You may recall me mentioning a while back that the classic sci-fi TV series Doctor Who was filming an episode right in my own backyard, specifically Utah’s Monument Valley. Well, now you can catch a glimpse of the result in the official trailer for Series 6. (In case you don’t know, the Brits call a television season a “series,” and what we think of as a series is a “program” — well, technically, a “programme” — and yes, I realize this trailer won’t make a lot of sense to people who aren’t familiar with the show. To be honest, I haven’t seen enough of the most recent season/series to consider myself “familiar” either, but hey, it’s Doctor Who, and it’s Utah, so I get that much at least…)
When I was a teenager watching the super-low-budget ’70s-vintage Doctor Who in my bedroom late at night, I never could’ve imagined the show coming to America. Back then, every alien world or historical time period the Doctor visited looked suspiciously like a rock quarry just outside of London, a windswept heath right out of Thomas Hardy, or a really cheap plywood set. To be honest, that was part of the show’s appeal for me, because it was so different from what I was used to, and everything looked so… British.
The show is different since its 2005 relaunch, with more variety in its real-world locations and CGI enabling the producers to create (mostly) realistic and truly unearthly virtual places, but there’s still something constrained, for lack of a better word, about the show’s overall look. I think it’s the difference between the cozy, worn-in landscape of the U.K., and the rugged, wide-open spaces I’m familiar with out here in the western U.S. Which means I’m itching with curiosity to see what such a quintessentially British series is going to make of such an iconic American landscape. I hope it’s more than just that wonderful helicopter shot we see in the trailer, that the producers really took advantage of being here. I suspect they did, what with all the talk about “somewhere different, somewhere… brand new.”
Incidentally, although this marks the first time Doctor Who has filmed in America, I know of at least one other episode that was set here, and once again, the action took place in the deserts of Utah. Well, in tunnels that were supposedly beneath those deserts, but still, close enough. Salt Lake City was explicitly referenced, in any event. It makes me wonder who on the Who staff has the fascination for my home state….
Hm. You know, the modern incarnation of Doctor Who is produced by BBC Wales. It occurs to me that my own ancestors were Mormon converts who originated from Wales. Now isn’t that an interesting coincidence? Is it possible the producers feel some inexplicable pull toward this dry, desolate land so far from their own green hills, like something in their blood? Sounds like a Doctor Who storyline right there…
