Obamaphobia

If there's one thing that did set my alarm bells ringing in EoT1, it was the inclusion of the esteemed President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. While RTD's penchant for celebrity cameos means we've already seen real-world politicians in the Whoniverse (hello Ann Widdecombe), having Obama as POTUS felt wrong somehow.

Does it make any sense? Until very recently, the politicians of the RTD era were fictionalized. In Aliens of London the Slitheen bump off the incumbent Prime Minister and replace him with "Joseph Green". This doesn't last long, obviously, and Harriet Jones takes charge. Thanks possibly to the Doctor's whisper campaign against her, she's out in May 2008 to "Harold Saxon", who quickly goes insane and kills himself, his entire cabinet and the US President. He may or may not be succeeded by one Aubrey Fairchild, depending on whether you count original Who novels published by the BBC to be canon; if so, Fairchild dies sometime circa the 2009 Dalek invasion. In 2009 Brian Green is definitely, canonically PM, but probably not for long given how Torchwood: Children of Earth finishes up.

Obviously we have less information about American politicians in the Whoniverse, but we do know that in 2008 Arthur Coleman Winters was President, or at least President-Elect, however that's possible, of the USA. It seems strange that a world that may not have had George W Bush or even 9/11 should still be electing Obama in late '08. Given that the Earth is constantly under highly visible attack from aliens these days, wouldn't a candidate with a better track record on military and national security issues have made more sense? Or is Barack one of those "fixed points" in history we've been hearing a lot about lately. (I like him, but that might be overestimating his importance just a little.)

I think I see what RTD was trying to do. After introducing one rubbish, fictional Prez to be killed off by the Master just a couple of years back, it would have had little impact to do it again. They could have not named the President, but let's face it, if the back of his head belongs to a black man he's obviously Barack, and if it doesn't, that's not the implicit political statement that RTD wants to be distracting attention from his swansong.

So we're stuck with President Obama and his speech about a recession that doesn't really make sense in the Whoniverse (I think if we'd been invaded by Daleks and our entire planet towed across the universe one year ago, the economy would be a bit of a secondary issue). Unless, and here's a theory I do quite like, the inclusion of the "real" President is symptomatic of The End of Time also being The End of the RTD Timeline. The Whoniverse Earth has had a pretty crazy ride over the past five years, but maybe this is where it ends. No more Presidents and Prime Ministers being assassinated or discredited by aliens on an annual basis. A return to the even keel of stable, "normal" history, at least until Steven Moffat decides if and how he wants to much that up beyond recognition again.

I wouldn't put it past Russell T Davies to employ a big reset switch in EoT2 tomorrow: it's a device he doesn't seem to see much point in sparing any need to use sparingly. Bring back the Time Lords, wipe out the whole post-Time War Earth continuity, which frankly went completely bananas without their stewardship. (Even inside of the RTD era, episodes like 2005's 2012-set Dalek make no sense at all in the light of the events of the subsequent few seasons.)

In many ways it'd be a great relief to get back to normal, have a Doctor on the run from his own people in a rackety old TARDIS, and an Earth where alien invasions are unthinkable again, instead of an annual occurrence. In other respects it'd be a massive, lazy cheat on Russell's part - encouraging future writers not to care about tight plotting or logical consequences because, hey, we can always reinstall a clean timeline at the end of our tenure. I suppose there's no point in speculating about it until we see what EoT2 has to say, in about 24 hours from now. Until then!