From time to time, deeper issues in Doctor Who are inevitably brought up while watching an episode. It is difficult to pontificate on these issues in the recaps and reviews that make up the majority of entries in this blog. Giving anything more than a glib comment will inevitably pull myself away from the primary objective of the entry, which is to give my impression of that particular episode. When I find myself wanting to give my deeper thoughts on these issues, I'll create a separate entry, such as this.
Traditionally in the classic series, whenever aliens have invaded or otherwise involved themselves in human affairs on contemporary Earth, this was done in secret. Even if the aliens failed to use discretion, U.N.I.T. was around to help cover up their existence through the use of misinformation and "treatment" of humans which came into alien contact. Not only does this give another layer to the drama, this was convenient in the producers' efforts to portray contemporary Earth as somewhat recognizable as our own. One could easily believe that the average person was still blissfully unaware of the dangers that exist in the DW universe.
This changed when Russell T. Davies brought the series back in 2005. Davies liked to show these invasions on a grander, more operatic stage, which often involved destroyed national monuments, attacks on the entire world's population, and worldwide ecological disasters, all punctuated by the frantic comments from local newscasters. While this did provide good drama for the stories, this did inevitably create an Earth which is very different from our own. The need for each invasion to "outdo" the last took the series further and further away from the subtle drama typical of the UNIT years. By the time RTD was getting ready to leave the series, the big episodes were becoming almost comical in their over-the-top portrayal of these invasions, with the characters oftentimes commenting on how common this had become. Needless to say, fans began to complain about this.
When Steven Moffat became the show runner, one of the first orders of business was how to clean up this mess of contemporary Earth history that had been left him. He preferred to fill his stories with creepy moments and plot twists rather than operatic worldwide invasions. I still believe that the motivation for the crack in time story arc came from a desire to change history to justify a more alien ignorant and recognizable Earth. However, since history was essentially rebooted at the end of Moffat's first season, we've pretty much been left to our own devices in determining exactly what has still occurred.
Add to that, RTD was still involved with the spin-off shows Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. These series contributed their own incredible and very public alien invasions. Hell, in the opening introduction of Torchwood, Captain Jack mentions that the 21st century is when Earth becomes aware of the existence of other life, as this is when "Everything Changes". This has pulled further apart the mother series from the continuity of its offspring. Even SJA tends to reset public alien knowledge on a story by story basis. It's convenient for the writers to have Rani's parents, for example, ignorant of the existence of aliens, so much so that they go out of their way to wipe Gita's memories of her encounters with the Judoon and Androvax (but not Rani's father, interestingly. Of course, he looks like he'd just as soon forget about it anyway). This seems a bit like lazy writing, if you ask me.
Now that we're just left with the main series for the foreseeable future, this probably won't be a priority to clarify for the current series' writers. Even though the current season dipped its toes into an RTD style invasion with "The Power of Three", the current world neither seems as aware of aliens, nor does the series spend as much time on contemporary Earth as it used to. It's now up to us more obsessive fans to try to figure all of this out. Reading the entries in Lance Parkin's AHistory concerning contemporary Earth can be a bit mind-numbing considering the effort to include almost all of DW fiction into one coherent timeline. But isn't that the fun of all of this for us, anyway?
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