Fifth Doctor Revisited: The Mawdryn Undead

Speeding our way through the Fifth Doctor era, TJ and I had to slow down until we finish our Fourth Doctor podcast episodes. That being said, I have thought (ramblings random musings) about the Peter Davison stories I’ve watched so far.

I’ll start out my ramblings with the return of the Brigadier. He starts out with the mysterious lack of memories concerning the Doctor. When he finally remembers, naturally he gets caught up in some timey-wimey shenanigans that simultaneously save the Doctor and cause the amnesia. Wibbly-wobbly.

The idea of the Doctor giving up his regenerations isn’t a foreign concept to modern Doctor Who fans. After all, he used regeneration energy to heal River Song. The interesting part is that, if we assume the Doctor is the Timeless Child, the Doctor has had unlimited regeneration energy available to him. If the Brigadier hadn’t interfered, perhaps the infinite regenerations would have been catastrophic.

This episode also marks the return of the Black Guardian. He tricks Turlough into a deal with the devil to destroy the Doctor. Despite the all-powerful-seeming nature of the Black Guardian to manipulate events, he doesn’t seem to be any more successful in destroying the Doctor than Doofenschmirtz is at defeating Perry the Platypus. After a whole season manipulating the Doctor and Romana into assembling the Key to Time, you would think he’d be better at this game.

It's interesting to me that Mawdryn and his people attempted to regenerate. It's an interesting idea. Kind of reminded me of the Sisterhood of Karn. In fact with how they're dressed I thought Mawdryn might've been part of that clan. Their attempted regenerations gave me some insights about the spiritual implications of immortality. Perpetual living (or perpetual regeneration in Mawdryn's case) isn't worth living. Stories like Tuck Everlasting and The Good Place have addressed this idea and its pitfalls. From a gospel perspective, we believe in immortality. But we also believe that we can progress and develop to become like our Heavenly Father. In the grand scheme of things, we know very little about what that entails. But that purpose gives meaning to living forever.