace, whose vocation is to operate on the heart. Grace is the instrument God uses to work on our hearts, and Amazing Grace is possibly the best known hymn of all.
Third, of all the Doctors, only Eight comes to life in a morgue, literally rising from death, as Christ did. Nine may have, but we did not see his regeneration from Eight, so that is anyone’s guess. Eight is also the only one to restore a companion to life. Furthermore, he makes a very contraversial, confusing statement. He tells a scientist that he is "half human, on his mother’s side." Christ is human on His mother’s side, but fully so. He is also fully God, on His Father’s side, but the two statements do have a commonality to them. In fact, "half human on His mother’s side" would be the easiest way to wrap our limited minds around Jesus’ heritage, though it would fall short.
Several times during Christ’s recorded Earthly life, He demonstrated his complete knowledge of those around Him, such as when He told the woman at the well about her unfortunate marital record or how He instantly was able to tell Nathaniel all about himself. The Doctor behaved in a similar fashion, basing his statements on his knowledge of the future. He told one young man which question he needed to focus on during an exam he would take in several years’ time, warned Li not to be in San Franscisco a year from now, and told Grace all about her own heart. He knew in a second that she was tired of life, yet afraid to die. She had gone into medicine so as to fight death. His words to her were comforting; she was not to be sad, she would do great things. When he promised to make her dream come true for now, she was able to follow him into danger against all logic.
The Eighth Doctor’s adventures continued in books and audio dramas. During the course of the radio plays, he meets Charley Pollard, a young woman intent on having adventures, the first of which is meant to kill her. However, he comes to the rescue, saving her from certain doom, though in the process, he alters the time line, creating a ripple of anti-time, a virus in time. When the Time Lords catch up with the Doctor and Charley, it seems that the girl will have to die to correct the timeline, if it’s not too late and the virus has not spread too much. In a very Christ-like move, the Doctor offers himself as a sacrifice. He takes all the anti-time virus into his TARDIS, intending to be sealed up with it, forever. However, Charley follows him and they have many more adventures in a world without time, a place that is Hellish to the Doctor. Like Doctor Ten, his actions are a shadow of what Christ did when, according to the words in the creed, He descended into Hell.
It’s been said you can read whatever you like into anything. Maybe I am simply reading all this into Doctor Who, but I do believe that if you try hard enough, you can find God’s fingerprints all over the place and use them to evangelize and to add depth to your life.
