Doctor What?

Because I am the Uber Geek (made up, as Mischa once noted, of the parts from lesser geeks), I am of course also a big fan of the British cult series, Doctor Who. The latest incarnation of the Doctor is played by Christopher Eccleston, who brings a quirky touch of class and dramatic flair to the role. Eccleston’s is the 9th Doctor and this season is the show’s 27th, spanning over 4 decades.

The new series, while initially slow to capture me, nonetheless managed to weave a fascinatingly layered cloth of adventure narrative. While remaining true to the concept of the classic series, it has taken the Doctor into the modern era, managing to sustain the show’s campy charm despite the use of state-of-the-art special effects.

And unlike prior incarnations, the new series has had each show build toward a season-ending climax. And you know how much I appreciate good planning in a TV show. Like Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Galactica, this new Doctor Who was broadcast with all the shows already written, and an ur-plot already synthesized. At each of the Doctor’s stops this season, he’s been faced with the phrase “Bad Wolf.” We now know that the “Bad Wolf Corporation” has taken control of future Earth’s media and has somehow subverted what should have been the glorious peak of the Great and Bountiful Human Empire and turned it into a soulless hell of reality TV gone amok. With the season finale to be broadcast by the BBC this coming weekend, the Daleks –who were thought to have been destroyed in the mutually terminal final war with the Time Lords— have reappeared in force, having been protected from annhilation from the “Bad Wolf.”

But who is this “Bad Wolf”? Fanboys across the ‘Net are saying it must be the Doctor’s arch-nemesis, The Master, or else the Daleks’ progenitor, Davros. Me? My money’s on the mysterious and silent Face of Bo. You heard it here first, fellow geeklings.