As we move further from the end of the First World War, the meaning of ‘Remembrance’ drifts further from the original commemoration of a mass trauma, calling on us to learn from the unnecessary slaughter of 16 million people – to one sanctifying the current and future actions of the British state. At the height of this ‘Where’s Yer Fuckin’ Poppy’ season, I’ve decided to republish an article about Doctor Who I posted a decade ago.
Steven Moffat struggled to engage with Doctor Who’s audiences in a meaningful way when he first took on the show from Russell T Davies. To some extent, he seemed to regard earnest attempts to do so as old fashioned or embarrassing. But while historically, Doctor Who was indeed kitsch and campy, it used that energy, and its wonderfully budget brand of sci-fi to dive headlong into ideological and emotional minefields, in a way that millions of people came to love. Moffat’s tenure initially saw the show drift away from that, into something of a post-modern nightmare. Nothing really matters, but look, shiny things. Did someone say convincing female charac- ooh, a laser, isn’t that cool? Anyone for Robots vs Dinosaurs?
The phrase “before Moffat” was subsequently chewed over and over by the print and online commentariat – shorthand for an apparently terminal decline in the show’s writing. But enough time has surely passed now to admit that sometimes the show was great under Moffat. In particular, an episode co-written by Moffat himself and Peter Harness, The Zygon Inversion was a subversive master-stroke, deserving of greater recognition 10 years on. (That same old shit is currently being recycled for Green leader Zack Polanski, too.)
It was broadcast hours before Remembrance Sunday. And not just any Remembrance Sunday: it was the one where assorted war-mongers barracked then-Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for not bowing deeply enough in memory of people David Cameron and Tony Blair would not have thought twice about sending to their deaths.
The episode, which concluded a two-part serial regarding a peace-treaty between humans and an alien race hidden among them,was a brilliant and unashamed anti-war polemic that must surely go down as an epic stride in the right direction for the series.
In the final act, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi, giving a pitch-perfect performance having at last given something worth getting his teeth into) finds himself trapped between human and alien generals bent on each other’s destruction. The two are stood opposite one another with their fingers on the proverbial button. The problem for them, is that thanks to Osgood (Ingrid Oliver as a human/Zygon plagued by the question “which one are you?”) and the Doctor’s planning, each warring faction has a twin box with two buttons labelled “Truth” and “Consequences.” Each has a button that will give them what they want, each a button that will essentially lead to their oblivion – and neither knows which is which.
Despite being unsure of the cost, the pair seem bent on going through with it anyway – until a bravura speech from the Doctor, to be found in full below, challenges their desire for carnage. In penning this payoff, Moffat and Harness finally deliver what true Who fans will have been missing since the former’s tenure as head writer began – but if he can continue in this vain, then it is not too late to save the soul of a show that should be the heart in a heartless universe. In the speech itself, the Doctor – in a way reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator – speaks almost directly to us, of the lessons we must learn from our own blood-spattered past.
“Do you call this a war, this funny little thing? This is not a war. I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine, and when I close my eyes… I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight… Til it burns your hand. And you say this — no one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch.”
The message was extremely timely, with Britain poised to join military interventions in Syria and the Middle East yet again, while the political establishment attempt to transform a day commemorating the horrors of international conflict into a day for slavish obedience to nationalistic fervour. The real lesson of the World Wars, and of every conflict since, is not to sanctify those dragged off to die in a muddy hell far from those they loved, or to praise them for ‘heroism’ – it is that we must do everything in our power to prevent those still alive today from going through that same agony, time and again.
A decade later, though, ‘Remembrance’ has descended even further into farce; the pantomime now seeing people hounded from public life for failing to display enough deference to ‘the memory of the troops’. People unwilling to wear a red poppy (or worse, who wear a white poppy for peace) are essentially forbidden from appearing on television, even Cookie Monster had to pop one on before the puppet could appear on The One Show. Groups which call for the end to war, hate and genocide are proscribed as terrorist organisations. Protesting government complicity in war crimes has been criminalised under successive governments. Those in power have regularly weaponised ‘respect for the dead’ in bad faith arguments, ensuring that the criminal conduct which caused their deaths will continue deep into the new Millennium, and building a draconian state infrastructure which is ripe for abuse by a likely far-right government as of 2029.
On the 11th of November 2025, we must all swear to ourselves, not to revel or take pride in battles of the past – if we are really to remember those who died by the thousand in needless and petty conflict, we must build a better world in peace, that we can really be proud of. We must swear, “No one else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch.”
This article was adapted from a post on Hollywood Hegemony originally from November 11th 2015.