Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Doctor? Erm…Nobody

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Photo copyright BBC

As the advert once said, it’s good to talk. And it’s also good to have a different perspective on things. Sometimes it takes a different set of eyes to show you something that you knew was niggling at the back of your head but couldn’t quite put your finger on. And that’s exactly what happened today.

I’ve been watching the new series of Doctor Who and it’s been a mixed experience which, if Jodie Whittaker’s run had never happened, would be seen as a distinct drop in story quality but because of the low quality of Whittaker’s and Chibnall’s run, feels better than it actually is.

Think about it; if Peter Capaldi’s Doctor had regenerated into Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor it would have been a jarring change in quality. You go from the brilliance of the war speech in the Zygon Conversion to snot monsters. Things have been lacking somewhat, but there is something else missing; something that was pointed out to me. When it was, it was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes.

And it’s all thanks to Rogue.

The fifteenth Doctor is just loving life and in the trailer for the new season we saw a clip from Boom where he warned what would happen if he was blown up by the mine and turn the battlefield into dust. Oh, I thought, we’ll get to see this Doctor flex his muscles in the tradition of his previous incarnations. Like when the tenth Doctor brought down the Family of Blood, like the ninth when he taunted the lone Dalek in Utah, the eleventh in A good Man Goes To War and the twelfth in The Zygon Conversion. These are all powerful moments were the rage of the Doctor is unleashed on people that deserve it and even the thirteenth Doctor had a rare ‘rage’ moment in The Haunting of Villa Diodati when she refused to let Shelley be sacrificed to the lone Cyberman.

So when the fifteenth Doctor had his moment it Boom, it fell so flat. Listen, Gatwa was awesome in that episode as we saw the Doctor terrified and helpless to save Ruby from dying right in front of him. But the gravitas was missing and we haven’t really seen this yet in any of his televised adventures. Then again the stories haven’t merited that kind of performance. Only Boom so far has tapped on it but his kick in the balls moment of “I am the Doctor!” was lacking. Again, don’t get me wrong; Gatwa is superb in Boom, absolutely brilliant but his Doctor isn’t one to fear. He gives another great performance in The Devil’s Chord but it’s a man in fear, running and hiding in a cellar, after running and hiding from a snot monster in Space Babies. Not the actions of the mountain that is the Doctor.

Add to that the biggest problem we never caught on to so far.

Nobody knows who the Doctor is. Well, no one except Kate and the staff of UNIT. How can this be? The Doctor is a legend ‘woven throughout history’ Clive tells Rose and River Song says ‘I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to his Tardis and open the doors with a snap of his fingers..’. His name is known to gods and devils; to Guardians of Time and a little girl called Lorna Bucket who joined the army to find the man called the Doctor. And if nobody knows who the Doctor is then by default, nobody is in awe of the Doctor and nobody fears the Doctor.

Yes there are those who don’t know him but they have heard of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. Only the Sontarans and the Daleks have dared to try to conquer Time Lord society and failed. Even the Daleks chose to destroy the planet because they could not win the war. It is important the companions learn of the Doctor’s origins from his own lips like Martha did in Gridlock and Ruby did in Space Babies. Now it could be argued that the Flux has destroyed so much of the original universe that it claimed those who may know who the Doctor and his people are. But that doesn’t feel right.

The Doctor should enter a room like they’re already in charge; see the fourth Doctor in the Panopticon in the Deadly Assassin. Note the tenth Doctor, when the Titanic is about to crash surrounded by flames, give his ‘I am the Doctor’ speech or what about when the eleventh frightened away all the aliens they ever fought in The Pandorica Opens or behind the President’s desk in the Oval Office.

The fifteenth hasn’t done that yet and for me the gravitas has been partly lost by his constant costume changes which give him no constant identity. The beauty about the Doctor was that he could wear a velvet jacket, giant scarf, a stick of celery (or the most hideous outfit in his sixth incarnation) and he blended in and also commanded attention no matter where he was. Even Sylvester McCoy wore his question mark jumper around town and nobody flinched. They are the Doctor upon entering a room and his outfit is part of that identity, but this Doctor has costumed up for the 1960s in the Devil’s Chord, wore a pretty bland and non-descript outfit in Boom, was absent for most of 73 Yards and in Rogue he was just one of the crowd, another face, outfitted like everyone else, blending in; a curiosity for the snobs of 1813. Speaking of Rogue, for all his travels, I find it hard to believe that this master bounty hunter, who has travelled the galaxy, has never heard of either the Doctor or the Time Lords. It is clear he has been around for a long time given the state of his ship and travelled far and wide and, as a successful bounty hunter, we’re supposed to believe that he moves in networks that have never mentioned the Doctor?

And it was at that point my good buddy pointed out that the fear/reverence factor of the Doctor and his reputation is totally missing from this series. Now we have had the Doctor remove all mention of his name from the internet and the Dalek systems but all that was reversed later. And it maybe the stories are to blame but those stories came from people who know the show and its history as well as I do.

Now to be fair and cover all aspects, I have to point out that maybe the renaming of the show as ‘Season One’ is a fresh beginning. I mean, no-one knew the Doctor when Hartnell piloted the Tardis bar the Time Meddler and if that is the direction they want to move in then fair enough.

However to achieve this do not use the Anglican Army.

First seen in the Time of the Angels and Flesh and Stone as well as The Time of the Doctor and A Good Man Goes to War, this army knows the Doctor as a legend and are very well versed in him and his Gallifreyan origins. It provoked Madam Kavarian to launch a plan to turn Amy Pond’s daughter into a weapon to kill the Time Lord. His very name inspire people and her plan hurt the Doctor badly when he learned the truth. Yet when they meet Mundy she has no idea who he is even thought she learns he is a Time Lord and his name. Even when she discovers that the energy trapped in his body will take out half the planet if the mine goes off. He even tells her that he is a higher dimension lifeform and a complex complicated space time event but none of this rings a bell when it really should. After everything that had happened before the Doctor is as well known in their ranks as Jesus himself.

Now we have none of that. As I said UNIT Headquarters seem to be the only organisation that knows the Doctor and what he can do. We are approaching the Legend of Ruby Rose and Empire of Death so maybe we will see the Doctor that sent the Boneless back to hell as the man that kills the monsters. The man that monsters have nightmares about. The man whose memories would shatter all the glass avatars in Twice Upon A Time. Add to that the man whom, while exiled on Earth, had no problem raiding the wine and cheese of a high ranking diplomat simply because he could. The Doctor defies the ranks and fears no politician because he is the Doctor; simple as.

This Doctor cannot continue to simply run into a story, smile broadly, do a little dance, change outfits every story and shout ‘honey!’. He needs a gravitas that we almost saw at the end of Dot and Bubble when he experienced racism for the first time, but instead of gravitas we got gurning and shouting. Each Doctor can be identified from silhouette but without a definitive costume then that also leaves this Doctor adrift. The one he wore in Dot and Bubble accidentally became his signature because that end scene was the first Gatwa filmed. Subsequently his promo photos and behind the scenes video heralded the coat, checked trousers and orange T-shirt as his Doctor.

Don’t let the Daleks or any of the classic monsters be the first to fear this new Doctor’s arrival. Give us an unseen species that will tremble at the very mention of his name as has been established.

The universe without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about but a universe where the Doctor is no longer remembered is a nail in the deflating tyre that is Doctor Who.