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Zombies |
Reviews
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Zombies |
Zombies in the 2006 series by Mike Heinrich 19/6/06
First off, I've now seen the first seven episodes of the new series (either 28 or 2. Or, you know, any other number you might like to think of.) That's New Earth through The Idiot's Lantern for those playing along at home. I know absolutely nothing about anything that comes after Idiot's Lantern. I have heard or read no spoilers for anything that comes after that point. (Spoiler free and clean for 11 months. Thanks to my Spoilers Anonymous Sponsor, Anjelica Huston) I promise that none of this is based on any knowledge of what's coming.
After watching these first 7 episodes one thing struck me in a profound way.
That's a HELL of a lot of zombies.
I suppose that it makes sense, given what the thematic underpinning of this season seems to be.
Last season's theme was clearly 'Everything Dies.' As in, 'Everything dies Doctor, even the Time Lords. So stop beating yourself up for not being able to save them'. A theme which was ultimately expressed by Christopher Eccleston's Doctor reaching the end of his time himself and literally becoming a new man by accepting that the Time Lords were gone and moving on. For that reason I'm not really upset about Christopher Eccleston leaving the part. His exit was the perfect structural representation of the theme that the show had been building on for the entire season. But more than that, 'Everything Dies' also meant that nothing lasts forever. That one day the Earth will burn and be gone. That the Emperor Dalek isn't immortal, regardless of what he might believe. That accepting that all things die isn't a license to lead someone to their execution, or to kill. So, last year was all about coming to terms with the fact that everything is finite, and will eventually pass, and that that's ok.
Which leads us to this year, where the recurring motif seems clearly to be, 'When something dies, everything else moves on. In fact, everything else HAS to move on. Because if something dies and you keep it hanging around... well, you know... zombies.
Which leads me nicely to the subject of the walking dead.
A rundown of the notable zombies we've seen so far this year:
New Earth: Well... Not to give anything way... The people that look and act like zombies.
These are right off the bat, bang on, hit you over the head with the imagery, oh look - Zombies! They shamble. They drag their feet. They're all about hugging. (ok, that last one isn't a traditional feature of Zombie Mythology, but it damn well should be.) At first I assumed that we just had zombies here because it's a nice bit of scary imagery, however the sheer number of later zombie sighting has led me to wonder.
New Earth most clearly expresses the 'Life moves on' theme, showing how even though the Earth dies in the explicitly-referenced End of the World, that only led to a revival movement and a new Earth. Life adapted, changed and continued.
Tooth and Claw: The silent bald warrior monks.
OK, I admit that they aren't technically zombies being, you know... alive. But they're silent. They're menacing. They're hanging around the exits. They kind of have the zombie imagery going for them. More relevantly, their plan pretty much works... and doesn't matter a bit. Sure, Queen Victoria knows what her situation is at the end of the episode. But at the end of the day apparently the Royal Family just adapts to it, does a bit of rescheduling, and life goes on.
School Reunion: The kids plugged into their computers.
Simultaneously geniuses (genii?) and mindless, plugged in and tuned out. Creepy and unreachable. They are the living dead every bit as much as The Flesh was in New Earth.
I'm honestly floored, reading the reviews on this site, at how many people seem to have completely missed the point of this episode. It's not an exercise in nostalgia. It's an active discussion of the relationship between holding on to the past and embracing change. On the one hand we have Sarah Jane and K9, who are very much symbols of holding on to what once was, and on the other hand we have the Krilitanes who change so thoroughly and so often that they completely lose who they were (to the extent that coming into contact with their roots causes them serious harm. Which is, in and of itself, a wonderful metaphor for the intersection between your past and your future, really.)
The wonderful thing about this setup being that both sides are shown to be equally wrong. You can't live your whole life holding on to what was, nor can you constantly throw everything away and change completely. And if Christopher Eccleston was still the Doctor, we simply wouldn't ever have had this episode because the whole thing is rooted in the fact that the Doctor DID change and what that means for Rose, for Sarah, and for the Doctor himself. The lovely part being that Sarah gets to sum up the whole thing in a fabulous moment. Stay with what you have while you can, knowing that eventually it will end and you will have to find a way to move on. Because some things are WORTH getting your heart broken for.
You couldn't do this episode without the Krilitanes to represent constant embracing of change. You couldn't do this episode without Sarah Jane to represent nostalgia and the desire to keep things from changing. And you couldn't do this episode with the 9th Doctor because then we wouldn't be having the discussion about moving on after a loss in the first place.
The Girl in the Fireplace: The Clockwork Fops.
They silently lurch toward you with an unsteady gait, arms outstretched. They're classic zombie imagery with frilly wigs and hose. (So, zombie drag queens then. Actually, now that I type that, that's a genuinely terrifying thought. Drag Cabaret of the Dead! If it shows up in Army of Ghosts, I'm going to request some sort of advisory credit.)
The clockwork people (who are fabulous by the by. And have a completely explained motivation, thank you very much whoever-it-was complained that we're never told why the robots are doing what they do) are very much a portrait of carrying on with a paradigm well beyond the point where that paradigm had any purpose whatsoever. They haven't adapted or moved on. (I'm trying to be delicate here to avoid spoilers.) The goal of the clockwork people is specifically to benefit the very people who were... inconvenienced... by the first steps that were taken by the robots in order to reach that goal. It's like the Gift of the Magi, but creepy. And in space. And with pre-revolutionary France. OK. It's not terribly much like Gift of the Magi. But I think my initial point still stands.
The Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel: The crowds in the street, frozen dead while information is downloaded into their brains.
You thought I was going to go with the Cybermen, didn't you? Well, it's true that it's pretty widely accepted at this point that the Cybermen are - at their very roots - just zombies re-imagined into a science fiction environment. Certainly they fulfill the basic description of dead but walking. And they do consume human brains, now don't they? But much more sinister to me is the image of the human race, all frozen mid-step while their brains are played with. The human race walking blankly into the cyber-conversion chambers. They are mindless but moving, so very zombie-chic.
Oddly, Mr. Lumic really shows the premise of adapting and moving on here. The difference is that he's not moving on from the death of something else, he's trying to move on from his own death. He's attempting to rise from his own grave (and clearly states that he only plans on becoming a Cyberman after his final breath). He's not summoning the zombie (like the Cat-Nuns, like the head ninja-monk, like the headmaster, etc.) He's trying to become the zombie. Obviously he didn't watch the previous series, because he's ignoring that 'Everything dies' rule. See how we're all better off for having watched last year?
It's Mickey/Ricky that demonstrates the healthy aspect of 'Something dies/something else adapts and moves on.' I can't really say how without discussing spoiler territory however.
The Idiot's Lantern: The people in the cage (he said discretely so as to not give away plot points), but even more so the people watching television. And interestingly enough there's a very discrete sub-thread about abused spouses and children willingly becoming desensitized and zombie-like just in order to survive and get through their day to day lives.
And of course there's the whole discussion about embracing the new technology of television or not.
So. what's up with all the zombies?
Is it all just little echoes of the Cybermen - UberZombies of 1965?
Does it relate somehow to the general 'After the funeral, life goes on' theme of the year?
Is it indicative of things you believed dead and buried coming back to haunt you and possibly eat your brain?
All I can say at this point is that there's been a heck of a lot of Zombie imagery in these first seven episodes.
Of course, I could be making more out of this than I should. Perhaps I should just relax and stop thinking about it so much.
Mmmm. Brains. Brains...