Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Souls in Doctor Who

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Doctor Who is one of those shows that has a complicated relationship with religion. New Who seems to be written by people who are either mostly ignorant of religion or hostile to it (or both). After all, the Doctor is the great modern champion of science and reason. He’s the enemy of ignorant assimilation, and what better manifestation of ignorant assimilation is there than organized (read: Christian) religion? It’s offensive to religious people, sure, but the science vs faith trope is too juicy for most sci-fi to pass up. So it’s no wonder that when Doctor Who does decide to play with religious ideas, things go haywire. For example, take the idea of a soul. Lots of religions and philosophies have different ideas about what a soul is, and yet instead of sticking to just one, Doctor Who just uses the vaguest idea of what it might mean, whenever it’s convenient.

The Women of Doctor Who

This special was a little different from the previous one, because it was less ‘exploration of sciencey things’ as much it was ‘a bunch of actors (including the Fifth Doctor!) and stuff saying their opinions about women in Doctor Who’.

What did they all like about the women? Well, there are almost never screaming helpless women; the parts for women are often better than the parts for men; it’s “not sexist at all”; the women are always really smart and are never passive accessories to the male lead.

Hit the jump to see who they talked about and what the commentators thought about all of them!