Be warned: This post contains spoilers for Doctor Who Series 5

When I was a child, we had a book called Fifty Famous Fairy Tales. I loved to read it over and over, digesting the strange plot twists and pondering a world in which the good and virtuous were rewarded not with gold star stickers and pats on the back, but with fairy godmothers and kingdoms, and where the battle between good and evil was about dragons and princes rather than name-calling bullies. Somehow, it all seemed to matter so much. Even though it was fantasy, my elementary-aged mind sensed that it hinted at something beyond itself, an ultimate something that was bigger than reality or fantasy as I understood them. It's been many years since I first encountered pumpkin coaches and poisoned apples, but I was recently reminded again of that ultimate something that lurks at the heart of great stories.

Last year's season of Doctor Who was filled with the usual sci-fi twists and turns and time-bending elements that make it a favorite show of millions, but toward the end of the year, it drifted into the familiar territory of my childhood fairy tale fantasies.

Without going into needless detail, the climax of the season found one character, an ordinary human man, sacrificing himself to guard the body of the love of his life. Because of twists I won't go into, he is not subject to normal aging at the time, and he spends two thousand years doing whatever it takes to protect a box that contains the woman he loves. In the narrative of the show, he becomes a historical legend, a myth that is always connected to the two-thousand-year-old box, even as it makes its way through history and becomes a museum piece. No one knows who the man is or even if he is alive. He's a statue, except when he's needed. He never leaves the box's side. More Here...