The Waters of Mars

  • Reading time:4 mins read

David Tennant’s penultimate story is probably one of the three to five best episodes since Doctor Who‘s revival in 2005, and just possibly one of the best since the show began in 1963. Structurally there’s nothing new or particularly interesting at play. Yet “The Waters of Mars” is one of the only stories in the history of the series to take that familiar base-under-siege format and use it as a canvas for larger things.

As a sketch, “The Waters of Mars” sounds exactly like the 2007 episode “42”. In “42” a small space vessel is overtaken by a living sun. One crew member after another is infected and begins to leak fire from every orifice, as the sun particles try to make their way back home. In “The Waters of Mars” a small Mars base is overtaken by a sort of intelligent water. One after another, the crew members get infected and begin to drip water from every orifice as the water tries to make its way to Earth.

“42” is content to assume that its premise is interesting in and of itself — as if none of us have seen The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, or fully 75% of the classic series of Doctor Who. The episode relishes in the familiar, not only retreading the format for its own sake but filling its empty spaces with pop culture references. The writer tossed in a trivia machine as a plot device, hoping to involve and distract the audience with $200 Jeopardy questions in place of genuine character or thematic development. Even the title is a reference to a certain US drama series. The episode takes place over 42 minutes, you see.

By comparison, “The Waters of Mars” hardly cares about the monsters, or the threat, or the fact that the crew members are getting picked off like so many randy babysitters. Oh, it takes the material seriously; it has to be amongst the scariest episodes of Who ever produced, and at times approaches a flat-out horror show like Supernatural. The tone is stark and somber, and — given that it’s set on Mars, about 50 years in the future — fairly realistic. Characters act rationally, and use all the tools and information available to them. Relationships and emotions are understated yet clear. Yet the episode isn’t about any of that. Rather, it’s about what all of that means.

There are a few things going on here, all intertwined. The events on the Mars base are important not just because they’re happening and we’re watching them; they’re important because, as established right up front, this is a critical moment in time. Within the first five minutes we know what’s supposed to happen, and we know that it will happen. The action, therefore, plays out as a tragedy. Since we know how these plots work, the next hour is consciously about seeing how the inevitable plays out, and growing to appreciate the characters’ vain, yet so very noble, struggles against their fate.

And then there’s the Doctor. For a show about time travel, Doctor Who is very seldom about time travel. Even less often does it address not just the logistical but the ethical and practical consequences of time travel. Here, for much of the episode the Doctor is as much a spectator as the audience. He has stumbled into a historical event, and however horrible it may be he knows what will happen if he interferes. The events then also become a catalyst for serious character work, as the Doctor struggles against his own impulses, wobbling between curiosity and guilt; self-respect and impotence. Ultimately, it’s a matter of pride. The Doctor never walks away from other people’s problems; he only walks away from his own. That’s the only way he can live with himself. And he lived for so many years.

Eventually the Doctor makes his decisions, and he reaps the consequences. And in the last few minutes the episode transcends probably everything else ever done with the show.

“The Waters of Mars” is about responsibility — big decisions with big, real consequences. In this case those decisions happen to involve monsters in a space base. You could plug in any threat, any plot; as well-told as it is here, it’s all beside the point. The Doctor isn’t the only character whose decisions matter, either; everyone makes his or her choices, and they all do the best they can under the circumstances. But when you get into something as complicated as time travel, and you think there are any easy answers, you’re one step away from becoming the problem yourself.

The Pathology of Game Design

  • Reading time:18 mins read

Originally published by Next Generation.

As I entered adolescence, my mother decided in her wisdom that I was destined to be an actor. That I showed no particular enthusiasm or indeed talent did not dampen this enterprise for years to follow. One summer, between calls for music videos and hypothetical summer blockbusters, I chanced into a tryout for a hypothetical Blockbuster ad. To the best I can recollect, the company was adding Genesis and Super Nintendo games to its rental library, and to demonstrate the premise was sending out a net for the archetypal game-playing teenager.

Thus I found myself lost across a desk from a pockmarked man with a mustache. When the man asked me to show him my “videogame” acting, I hunched over and concentrated at a spot a few yards ahead of me, miming my button presses with an imagined precision. I knotted my brow, maybe gritted my teeth or moved my lips as if to mutter. You can imagine where the scene goes from here. The director keeps asking for “more”, growing frustrated in proportion to my unease. He wants me to thrash in my chair, slam the buttons like a jackhammer, contort my face, and show him my best Beverly Hills orgasm. I am amazed; he patronizes me; I get to go home. Later I met the man they cast as the teenager; he was in his late twenties and had a habit of performing rude gestures to passers-by.

Fifteen years later, despite what seem obvious advances in technology and design, people don’t really see videogames any differently.