I don’t know about you, but I usually enjoy those little moments when the Doctor talks about (what is to us) historical Earth and gives his own interpretation of the significance of the culture or event in question. Granted, the focus is usually weighted rather heavily toward Western history and cultures in centuries past and British history for more recent events, but it’s still fun to try to put oneself in the place of a member of an alien species, and imagine how he might interpret it all differently.

What do you suppose the Doctor thinks about the current era?

I know he never says much about American history, but it’s been a remarkably newsworthy couple of weeks here in the States. With both advances and setbacks, I’ve had a familiar feeling recently; the same feeling I had on the morning of 11 Sep 2011—the one that says, “we’re watching history in the making.”

For those who haven’t seen the same news reports I have, here’s what I’m talking about. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down some key rulings last week. Whether or not you agree with the Court’s position, I don’t t think anyone can successfully argue that these decisions are not important to the future direction of the country.

Two in particular received a great deal of attention. The first of these came last Thursday (25 Jun 2015) and upheld subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (colloquially known as “ObamaCare”). In other words, Americans can get subsidized health insurance through the federal government even if they live in one of the 34 states that doesn’t have their own insurance marketplace.

The second decision is one that, from what I can tell, got attention in the international press as well as nationally. On Friday, 26 Jun 2015, SCOTUS ruled that state bans against same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, making marriage equality a reality nationwide.

Meanwhile, history seems to be repeating itself as Black Americans face some of the same horrors that were rampant at the height of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s (in addition to the day-to-day challenges of living in our society). On 17 Jun 2015, six Black women and three Black men were shot to death in their church (one with significant local civil rights history for nearly 200 years) in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white supremacist intent on starting a “race war.”

Ten days later, a Black woman named Bree Newsome, with help from a white male ally named James Ian Tyson, scaled the flagpole in front of the South Carolina state house to take down the Confederate battle flag (for those of you unfamiliar with the history of the American Civil War, that’s the flag of the side fighting for slavery—and popularized across the South during the Civil Rights movement of the ’60s), in an act of civil disobedience. (The flag was put back up within hours, in time for a white supremacist rally.)

Throughout this time frame, several Black/predominantly Black churches across the South have burned—and at least three of them have already been ruled arson. That hardly seems coincidental, especially given the earlier shooting.

So why am I nattering on about current events in the US? Because it feels like an “interesting” time period that the Doctor might talk to far-future Companions about, or possibly even visit himself. One doesn’t usually notice history happening around oneself (at least I don’t), so it’s disconcerting when events begin to unfold and we can point to them and say, “people will remember this in fifty years.” The moon landing (though before my time) has already managed to worm its way into the show; I can’t help but wonder when other Points In History that I’ve witnessed (e.g., the fall of the Berlin Wall or September 11, 2001) might appear.

How will history—how will the Doctor—remember the era in which we live?