Sublime Transcendentalism and Doctor Who

Doctor Who, one of my favourite TV shows of all time, chronicles the life of a time-and-space-traveling man called the Doctor. He is not exactly a man, but rather a Time Lord. The show was created in the UK in 1963, and after a few hiatuses and reboots, continues in the present. The most recent reboot, which started in 2005, is now between its seventh and eighth series and has achieved great commercial success, cultivating a much larger American fanbase than the show has ever had. The basic conceit of the show is that the Doctor travels about in his time machine, the TARDIS, usually with a human he met in London, one of his most common haunts. On their travels, the Doctor and his companion(s) encounter all sorts of characters, savoury and otherwise, solve problems, and save the universe.



The fifth series of the rebooted franchise was the start of actor Matt Smith’s role as the Doctor. Along with him, the Doctor also acquired some new companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, most often referred to simply as “the Ponds.” In the final episode of the series, the Doctor has essentially wiped himself from the universe in order to save it, taking all memories of his existence with him. Before he leaves, he gives one of his famous speeches that never fail to move me to tears. This speech, which he gives to a sleeping young Amy, is his attempt to make her remember him even though he will be gone from our universe.


The Romans were pretty in to decorum, what Craig R. Smith defines as “propriety in terms of meeting and creating expectations” (Rhetoric and Human Consciousness 125). Decorum, Smith says, was something that Cicero discussed, and with his notions, he “sent the speaker to find figures of thought and figures of speech… which would fashion the rhetorical situation” (125). One way to fashion a rhetorical situation is with the sublime. Smith includes the discourse of a book, On the Sublime, credited to Cassius Dionysius Longinus (131). On the Sublime taught that “the object of the speaker was to display the divine, model virtue, and / or prepare the soul for this mystical world. Ideally, the speech would lift the soul from the body, creating an ecstatic state” (Smith 131). One of the ways the rhetor can achieve this is through the enhancement of the imagination (Smith 131). Through exquisite imagery, the rhetor can create a transcendental state for the audience or for themselves.

The Doctor’s goodbye speech to Amy is a prime example of how well the sublime can work in a speech. In this particular speech, the Doctor begs Amy to remember him, even if she just remembers him as a story, as “We’re all stories in the end.” This poetic metaphor is entirely sublime, as it “stresses the spiritual over the material,” and it reveals the crux of the Doctor’s wishes. Since he knows he can no longer exist in our universe, he takes solace in the fact that he can transcend existence in the realm of imagination by becoming a great story of Amy’s dreams. This speech, though it is directed at Amy, really works to prepare the Doctor himself for the mystical world of legend and imagination. After readying himself throughout the speech for he ascends into this realm of ecstasy after a few last lines: “I think I’ll skip the rest of the rewind. I hate repeats. Live well. Love Rory. Bye-bye Pond.”