Mid-season Trailer of Doctor Who

For sci-fi fans of Doctor Who here is the new trailer for the next series.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/videos/?episode=S4_08&character=&action=videostream&playlist=/doctorwho/playlists/s4_08/video/s4_08_trl_02.xml&video=1&date=&summary=A%20special%20preview%20of%20what


It is interesting to note how the whole concept of multiverses has grown since CS Lewis' Narnia Chronicles. The cosmological theory that our universe is one of many, or even an infinite number of universes has been developed by a number of fantasy/sci-fi writers. According to the theory each universe is slightly different from the next. Some theoriests have even posited the idea that every action in this universe creates a spontanous flowering of universes. Therefore for every action you do there could be a universe where your actions are played out differently.


CS Lewis had Narnia as one of many alternative worlds and this gave him the opportunity to explore what the redemptive plan might have been like elsewhere. Philip Pullman's athiestic children's novels, the 'His Dark Materials', is based on a multiverse concept and the first story imagines a world strangely not unlike ours. The new series of Doctor Who also uses this concept and in 2006 series 2 saw an earth where humans become cybermen and cross over into our reality. The trailer for the next part of this series implies that this is idea played out again with the evil Davros (creator of the Daleks) trying to expunge our universe.


Over the past three years I have been working on my own children's book- something of a tribute to the Narnia concept. It is called 'Deep Magic' and takes some rough kids from a rather grotty council estate to a distopia where they have to prevent a book falling into the hands of an evil Alchemist. When we lived and ministed in a housing estate in Aberdeen I initially wanted to write a version of Narnia for the kids we got to know. I felt CS Lewis' style was a bit too 'Famous Five' to be accessible for these young people and they needed something grittier. Now I also feel that the Pullman attack on the Christian faith needs to be redressed.