Doctor Five Abuse

[lesbiassparrow]

Whenever I watch Peter Davison's Doctor it does seem as if he got the most physical abuse of any of the Doctors: they whack him good.  And they whack him often. I assume this was a way to toughen up his mild image and general aura of niceness, but sometimes it just really freaks me out.

The most disturbing thing was watching The Caves of Androzani where Five is actually stumbling around the place bleeding. I can't tell you very terrifying that was as a child because I don't recall ever seeing blood on Who before - and certainly not on the Doctor, whom I think I probably thought of as pretty much made of wood and steel. Obviously given that this is Who, I'd seen people (plenty of them) hurt and dead, yes, but actual blood, no.  I wonder how they got that past the censors? (I know that ITV used to have a rule for Robin of Sherwood where they could kill as many people as they liked but they couldn't show blood or wounds and I think that was a general rule for deaths on children's TV at the time).

 

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's just Saward's taste for graphic violence that causes the problems as his conviction that the universe is mostly a brutal and nasty place where peace-loving types like the Fifth Doctor are doomed to pain, failure and humiliation.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

And that the universe wants heroes mainly so it can wallop them a lot. And watch them writhe in blond pain.

How much of this was Saward's tastes and how much of it was driven by a desire to have Five's era be very different from Four's I don't know.