It’s probably a sign that Mrs Bear and I are getting older (“imperceptibly”, I hear you cry) that the TV just doesn’t seem to be as good as it used to be. Or, rather, the HD-LED-Flat-Screen-internet-smart-with-added-latte-frother TV itself no doubt represents the zenith of technological accomplishment; it’s the stuff it shows that isn’t as good as it used to be. Even the programmes that we used to watch as a family, before the young bears left home, somehow aren’t what they were. The contestants in The Apprentice, for example, are so obviously dysfunctional that it’s hard to take them seriously as anything other than a psychological case study, and Peter Capaldi is far too shouty to be Doctor Who.
Having said which, Mrs Bear and I continue to watch precisely those shows we used to watch with the young bears, partly for old time’s sake, and partly because it gives us something to talk to the young bears about when we see them. So, last Saturday, we dutifully sat down to watch Doctor Who, without any great expectations. And, out of the blue, the BBC delivered an episode that completely and utterly hit the spot.
If you’ve been living on another planet for the last forty years, you may not know who Doctor Who is. Well, actually, if you’ve been living on another planet you probably will know exactly who the Doctor is, for he is an alien in human form who travels through space and time in a blue phone box (hang in there, it gets easier). Last Saturday’s episode was the conclusion of a complicated story that had started the previous week, but you don’t need to know the details. In truth, the story was just a series of implausible plot devices to get the characters to the final scene. In this scene, the representatives of two warring species, one of them human, the other alien, faced each other across two boxes. Each box contained a button that might launch an attack agains the other species.
The Doctor was there. He didn’t intervene on either side. He didn’t try to snatch the boxes away. He just talked to them:
"It's not a game...This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought: right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who is going to die. You don't know whose children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning - sit down and talk!"
Neither side pressed their button, and peace was restored. This was the very essence of what made Doctor Who a special show for forty years. In every other action / adventure / sci-fi show the good guys eventually have to kill the bad guys. In a good way, of course, and with reluctance, no doubt, but the bad guys still end up dead. Which is ok, because the bad guys are, well, bad. Luke blows up the Death Star at the end of Star Wars, with help from the saintly Obi Wan Kenobi, killing everyone on it, but that’s ok because, hey, it’s a Death Star, right? But Doctor Who at its best is different. Not only is the notion that one side is right and the other needs to be defeated not the answer; it’s actually the problem. No matter how right you feel, you have no idea what you are starting.
That thought is one that is familiar to any mediator. No mediator, in the long history of mediation, has ever mediated a case between right and wrong. We are, always, every time, mediating between two parties who are both (in their own eyes) right. And we could adapt the Doctor’s words with barely a change:
Litigation is not a game. It’s a scale model of war. Every war ever fought: right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea what’s going to happen. You don’t know which witnesses will be believed, you don’t know what view the judge will take of the law, you don’t know which party the judge will take a dislike to. You don't know how many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much money, how much time, and how much emotion will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning - sit down and talk!
So, gentle reader, if you find yourself about to press a metaphorical button to start litigation, even if you are sure that you are right, and perhaps especially if you're sure that you are right, think about not pushing the button, and send for the Doctor. And if he happens to be engaged in outer space, well, you could do worse than send for a mediator.
