Doctor by Doctor 12

Scotch on the Rocks

Peter Capaldi, 2013-17

When I began these Doctor by Doctor articles, it was 2013, running down to the series' fiftieth anniversary. I had originally intended to continue with the twelfth Doctor in 2014, but decided that I wanted to see more of him before I wrote about him in depth. Now, with the thirteenth Doctor's debut series imminent, it's time to do the old boy justice.

Peter Capaldi is the second Scottish fanboy to achieve his life's ambition to play the Doctor. A man who once, in his teens, headed the Doctor Who Fan Club and used to write in to the Radio Times about the series. Capaldi had, almost twenty years before finally becoming the Doctor, been one of the many who auditioned to be the eighth Doctor, and it's entirely possible to imagine him in that role. He's one of the very few actors who could have played the Doctor as a young, dashing romantic and a cantankerous old man, and he brings tremendous charisma to a version of the character that could very easily have been quite unlikeable.

The odd thing about the twelfth Doctor is that he is characterised quite differently throughout each of his three seasons. Of course, there are flashbacks and forwards to other elements of his character throughout, but it's still possible to divide the twelfth Doctor into three distinct periods. In series eight, he is angry, harsh, unapproachable. In series nine, he's the rock and roll Doctor, punky and spiky and unpredictable. In series ten, he's older, a fatherly figure and teacher. Humour and anger and extraordinary grumpiness comes and goes throughout his long, long life, but that's the general pattern.

This could be seen as an inconsistent characterisation, but the fourth Doctor had distinct phases to his character as well. In fact, the gradual shift from the exceptionally prickly Doctor of series eight to the more likeable, more compassionate Doctor of series ten could be seen as the sixth Doctor's journey done right, or even a return to first principles for the Doctor, the same journey he went through in his first few seasons back in the monochrome days.

Let's go back to the twelfth Doctor's beginnings, in the closing moments of “The Time of the Doctor.” To begin with, the twelfth Doctor is over-the-top and silly, much like most of his incarnations in the moments after a regeneration. As usual, his new brain takes a little while to settle down. Acting on some subconscious impulse, he takes the TARDIS to London in the nineteenth century (via an awkward encounter with an oversized tyrannosaur) to where he feels safe, with his trusted allies the Paternoster Gang. While there, he pieces his new personality together while piecing together the mystery of the half-faced man.

An immediate mystery to the Doctor himself is his new choice of face. By now aware that he is selecting his own faces, albeit subconsciously, he is baffled as to why he's picked this scowling, gaunt visage, with its attack eyebrows. We're given two explanations, both valid and true, and both go back to his previous incarnations. During the events of “The Day of the Doctor,” the Doctor faced up to his past as the Warrior, and finally stopped running from his past. He finally stopped pretending to be a fresh-faced young man, and accepted that he was an ancient being with terrible things in his past. Perhaps more importantly, Clara had seen him as this: an old soldier with blood on his hands, and had accepted him as such. Finally, he could let the mask slip. The eleventh Doctor had revelled in his youthful looks and had embraced his flirtatious, and often quite shallow, relationship with Clara.

It may seem odd that the Doctor would regenerate to become physically older. As Clara says, “he doesn't look renewed.” However, it's easy to forget in the hullabaloo of the regeneration that the Doctor spent nine centuries on Trenzalore, growing old and infirm, watching those he protected age and die around him. We only see the tiniest glimpses of the Doctor's life on Trenzalore, and almost all of these moments are in the presence of Clara, for whom he puts on his mask. The Doctor grows ancient in Christmas Town, and has finally accepted his own mortality, only to have a last moment reprieve from the distant Time Lords. After all those centuries, the Doctor was prepared for his final moments, ancient and withered, and Clara was there at the very end. Apart from his brief “reset” before fully regenerating, the Doctor becomes considerably younger in his new incarnation, but still allows himself to appear middle-aged and mature. He can be forgiven for thinking Clara will accept him like this. Of course, she does in time, but to begin with she is completely thrown. It's understandable, of course; every time she saw the Doctor as old and grey, she got her young Doctor back. This time, the old man is there to stay.

“You don't see me, do you?”

Of course, we later learn the other reason that the Doctor decided on the face of Peter Capaldi. In “The Girl Who Died,” there's a sudden and jarring flashback to “The Fires of Pompeii,” a then eight-year-old episode in which Capaldi played the Roman citizen Caecilius. The twelfth Doctor barely remembers much of his time as the tenth, if his tenuous recognition of the clockwork robots and the SS Madame de Pompadour is anything to go by. And yet, this one experience with Donna in Pompeii is etched into his memory. The face of Caecilius, the man he saved, is there in the mirror, as a reminder to be compassionate, to think of human lives when history is on the brink. Because the Doctor knows, as well as his companions know, that without that reminder, he can so easily become a monster.

To begin with, the twelfth Doctor is a particularly difficult person to be around. Given how hard Clara has found it to adjust to his new appearance, you'd think he'd go a little easy on her, but no, he's spectacularly hard to love early on. There's an understanding, though, between them, and she copes with his abrasiveness as long as it isn't directed at her too much. Clara acts as a buffer between the Doctor and everyone else in the universe. To the outsider looking in, it would like he just doesn't really care about anyone else, but it's quite the opposite. The Doctor cares intensely about everyone he sees, suffering or in trouble. So, he puts up barriers: his attitude, his anger, his face, those eyebrows. Everything is designed to keep the rest of the universe at bay. However, get past those barriers, become someone the Doctor cares about, and he'll become fiercely, even frighteningly loyal.

“She's my carer! She cares, so I don't have to.”

It's no surprise, really, that the Doctor has started to put these barriers up between himself and the universe. He's just spent centuries in one place, far longer than we've ever seen him stay put before, doing his best to defend a town from a war arguably of his own making. He's seen countless people grow old and die, while he himself has carried on, and even when death seemed certain, he regenerated again. Is it so strange that after all that he has become unapproachable, even a little callous? Equally, he has begun to seriously question himself, asking Clara if he's a good man, concerned that he's grown cruel during the centuries. Of course, we know the Doctor is a good man, albeit one who has the capacity to turn the wrong way at any moment. He needs people with him to keep him thinking clearly; too much time alone and he can become cold, alien, and obsessive. He has a distinctly odd morality: he'll speak passionately about how he hates to hear pigs crying over their fate, but will happily eat offal. He'll lecture of remaining detached, then punch a racist in the face. He'll go to the end of time to save his friend, then shoot an ally in cold blood. He'll express sympathy for Davros, one of his most hated enemies, but use his plans against him and destroy his creations horribly. It's never quite clear what he'll do next.

His aggressive dislike of the military perhaps stems from his time on Trenzalore as well. He still carries immense guilt for his actions in the Time War, even though he no longer has the burden of Gallifrey's destruction on his back, but there's more to it. After the events of “Day of the Doctor,” the Doctor had finally begun to come to terms with his actions in the War, and he was suddenly pitched directly into another. On Trenzalore, he was mayor and general at once, standing over those who went into battle. Danny Pink isn't wrong when he identifies the Doctor as an officer, one who gives orders and lords over the lower ranks. The Doctor's hatred of soldiers is his own self-hatred turned outward, and Danny's observation cuts him to the core.

Perversely, this comes in the episode at which he is most like the eleventh Doctor, with a lot of his previous self showing. The Doctor is daffier when he's pretending to be the Caretaker than at any other time since his regeneration, and is still prone to occasionally forgetting, it seems, that he no longer looks like Matt Smith. Fittingly, he's hilariously convinced that Clara has fallen for a teacher who bears a passing resemblance to his former self. Instead, she falls for a former soldier, someone who the Doctor disapproves of on principle, and unfairly mocks because of it (unfortunately, the fact that Danny is played by black actor Samuel Anderson adds a racial subtext to the Doctor's superior attitude, that was surely unintentional).

Doctor by Doctor Index

Having finally completed my eleventh Doctor piece (look, I was a bit Doctor Who'd out after Christmas, regular nonsense shall resume shortly), it seems as good a time as any to look back over the year-and-a-bit long project. It seemed like a fine idea to explore and analyse the changing face of the Doctor and the series for the anniversary year. How well it came out, well, I'll leave the readers to be the judge of that. The articles seem to have been fairly popular. I enjoyed writing them, even the rather long tenth Doctor piece. Well, he did technically count as two incarnations, so why not go on a bit longer?

Below are quick links to each of the eleven main articles, followed by the four 'Side-Step' articles that covered some of the extra incarnations of the Doctor. Which Doctors were included in this was a little arbitrary. I decided to write about the other first Doctor, Richard Hurndall, who stood in for the late William Hartnell in The Five Doctors. He counts as a Doctor to me, even if he is standing in for another actor. The same goes for Peter Cushing; the movies may not be canonical Doctor Who, but they are a major part of the experience, and some of the first Doctor Who that many of us saw. Richard E. Grant was the official ninth Doctor for all of a few months, and in the Wilderness Years, this was a big deal. And naturally, John Hurt's War Doctor is included, but is a Side-Step by dint of arriving out of sequence and not warranting a full-length essay due to his reduced screentime.

Brief accounts of yet more versions of the Doctor can be found in the "Other Doctor" articles, listed right at the end. Happy reading, Who-heads.

1) A Citizen of the Universe (William Hartnell, 1963-66)
2) The Cosmic Hobo (Patrick Troughton, 1966-69)
3) Licence to Frill (Jon Pertwee, 1970-74)
4) Bohemian Rhapsody (Tom Baker, 1974-81)
5) Captain of the Team (Peter Davison, 1981-84)
6) Loud, Proud and Dangerous to Know (Colin Baker, 1984-86)
7) The Man With the Plan (Sylvester McCoy, 1987-96)
8) Through the Wilderness (Paul McGann, 1996-2003)
9) Working Class Hero (Christopher Eccleston, 2005)
10) Earth's Champion (David Tennant, 2005-10)
11) A Madman With a Box (Matt Smith, 2010-13)

Sidestep 1) Grandad, We Love You (Peter Cushing)
Sidestep 2) The Stand-In Delivers (Richard Hurndall)
Sidestep 3) Cheer Up, Goth (Richard E. Grant)
Sidestep 4) The Missing Link (John Hurt)

The Other Doctors:
1) On Stage and Screen
2) On Audio
3) Pasts, Potentials and Parallels

Doctor by Doctor #11

A Madman with a Box

Matt Smith, 2010-13

In 2010, Doctor Who underwent one of the greatest reinventions in its long history, with almost the entire cast and the bulk of the core creative team changing. Steven Moffat built on the foundation laid down by Russell T. Davies, but simultaneously wiped the slate clean and imposed his own unique vision on the series. From the outset, with brand new opening titles and an idiosyncratic, up-tempo arrangement of the theme music, the series boldly declared that it had changed. Into this stepped a new Doctor, starting his life afresh with a wholly new set of supporting characters. Even his TARDIS regenerated along with him.


Following the massively popular David Tennant was the most difficult task for any Doctor since Peter Davison took over from Tom Baker in 1981. Yet even Davison had fame on his side to ease the transition. Of all the names bandied about by speculative fans and columnists, no one predicted Matt Smith. While he had already garnered critical praise for his screen work, Smith was a relative unknown in 2010. I don't think anyone expected the new lead of the BBC's premier fantasy series to be a 26-year-old footballer, let alone that he would so successfully come to inhabit the part and make it his own.


Again paralleling Davison's time in the role, Smith was criticised initially for being too young. At twenty-six when he began filming, Smith is the youngest of the Doctors by several years, still only in his early thirties now that he has left the role. And yet, he embodies the great age of the Doctor like no one else. Given his youth, Smith has further to go to convince viewers of his character's age, and so he puts his all into it. And yet, he is simultaneously so fresh and childlike. He brings many ages to his performance, but never his own. He is both the old man in the young man's body, and the enthusiastic child dressing up as an adult.


While he put his own stamp on the part, Smith nonetheless embraced his predecessors' performances. Being a child of the Wilderness Years, he had not grown up with Doctor Who, and instead threw himself into research. Like all right-minded individuals, he became particularly enamoured of Patrick Troughton's performance, and much of this shows through in his own. A very physical actor, Smith has a sort of graceful clumsiness that allows him to capture the Troughton-like quality of appearing more foolish and less capable than he really is.


Smith's costume also carries hints of Troughton's. Moffat came up with several suggestions for the Doctor's new look, most of which were self-consciously modern and cool, and nothing like what the Doctor would wear. Smith instead suggested a tweed jacket, adding braces and a bowtie. Moffat disliked the look, thinking it to be old-fashioned and a fancy dress version of the Doctor's costume. Smith, on the other hand, was immediately comfortable, realising that his Doctor was, unlike his predecessor, not cool at all. While the braces and bowtie, not to mention the succession of ridiculous hats, recalls the second Doctor's outfit, there is also both a hint of both the professor and the student about it, a touch of Henry Jones Jr. Such was its success, that 2010 saw a sudden increase in sales of both Harris tweeds and bowties, as young men took up the new fashion.


Later variations in the costume are more obviously dressy, with the eleventh Doctor clearly having an everyday look and a smarter look for special occasions. His little seen green peacoat added a touch of flare in the latter half of the sixth season, while his white tie ensemble only came out for the most important events, such as weddings or his own imminent death. For the final half of season seven, the Doctor reverted to a Victorian look, with both an everyday pseudo-Victorian version that combines the classic and modern, and a plusher winter variation for the 19^th century itself (his Christmas outfit, in fact). The purplish frock coat, combined with the braces and bowtie, give this ensemble hints of both the second and third Doctors. More obviously, though, is that the gradual return to old-fashioned outfits belies a series becoming evermore comfortable with its own past, an approach that would reach its culmination in the fiftieth anniversary year celebrations.

The face of William Hartnell was seen no fewer than four times in Smith's first season, as the series began to explore its own background once more. As we learned about the Doctor's latest life, we learned more about his past selves. There have been brief insights into the Doctor's past over the years, but suddenly we got a stream of information, adding to and rewriting the Time Lord's past. As well as the astonishing revelation of a hidden incarnation, we learned of his old friends and influences like the Corsair, saw his infant cot (why was he carrying it around with him?), and even saw him, in his first body, about to leave Gallifrey with Susan.

Most surprising, though, was The Doctor's Wife, an episode that amounts to an origin story for the TARDIS. It's easy to imagine the eleventh Doctor calling the TARDIS “the most beautiful thing [he's] ever seen,” but a little harder to imagine it coming from the first Doctor. Still, it fits with how we've seen the Doctor act towards the TARDIS through his lives. Over the years, the time-and-space machine has developed from a mere machine, albeit a remarkable one, to a living entity, to mathematics embodied, to a true character in her own right. It was only a matter of time before the Doctor came face to face with his longest, truest, most faithful companion. Having the soul of the Ship in the body of Suranne Jones helps articulate it, but we've always known that the Doctor loved his Ship, and his Ship loved her thief. It's a love story between a bloke and his car, told across time and space.

The latest phase of Doctor Who has proved to be one of its most controversial, hitting new heights of worldwide popularity while also attracting great criticism. Showrunner Steven Moffat has built on the foundations set by Russell T. Davies and sculpted a version of Doctor Who unique to his own sensibilities. The series has undoubtedly become more complex, with ongoing storylines playing out over the four years of Matt Smith's tenure. Numerous mysteries are raised and explored throughout the series, with their ultimate explanations deferred. Whether this approach is successful depends on the individual viewer. Certainly, it is an approach that has divided fans.


Moffat's Doctor Who is one of fairytale logic, in which lives are stories to be written and rewritten. This is a version of the universe in which people can be erased from history, and then wished back into existence. In which a man who lives on a cloud can be accessed by climbing an invisible staricase, and a mysterious caretaker can drop round for Christmas with a world in a box. Time travel works like magic, and consequences occur before events; but it's a magic without defined rules, and often events seem to just happen, with little explanation. There's a clear sense that both the Doctor's past and future are catching up with him, converging at his present. Indeed, every major event in the eleventh Doctor's life is a result of his final battle. The events on Trenzalore rebound back down his timeline, with the “endless, bitter war” of the Kovarian chapter leading to the destruction of the TARDIS, itself causing the cracks in time that release Prisoner Zero into the world to become the first foe the eleventh Doctor faces.


Doctor Who has changed vastly over the fifty years of its history. Once a long-running serial, it developed into a series of enclosed serials, and then returned from cancellation as a series of one and two episode adventures. By the end of its fiftieth year it was comprised of short runs of singular episode stories, linked together in a narrative spanning years, both more and less serialised than it has ever been. The series had, by now, developed from one in which the Doctor was a peripheral character, to one in which he was the star, and now to one in which he was the centre of the universe. There had been stories which revolved around the Doctor before, but in the eleventh Doctor's run, very few episodes involve the Doctor simply dropping in somewhere and finding a problem. He is summoned, pursued and targeted.

There has been a great deal of hyperbole over Doctor Who's diminishing ratings. Overnight ratings for television have been dropping across the board, not only for Doctor Who as more and more viewers turn to catch-up and time-shifted services. How many of these views are from unique viewers is unknown, though, but what is clear is that the way in which we watch television is changing. The series, then, has changed with it, embracing the possibilities of the medium with a plethora of mini-episodes that range from throwaway extras to essential chapters in the story. Even the arena of video games, a format that Doctor Who has never quite managed to succeed in, has finally opened up, with Smith voicing the Doctor for online Adventure Games and Nintendo console games. Even the jerky animation of the sprites works in its favour – Smith actually does walk like that.

The Doctor has been a mass of contradictions and mysteries throughout all his lives, and the eleventh Doctor is no exception. Physically the youngest we have ever seen him, the Doctor is now older than ever. Indeed, this incarnation lives for an unusually long time, with decades-long gaps between the adventures we see. While this has been supposed for his earlier incarnations, the eleventh Doctor's era makes it explicit, deliberately providing openings for unseen adventures. Even before his exceptionally long experiences in his final episode, the eleventh Doctor lasts for centuries, ageing from 906 to over 1200 during his three seasons. Even if we accept that the Doctor loses track of his age – he does say that he can't even remember if he's lying about his age – centuries must pass from his perspective. Yet he remains physically young throughout.

Doctor by Doctor #10

Earth's Champion

David Tennant, 2005-10

There's only been one actor who has threatened to knock Tom Baker off the top spot and gain the title of Most Popular Doctor, and that's David Tennant. In this fiftieth anniversary year, every media site and newspaper has run a poll to find readers' favourite Time Lord, and it's invariably one of those two that come out on top. Something about Tennant's performance has propelled him to superstar status among Doctor Who fans. Certainly, it was during his tenure that the series truly took off and became a must-see fixture of television. For its first series, Doctor Who was a surprise success; during its second, it became a runaway triumph, and no little part of that is down to David Tennant.


Perhaps the aspect that comes through most in Tennant's performance is his sheer joy at being the Doctor. Young David McDonald grew up watching the show, developing an ambition to become an actor due to his enthusiasm for television like Doctor Who. Indeed, he has admitted himself that he became an actor basically because, one day, he wanted to be the Doctor. Taking the stage name of Tennant – pinched from Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, proving his eighties geek credentials – David McDonald began a slow rise to stardom. The usual small parts led to his breakthrough performance in BBC's Blackpool, and from then, to Russell T. Davies's first production for the Beeb, Casanova. Indeed, Tennant's turn as Giacomo Casanova can easily be viewed as a dry run for his time as the Doctor. He plays the part of the Doctor much the same, minus the shagging and the swearing. The bravado, the mad sense of adventure, the romantic streak, it's all there. Davies made no secret of the fact that his new star was an unabashed Who-head. When Christopher Eccleston's quitting the series was announced, the identity of his replacement was no mystery. Tennant was a shoe-in.


It's tempting to see the tenth Doctor and his era as the purer version of Davies's vision for the series. While Davies remained careful to drip-feed the sci-fi and myth elements into the series for fear of scaring off the Saturday night audience, the second season began to reveal more elements of the Doctor's universe. The ninth Doctor never even said the name Gallifrey, skirted around references to the original series, and never even left the Earth and its immediate environs. In his first year, the tenth Doctor went off planet, named dropped the Kaleds and Daemons and met Sarah Jane Smith and K-9. By series four, he was making off the cuff references to The Sensorites in high-concept sci-fi episodes. Tennant pours out his love for Peter Davison's performance face-to-face during Time Crash, but he also incorporates little hints of other Doctors. He rubs his neck like Pertwee and makes some distinctly Tom Baker-ish faces.


Set against that traditionalism, though, is the new, more likeable, more romantic version of the Doctor. The tenth Doctor is handsome, sexy and charming. For the first time, the Doctor was cool. You only have to look at the outfit. While it's got a hint of geek-chic and Britpop, it's a very modern take on the old-fashioned look of the earlier Doctors. It's recognisably a Doctorish look, but one that young men could, and soon did, take to emulating themselves. The pinstripe suit with the long coat and trainers is a look that works for a skinny younger man. It was a little annoying when the Doctor pinched it off me (actually, the tenth Doctor's look was apparently inspired by an outfit worn by TV chef Jamie Oliver, for which we should both feel ashamed). The in-universe origin of this snappy new Doctor is clear though: he's made for Rose.



It's inarguable that the tenth Doctor is more suited to being a partner for Rose than the ninth was. The ninth Doctor was as much a father figure as a potential love interest for Rose, and until the closing episodes of the first series Rose didn't seem to feel the same way about the Doctor as he did for her. The Bad Wolf event changes this, however; Rose falls for the Doctor when it seems that she is to be separated from him. Saving him, and the universe, against all odds, seals the deal for both of them. Each prepared to sacrifice themselves for the other, Rose and the Doctor are now inseparable. Then the Doctor changes, and the somewhat dour, damaged, older ninth Doctor becomes Rose's perfect boyfriend. He's still, physically, older than her, but not too old. He's handsome, but not in a classic, Hollywood, Captain Jack kind of way. The humour of his previous life comes easier, the snark is toned down, and the enthusiasm that once bubbled through now overflows. He's still the Doctor she came to love, but refined for the tastes of a young woman not quite out of her teens. It's no wonder the fangurls love him.


The new Doctor, unlike his predecessor, emphatically does “do domestic.” The first thing he does after the events of the Sycorax invasion, after he's picked out his outfit, is to settle down for Christmas dinner with Rose, Mickey and Jackie. It's impossible to imagine the ninth Doctor doing that. While this Doctor has flashes of eccentricity and antisocial behaviour – sticking his fingers in a pot of marmalade in a stranger's house, or occasionally being blunt to the point of rudeness – he is far more relatable, far more human, than almost any of his predecessors. The weirdest he gets is tasting things to determine their chemical make-up, a tendency not unlike his, similarly likeable, fifth incarnation's trick of smelling things out. He's a Doctor Rose can take home to her mum. Imagine her trying to take the eleventh Doctor home; he'd break things, set up experiments on the dinner table, spit wine on the floor. The tenth Doctor, for all his wanderlust, is thoroughly domesticated. He's even picked up Rose's estuary accent, all the better to help him fit in with her and her family. (It's a big change from either the heavily northern ninth Doctor or his posh predecessors, and notably the same mockney drawl Tennant used as Casanova.) He's not the only Doctor we've seen hanging around a council estate, but he's the only one we've seen who actually looks comfortable there. It all points to one thing: the Doctor has adapted to become the perfect partner for Rose. He's Doctor Tyler.

As an aside, there's a definite sense that the Doctor has finally developed some control over his regenerations. While his previous transformations often seemed to be a reaction against the version of the Doctor who was dying, it never seemed as though the Doctor was controlling the outcome, even though he showed no surprise when Kanpo or Romana picked their new forms. He clearly hasn't got it quite nailed yet – if he had, he'd be ginger – but the tenth Doctor really seems to have modelled his new appearance to deliberately become a better fit for Rose. It may not be conscious, but it's the definite implication. The modern process of regeneration is very different from its classic series counterpart, though. For one thing, it's far more uniform; previous regenerations varied hugely in appearance and effect, but from now on, all the Doctor's regenerations are of a kind, as are River's and the Master's. The first regeneration of this type that we see is that from the eighth Doctor to the War Doctor, which suggests that either it's something to do with the Sisterhood's special methods, or that it's some kind of upgrade given to Time Lords in the Time War.


The Doctor is even more formidable than before, able to shrug off a bolt of lightning or excrete Roentgen radiation through his toe, and to perform Spock-style mind melds. The regeneration itself doesn't go well – it can hardly have been designed to deal with chronic exposure to the time vortex – but even when the Doctor is recovering from his renewal, he is a force to be reckoned with. Then he goes and gets his hand hacked off, only to grow a new one, due to a hitherto unmentioned ability of Time Lords who are within the first fifteen hours of their regeneration. And his new hand - “it's a fightin' hand!” It all smacks of a wartime upgrade. Of course, the lost hand will come back to play a part in the Doctor's future. The tenth Doctor is fleet-footed and bursting with energy. And as for his hair – well, the Doctor's hair always manages, somehow, to style itself during regeneration, but how the hell does it gel itself up?


One aspect of the new Doctor that divides viewers is his attitude to the Time War, and his actions during it. On the surface, certainly, he appears to have gotten over the War at last. It no longer defines him the way it did in his ninth life. Watching closely, though, and this is clearly a front. The tenth Doctor is as pained by his actions in the War as the ninth was. Now we have a little more information, including the revelation that the ninth Doctor was, in fact, the tenth, and the tenth is really the eleventh. While this Doctor never mentions his forbidden incarnation – naturally – he refers to his actions in the War, to the Fall of Arcadia, to the final decision to end Gallifrey for the sake of the universe. By The Day of the Doctor, there's no pretending. He is still subsumed by the guilt of it all, and full of bitterness at the fact the Daleks keep returning, again and again. All the enthusiasm, the jokes, the endless, non-stop jabber – it's all another mask.


Another aspect that some fans wish to overlook is that the tenth Doctor is, by a country mile, the most arrogant of the Doctors. This is, of course, quite some achievement. Yet not even the sixth Doctor was ever quite so cocky and full of himself. The tenth Doctor, or course, can get away with it. He has an easy charm that makes him very difficult not to like (unless you're his companion's mum). He gets by on sheer charisma. It's no surprise that, during his aborted regeneration, he expresses disdain at the idea of changing form. “Why would I want to?” he asks. “Look at me!” The man is, in spite of his inner turmoil, completely in love with himself. On some occasions, his “I'm brilliant!” self-adoration will get him into trouble, particularly on the planet Midnight. This arrogance is evident from his earliest actions, and will come to overshadow his actions in throughout this incarnation, until, finally, it spells his end.


The Christmas Invasion is a perfect introduction for this new Doctor. One criticism some fans made of Eccleston's Doctor was that he didn't get directly involved; the ninth Doctor preferred to watch from the sidelines, nudging events towards a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes, this allowed situations to get out of hand, and his interference often had unforeseen negative consequences. In reaction against this criticism, the tenth Doctor's debut has him incapacitated for the bulk of its running time, and shows us how much impact the Doctor has on those around him. With him, even temporarily, out of the picture, Rose goes to pieces and the world is at the mercy of the Sycorax. Harriet Jones broadcasts a desperate plea for the Doctor's help, and all that Rose and her family can do is sit it out. Davies is plainly showing us how much impact the Doctor has on those around him, making them more capable by his mere presence.


And yet, the new Doctor embraces the criticism of standing at the sides, and to react against it. Once finally revitalised (by vapourised tea!) the tenth Doctor leaps into action, loudly working out his new persona while running rings round the Sycorax, before fighting the Chief for the fate of the Earth. Once he's back, he no longer stands on the sidelines; he's in the thick of the action from now on. The Doctor shows the defeated Chief some compassion, but fully anticipates his betrayal, nonchalantly dropping the warrior to his death. “No second chances; I'm that sort of a man.” It's a bold statement of intent.


More questionable, though, is his treatment of Harriet Jones. The Doctor allows the Sycorax to leave the Earth, with the warning that they should not return to Earth, for “it is defended.” From the off, the tenth Doctor declares his ties to his adopted homeworld, yet he seems to have no qualms in letting a shipful of slavers go off and, presumably, enslave someone else. The Prime Minister, however, realises she cannot rely on the fly-by-night Doctor being there at the right time, and orders Torchwood to destroy the ship. The Doctor rounds on her, turning his anger on humanity in general and Harriet in particular. We could argue all day over whether what she did was morally right – it's a blatant take on Thatcher's order to destroy a retreating vessel in the Falklands War, but not really comparable at all. She certainly has a point when she says that the Doctor isn't always there, that he comes and goes. Out of spite, the Doctor lays the seeds to destroy her career, and boasts while he does it. Not only is this a terrible betrayal of someone who trusted him, with Harriet out of office, the door is opened for one Harold Saxon to take power. The tenth Doctor's actions on his first day of life will come back to haunt him.

The Sonic Screwdriver: One element of the tenth Doctor's stories that created consternation amongst some fans is his total reliance on the sonic screwdriver. Whereas the ubiquitous tool was once used for manipulating screws, it has, over the years, developed more and harder to believe abilities. The Doctor probably kept bolting extra bits on. The tenth Doctor is never without it, using it to do everything from opening doors to miraculously fixing rocket engines. Fall all the technobabble, it is essentially a magic wand, performing whatever tasks the plot requires at the time, to the extent that an anti-screwdriver system, the deadlock seal, had to be invented to stop him using it. Often, he uses it in the manner of a Star Trek tricorder, only how he reads the data is anyone's guess. For all the jokes about putting up cabinets, one of the most common uses is being pointed at enemies in threat. What's the point of the Doctor refusing to pick up a gun, if he's just going to use his screwdriver as one?

The tenth Doctor might have occasion to berate humanity, but evidently adores them. He has a particular love of the twentieth century – not surprising, considering how much time he spent in it in earlier lives – and revels in pop culture, from the works of Agatha Christie to Ian Dury and the Blockheads to Ghosbusters. He is frivolous and facetious, throwing himself into adventure. His relationship with Rose becomes on of mutual adoration, and they are totally thick with one another. The one time the Doctor gets truly angry is when Rose is threatened, be it by Cassandra or the Wire, and his normally well-contained anger bubbles over into outright fury. That said, angry shouting Doctor isn't dangerous one, it's just another example of his getting overexcited and emotional. It's when he is finally quiet that you need to be afraid; it means he's just about to hand out the punishments.


There are times when his declaration of “no second chances” fails in light of his better judgment. This Doctor is still capable of compassion; right after his new mission statement, he takes pity on Cassandra and takes her back to her last good night. More often than not, however, the tenth Doctor is more than ready to dole out his own form of justice. “Don't go looking for a higher authority,” he states, “because there isn't one.” As the last of the Time Lords, the Doctor has taken on himself the role of supreme moral guardian of the universe. “I'm so old now,” he tells Mr Finch/Brother Lassar of the Krillitanes. “I used to have so much mercy.” He is tempted by his offer of mastery over time, but then turns on him, setting the Krillitanes up for a massacre. Perhaps the most contentious of actions are against the Family of Blood, where he avoids his self-appointed responsibility before lashing out and administering horrific, albeit poetic, punishments on the aliens. “The Doctor and the monsters, they go together,” says Reinette – but how different are they?

The Doctor's self-importance and zest for adventure rub off on Rose, and they become increasingly alike. Their bantering relationship rubs even their friends the wrong way, let alone those opposed to them. Queen Victoria is grateful for their help in defeating the werewolf, bestowing honours upon them, but then proceeds to banish them from the British Empire, citing their lust for danger as a terminal fault. The Doctor's lust for adventure can appear to be just a further sign of his arrogance, and influences, in this instance, the creation of Torchwood, as an organisation directly opposed to him. It's Rose who comes off worst in these adventures, though. The meeting between the tenth Doctor and Sarah Jane is an absolutely joyous moment for die-hard fans and those who watched the series in the seventies, reuniting the Doctor with one of his best-loved companions. It's also the point at which Rose becomes completely unlikeable, descending into complete bitchery and jealousy at the Doctor's “ex.” From this point out, her selfishness and self-obsession become hard to stomach, and the Doctor's adoration of her harder to fathom.

Sarah Jane Smith: It has to be said, the return of Lis Sladen as Sarah Jane is something of a phenomenon. It was a risk, bringing back a character from the original run of Doctor Who, but it worked, and not only for those viewers who watched the series back in the seventies and the die-hard fans. The kids loved Sarah Jane, for the same reasons they loved her back in 1973 – she's a great character, and Sladen brings her to life beautifully. Having reintroduced both Sarah and K-9 to the viewing public with School Reunion, Davies then went ahead and gave Sladen her own series. The proliferation of spin-offs just is testament to Doctor Who's success in this period – we had The Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, Totally Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential, and, unofficially, the K-9 Series. SJA was the undoubtedly the greatest triumph, though, a series that reinvigorated children's television the same way its parent series revived Saturday night family viewing, and so much of that is down to Lis Sladen's performance.

Rose and the Doctor continue to adventure together, with Mickey along for the ride for just long enough to deposit him on the parallel Earth and give him a little closure. Certainly, Mickey's relationship with “the boss” is far easier than with the previous Doctor, due in no small part to his own improved self-confidence, and also the fact that he has finally gotten over Rose. The Doctor also has a far greater respect for the young man, although he does till tease him mercilessly. The happy couple continue on their adventures, despite the overhanging threat that something, somehow, will spit them up. The Doctor doesn't seem to take these vague prophecies too seriously (he'll learn his lesson regarding this later), and is more unnerved about Rose's suggestion that they get a house together when he loses his TARDIS on Krop Tor.

Doctor by Doctor (Sidestep 4)

The Missing Link

John Hurt, 2013

The forgotten Doctor. The War Doctor. The Hurt Doctor. The Renegade. The Warrior. Call him what you will, John Hurt is the Doctor. In a bold move, Steven Moffat has inserted a previously unknown incarnation into the Doctor's timeline. It's strangely appropriate that he is, in fact, the ninth incarnation of the Doctor. There have been so many ninth Doctors now that it's getting tough keeping track, and it's ironic that the official ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, turns out to actually be the tenth. However, to avoid having to renumber the last three Doctors, Hurt's version is destined to be known as the War Doctor, the only one without a number.







It's impossible to overstate how major a coup the casting of John Hurt is. Hurt is probably the most distinguished and respected actor to ever play the Doctor, even when compared to the likes of Eccleston, Cushing and Troughton. There's a hilariously off-the-mark review of The Day of the Doctor on Amazon that suggests he is “best known as the voice of the dragon on Merlin.” a fabulously ignorant comment that overlooks acclaimed roles in Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Elephant Man, Alien, The Naked Civil Servant and I, Claudius. He holds four BAFTAs and two Oscars. Hurt is a big deal, his husky tones instantly recognisable, bringing an immediate air of authority and gravitas to the role of the Doctor. In story terms, he stands in for the elder Doctors of the series' earliest days; a reminder of when the old man looked like an old man.


Maddeningly, there are some fans who actually see this as a waste. Some are angry that Moffat has created a new incarnation of the Doctor, seeing it as shortening the Doctor's lifespan by using up one of his regenerations. Never mind that he will surely come up with a get-out clause or some kind of plot development to give the Doctor more lives – these fans are opposed to that too. Yes, there really are fans of Doctor Who who would rather the series end than go against a decades old continuity point. Others see it as wasting John Hurt, by using him for a single special rather than casting him as the Doctor full time. Quite how they expect this to happen is unclear – a seventy-three-year-old man is not going to sign up for thirteen episodes of action drama made to a punishing schedule, let alone one as in demand and as expensive as John Hurt. Getting him in to play a one-off incarnation is a gift, and we should make the most of it.


The Doctor's ninth incarnation came into existence at the decision of the eighth. At the insistence of the Sisterhood of Karn, long-standing rivals of the Time Lords, the Doctor, after who-knows-how-long watching from the sidelines, to become involved in the Time War that was ravaging the universe. The Doctor demands to made into a warrior, his regeneration specifically tailored to make him into a soldier. The regeneration leaves him young, fresh-faced, tousle-haired – not unlike the younger eighth Doctor. A clever use of footage from Hurt's early career – I am reliably informed it is from The Ghoul, which saw him co-star with Peter Cushing – gives us this incarnation's very beginnings in The Night of the Doctor. “Doctor no more,” mutters this new man, gazing at his new face.


When we catch up with him, centuries have passed. We can surmise that the eighth Doctor lasted for a long while, but that's nothing compared to the Warrior. He appears a good forty years older than in his first moments, which for a Time Lord, must have taken hundreds upon hundreds of years. The War Doctor says he's about four hundred years younger than the eleventh Doctor, aged around 1200. This suggests the War Doctor ends his life at around eight hundred years old, which also, unexpectedly, suggests the ninth Doctor spent a whole century travelling before encountering Rose Tyler. We can't surmise the War Doctor's longevity, however, since the ages given in the new series do not correlate at all with those given in the original run. One possibility is that the Doctor started counting his age over from the beginning of his Warrior incarnation, but this is supposition.


His physical appearance reveals his long life; he is silver-haired, grizzled and, unlike most incarnations, proudly sports a beard. He dresses in a fashion that is mostly practical, as one might expect from a man who spends much of his time in a war zone, but there is still a Doctorish flair to his look. He wears a waistcoat and scarf that bring to mind the clothes of his previous self, but topped with a distressed leather jacket. In fact, it appears to be the same jacket as worn by Eccleston, although even more battered. Eccleston's Doctor swapped his for a less fatigued copy as the series progressed, so perhaps he's bought a few in the same style? Or maybe the jacket regenerated with him! The oldest item he wears is a bandolier, which he took from the body of gunship pilot Cass in the first seconds after his regeneration. It's a clear statement: he's a soldier now.


The new Doctor rejects his title from the off, distancing himself from his other incarnations. Really, though, he's lying to himself. The various incarnations of the Doctor are all versions of the same man. “Same software, different casing.” It was the eighth Doctor who decided to become a warrior, and notably, the ninth, tenth and eleventh Doctors all accept responsibility for their actions in the War. The Doctor doesn't claim not to have fought, or not to have destroyed Gallifrey. Yet he buries the version of himself that actually did the deed, refusing to acknowledge him or even refer to him as the Doctor. It's a twisted sort of rationalisation that lets the Doctor absolve himself of some of the guilt – a sort of “It was me, but it wasn't me,” splitting of hairs.

Perhaps the jettisoning of the name “Doctor” allows the War Doctor to act in ways that he wouldn't normally countenance. He can perform terrible acts in battle, half-justifying them to himself by not being the Doctor while he does it. It isn't clear what title he goes by during the War years, although the majority of others involved seem to continue referring to him as Doctor. He gets quite angry when the interface of the Moment refers to him as such, but as she says, that's the name in his head. The Daleks certainly refer to him as such, but then, “Doctor” has always been a dirty word to them. (It's a mystery why the Dalek info-stamp seen in The Next Doctor doesn't include this incarnation. OK the Doctor never refers to him in his own rundowns, but the Daleks would surely recognise this version more than any other.)


We've seen more of the Time War now than we ever expected to see, but the vast majority of it remains lost, time-locked away. We have only snatches of what happened to the Doctor during those long years of war. References to the Nightmare Child, the Fall of the Cruciform, the Meanwhiles and Never-Weres and the Skaro Degradations all sound ominous, but they tell us little. We've only seen the Doctor fight on the very last day of the War, taking down a squadron of Daleks using his TARDIS like a battering ram, before making off into the wilderness with the Moment, ready to doom Gallifrey. On the surface of it, the Doctor's hatred of this incarnation – of himself – is due to his decision to destroy his own people, but there must surely have been other atrocities during the War. This Doctor already has blood on his hands.


It isn't clear how involved the Doctor was with the House Military. He can demand a gun from an overwhelmed soldier at the Battle of Arcadia, but the General of the War Council refers to him as a lunatic and seems to want nothing to do with him. Knowing the Doctor, he wouldn't have taken to following orders with ease. Whatever he has done, by the last day of the War the guilt is clearly bearing down on him. He is tired, angry and even suicidal, admitting that he has “no desire to survive” his actions with the Moment.


Yet, for all his battle-hardened weariness, he is still the Doctor, and still displays many of the Doctor's perennial traits. He is witty, sarcastic, and compassionate. Encountering his future selves brings out his waspish side, but also reignites a spark of hope and joy. As he observes, his future incarnations seem frightened of being grown up, using childish turns of phrase. Following the War incarnation, the Doctor's regenerations make him progressively younger. It's a further distancing of himself from his wartime past. When he made the final, fateful decision to destroy Gallifrey, he was an old man; by becoming younger and younger physically he is trying to prove he is a different man.


Ultimately, the Doctor comes to realise he cannot win the War. Sick of the carnage, of time and space burning, people dying and being resurrected only to die again, the Doctor returns to Gallifrey on the day of its fall. Gallifrey couldn't hope to repel the Daleks. The War Council was hopelessly lost, the High Council turning to more and more terrifying schemes to ensure their own survival. Ultimately, with the Daleks poised to take Gallifrey and Rassilon ready to destroy all of creation to secure his own life, the Doctor took the Moment, Gallifrey's greatest weapon, and withdrew to the wastes of Outer Gallifrey to activate it. The Doctor activated the Moment, destroying the Time Lords and the Daleks and dooming himself to an eternity of regret.

Except, that isn't how it happened. Not any more. The cornerstone of the new series' backstory has been overturned. The Day of the Doctor saw the Moment, its psychic interface taking the form of the Doctor's own saviour, Rose Tyler, save him from having to make this most appalling decision. A vision of his own future gives him strength and hope, and between three of his personae, he comes up with another option. Perhaps having three Doctors present sparked bigger ideas in their head. Perhaps the eleventh Doctor has had centuries to wonder what he could have done differently. Perhaps all the War Doctor needed was some hope. All thirteen extant incarnations of the Doctor cross their own timelines to assist in shunting Gallifrey into a pocket dimension, at the very moment the Dalek fleet launches its final attack. Gallifrey is hidden, somewhere in space and time, kept in stasis, but safe. The Dalek fleet annihilates itself in its own grotesque attack. Gallifrey is saved, and so is the Doctor.


Sadly, due to the effects of crossing his own timestream (and to maintain the narrative of the last eight years of Doctor Who on television), the War Doctor is unable to retain his memory of the new timeline. For the outside universe, it will look as though Gallifrey was destroyed, and it's the same for the Doctor. All he will remember is taking the Moment with the intention of detonating it, and waking up afterwards in the TARDIS, with Gallifrey gone. Yet the guilt he carries with him through his next three incarnations will make him tougher, stronger, and more compassionate. The loss of Gallifrey inspires the Doctor to fight even harder to do the right thing, across the universe. And from the eleventh Doctor's present, with his memory of the intervention intact, he is vindicated. The War Doctor is, truly, the Doctor – just as he always was.



Entering his TARDIS, the War Doctor immediately begins to regenerate. It's not quite clear why this happens. All we get is a self-referential suggestion that he is “wearing a bit thin.” Certainly, he is an old man, but he has seemed in good health so far. Perhaps the cumulative damage of the War was more extensive than it appeared. Or perhaps it's simply time. In the original timeline, the Doctor activated the Moment, and while he was sentenced to live, we can presume the effect was enough to trigger his regeneration. To maintain the Doctor's personal history, he had to regenerate then, as soon as he stepped back into his own timestream. And, gleefully, he does so, ready to leave his life as a warrior behind, and become a new man again. He burns with energy and regenerates into his tenth incarnation – the so-called ninth Doctor. There's even a glimpse of Eccleston amongst the flames. Appropriately, this undreamed of incarnation has granted the Doctor a new past, and prepared him for a new future.

Doctor by Doctor #9

Working Class Hero

Christopher Eccleston, 2005

In 2005, Doctor Who finally returned to our screens, nine years after the false start of the TV movie, and almost sixteen years since the original series ceased broadcasting. Russell T. Davies, along with fellow executive producers Mal Young and Julie Gardner, brought Doctor Who to a new generation of children, as well as legions of old fans who kept the faith, and millions of otherwise sensible grown-ups who had once dismissed the series and now found themselves hooked. When the BBC commissioned the series, there was a great deal of trepidation and concern. Many people believed that the series was a relic from the past, and that a relaunch would be doomed to fail. They were wrong. The new Doctor Who was a huge success – but it was very different to the original.


I first saw Rose, the very first episode of the relaunched series, at the BBC five days before transmission. Others had downloaded a leaked rough cut, but I decided not to give in to temptation. It was worth the wait. The new Doctor Who was wonderful, the new Doctor was fantastic, but to an old school fan like me, it was all so very different. It was faster, funnier, aggressively modern and brilliantly written. Looking back, eight years on (eight years!), it all seems a little quaint, but at the time, this was the very pinnacle of Doctor Who. Yet, for all the rapid editing, contemporary setting and Davies-styled dialogue, one thing really stood out: the new Doctor.


Following the announcement that the series was to return, we engaged in fevered speculation concerning the casting of the Doctor. Christopher Eccleston was not a favoured choice. I can't think of anyone suggesting his name in the run up to the announcement. Eccleston was not a name that was associated with the characteristics of the Doctor. He was – and still is – associated with severe, stern roles, hard-hitting dramas and gritty realism. Aside from an unexpected turn as an eccentric in The League of Gentlemen, the one production that might have suggested what we could expect was The Second Coming. This, a previous Russell T. Davies creation, starred Eccleston as the son of God – and was nothing like their version of Doctor Who. For a fast-paced, frequently silly, Buffy-styled version of Doctor Who, Eccleston seemed like a very odd fit. If there was one thing his many respected performances had in common, it was that they were not much like the Doctor at all. That's what made his casting such a masterstroke. Eccleston's casting was a huge coup for the series. A genuinely well-respected actor, critically acclaimed, his casting leant an immediate touch of respectability to a show that had long been seen as inconsequential rubbish. Very probably the best actor to ever play the Doctor, Christopher Eccleston brought a unique intensity to the role, but could also be surprisingly humorous and camp.

"I've changed a lot since the old days."

The ninth Doctor is, in many ways, very unlike his previous selves. For the kids who were discovering the series for the first time, this was irrelevent – Eccleston was the Doctor, as simple as that. But for us old-school fans, he was very different. Elements that had appeared throughout his incarnations, to a greater or lesser degree, were notable by their absence. The new Doctor's appearance is of particular note. Eccleston's peculiar features are accentuated by the severely short haircut he commonly sports, so he remains striking in any outfit. However, the ninth Doctor, unlike his flamboyant former selves, dresses like a normal man of the 20^th or 21^st centuries. The battered leather jacket, dark sweater, black jeans and boots are notable for nothing so much as their straightforwardness. It's a far simpler look than his predecessors wore, and far more practical – it's certainly more suitable for travelling and adventuring than a velvet frock coat. This Doctor can slip unnoticed wherever he goes – even in periods of history where his clothing was unusually reserved. He might get branded as a navvy, or even a U-boat captain, but the look he sports doesn't grab attention. For once, he dresses like an ordinary bloke – for in many ways, the ninth Doctor is an ordinary bloke. Yet, in his head he has a gigantic wealth of knowledge, a encyclopaedia of the universe that gives him a unique outlook. He's “got five billion languages,” can narrow down the homeworld of the Slitheen by a elimination, and has the complete future history of human civilisation on hand to check his experiences against.


For all his miraculous technology, his alien outlook and centuries of experience, the ninth Doctor is grounded and unpretentious. Sure, he has moments of arrogance, but while he complains about the “stupid apes” that he's here to protect, he never puts himself above them. He keeps himself separate from the human world, but in the manner of a loner and outsider, rather than a great elder statesman stepping down from on high. He's a Time Lord, but he's no longer lordly. Part of this is down to the casting of Eccleston, a proud Salford lad. Previous Doctors all had a degree of poshness, from the Received Pronunciation of Hartnell to the overbearing annunciation of Colin Baker. Tom Baker and Paul McGann downplayed their Liverpudlian lilts, and even McCoy's Scots brogue had a bit of the posh to it. Eccleston's working class Manc accent is something new for the Doctor, and changes the way the character comes across. Davies makes the most of this in his scripts - “Lots of planets have a north!” being the most celebrated line – but other writers had a hard time adapting to it, their scripts notoriously haunted by “the ghost of Pertwee.” With Davies's guidance and Eccleston's performance, though, a new kind of Doctor was created – it's hard to imagine earlier Doctor's saying “This is me, swanning off,” or “Yeah, mate, not now, eh?” Let alone something like “what the hell?” as mild as that would be in any other drama. There's a casual masculinity to this Doctor that is mostly absent from his forerunners. He's frequently physical and aggressive, but in a rough and ready way, rather than the Queensbury Rules style of his third self. Yet there's still a camper side to him that comes out from time to time, usually when he's joking about moisturising.



All of this is surface stuff though. The real difference is at the root of the character. Rather than rebooting the series, as so many telly execs would have done, Davies opted to make a continuation of the original. However, he made a distinct break with the past, setting the new series very much as Doctor Who – volume two. The ninth Doctor is a survivor of the Time War, a catastrophic conflict that we have gradually learnt more about over the course of the series. This casting of the Doctor as a veteran of war changes the ethos of the series to a degree. While the Doctor left Gallifrey and began travelling the universe for still uncertain reasons, there has always been a sense that he's just doing it all for the fun of it, with good deeds and occasional missions just getting in the way. From now on, it's different; the Doctor is running from his past, and in his ninth incarnation, trying to atone for his actions. The Time War divides the series in two, with the first eight Doctors lying before it, the ninth Doctor and his successors coming after, and accordingly, we know little about the beginnings of the ninth Doctor. He was, in his successor's words, “born in battle,” and either he or his predecessor made the decision to destroy Gallifrey in order to end the War. Whatever caused his predecessor's regeneration, it seems likely it was tied to the events of the War; indeed, the War and its fallout define the ninth Doctor and his single series of the show.

Doctor by Doctor (Sidestep 3)

Cheer Up Goth

Richard E. Grant, 2003

In 2003, Doctor Who was celebrating an anniversary. A number of special audio productions, novels and non-fiction books were released to celebrate the series' fortieth year. When 2003 began, the Doctor had eight official incarnations. By the time the year was out, he had acquired a ninth – but not the one most fans are familiar with.

Once again, some historical background. In the absence of a TV series, BBCi (then the name for the BBC’s internet presence) had begun increasing Doctor Who's official internet presence, culminating in several webcasts, brand new Doctor Who for the twenty-first century. First there was Death Comes to Time, an abandoned 2000 radio pilot which was reworked for online streaming with some limited animation as an accompaniment. The first episode's success led to the production of a full, five-part serial, the animated illustrations becoming more vital to the following of the plot as it progressed. This peculiar story took an epic approach to Doctor Who, relaunching with Sylvester McCoy's seventh Doctor and eventually killing him all over again. Something of a curate's egg, it was popular enough to convince the BBC to try again with another webcast (and introduced the Minister of Chance, for which we should all be grateful).


Teaming up with Big Finish, the BBC created a second serial, this time starring Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor. 2002's Real Time pitted the Doctor against the Cybermen, and again utilised basic animations as a way of illustrating the audio scenes. With Doctor Who's online presence improved significantly by the dedicated 'BBC Cult' site, the way forward for the series seemed to clearly lie in online streaming. For the fortieth anniversary year, the BBC and BF once again teamed up, resurrecting the unfinished 1980 serial Shada as another enhanced radio production. When Tom Baker declined to return to finish his lost serial, Paul McGann was invited to take part, the story being rewritten for the eighth Doctor. With Shada another hit-rate success, the way forward seemed clear: relaunch Doctor Who properly, as an online series.

For the more ambitious fourth webcast, the Beeb moved from Big Finish to respected animation house Cosgrove Hall.They created Scream of the Shalka, a fully animated webcast written by celebrated author Paul Cornell, featuring a brand new incarnation of the Doctor. Voiced by, and physically based on, Richard E Grant, this new Doctor was described in press releases as the official ninth Doctor. Then the BBC announced the coming of the new TV series and by the time Shalka was broadcast, the new Doctor had been overwritten by the upcoming new ninth Doctor - played, in due course, by Christopher Eccleston. The ninth Doctor of Scream of the Shalka had been consigned to a strange, tangential version of Doctor Who before he even had a chance to make an impact.

Scream of the Shalka was formatted as six episodes of roughly fifteen minutes duration each, presented

with Flash animation and nice, long loading breaks between each scene. At the time, of course, it seemed terrible advanced. As well as Richard E. Grant, always a popular choice for fans' dream-casting, it starred acclaimed actor Sophie Okenedo (now known to Who fans as Liz 10, but around this time filming her Oscar-nominated appearance in Hotel Rwanda) as new companion Alison. Also on the bill were Diana Quick and Sir Derek Jacobi.

It was a strange false start for the revamp of the series, and it's fitting that in such an unusual situation we get a strange version of the Doctor. Physically, the new Doctor is cast much as an archetypal Doctor – tall, slim, dressed in Victorian, rather Sherlock Holmes style clothing. While he is physically based on Grant, for reasons known only to themselves, the animators decided to draw the handsome, rather swarthy actor as a pallid, gothic individual with bags under his eyes. The swept back hairstyle has a touch of the first Doctor about it, but otherwise the overall effect is Dracula-like.

Cornell seemed to have made an effort to make him different from the Time Lord we knew. So, while there are elements that are familiar, there are also several previously unseen quirks. He is snobby, aesthetic, eager to his show superiority to lesser mortals. Yet he is most comfortable talking to a homeless old woman on the streets. He immediately focuses on Alison, his soon-to-be companion, since she is capable and the only person not scared by the strange events in her home town, but refuses to allow himself to become too close to her. Once his work is done, or appears to be, he insists on trying to leave, calling in the military to take care of matters. He seems to have no problem with getting soldiers to do his dirty work, as long as he doesn’t have to socialise with them; he has a problem with the army on a personal, not ethical level.

This is a Doctor who continually analyses himself. He seems obsessed with trying to justify his actions, to himself and his associates, and is acutely aware of the contradictions in his own nature. “I say I do not kill, but then I exterminate thousands”, he says. It's almost as if he's an imposter, playing the Doctor. “I'm just off to do something eccentric,” he says, rather than actually behaving in an eccentric way. He is clearly working for some greater power – presumably the Time Lords, although this is never made clear – and is answerable to them. How many other Doctors would leave a last message to the universe when facing their death, welcoming, however briefly, the promise of oblivion? As an aside, his use of a TARDIS mobile phone caused a good deal of interest at the time but now, since the television series was revived, it seems sensible and obvious, barely worth remarking on.

Most oddly, he now travels with the Master, or at least an android representation of him a sort of robotic footman. It seems that this Doctor needs someone to keep him in check. The Master has been programmed to look after the Doctor’s emotional well-being. Some terrible event has had a lasting effect of the Doctor. It may have had something to do with his regeneration; we don’t know how this came about, but it’s strongly hinted that it cost the life of his last companion. This, more than anything, has left him damaged.

There are similarities with the ‘real’ ninth Doctor. Both act aloof, alien, reluctant to associate with humans. Both hide a vulnerable, damaged soul behind a hard, toughened façade. Both have a streak of defeatism, and are brought out of their shell by a young woman who reinvigorates them. Yet this Doctor is even more of a contradiction, swinging from sullen alien objectivity to show tunes and screaming “Take me home, big boy!” to a giant alien monster. It's the sort of thing one can easily imagine of Matt Smith's eleventh Doctor, but seems bizarre and out-of-place when coming from this vampiric individual.

The presence of the Master is an odd element, but again, it is not entirely against the notions of the revived TV series. Some years later, the tenth Doctor offered to keep the Master in his TARDIS, as a sort of captive companion. Is this perhaps the same sort of deal? Perhaps what's left of the Master after his ignoble fate in the TV movie has been housed in this android body, on the understanding that this is the only chance he will get. He's even voiced by Derek Jacobi, who went on to appear as the Master in Utopia before explosively regenerating into John Simm.

Russell T. Davies later slammed Grant's performance as lazy. It's hard to disagree. Little of the actor's trademark manic charm is present. Grant had, after all, played the Doctor before, in Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, a comic skit for the 1999 Comic Relief telethon. After regenerating from the waspish Rowan Atkinson incarnation, the new Richard E. Grant version was vain, overconfident and sexy. This version of the Doctor, however, is withdrawn, barely sharing any chemistry with his costars. However you may feel about Grant’s performance in the role, it has to be said that the Shalka Doctor was a most unusual, intriguing version of the character.

We’ll never know just how he may have been developed had the webcasts continued, but it’s fascinating to speculate. We can imagine him softening over subsequent adventures, with a more human side becoming prominent, in the manner of the first or sixth Doctors. He may have followed the other ninth Doctor's trajectory, coming to terms with the tragic events in his recent past as his adventures played out. It's hard to imagine him remaining quite so aloof and distant for long if he was to have a future in what should be a fun and popular series. The mysterious tragedy to which Shalka alludes would surely have been further explored, and the Doctor’s character along with it. The only further adventure for this Doctor was the short story 'The Feast of the Stone,' still available on the archived 'Vampires' magazine on the BBC's 'Cult' site.

Nonetheless, this Doctor, known to fans as the Shalka Doctor or the REG Doctor, is not entirely forgotten. After a ten year delay, Scream of the Shalka has just been released on DVD, and interviews with its creators have revealed more information on both the proposed future for the webcasts, and the new Doctor's background. It seems that yes, it is the Time Lords who employ him as their agent, following a terrible disaster that had led to the death of his lover and the destruction of Gallifrey, leaving the entire race as echoes in the computer Matrix. The Doctor, it is implied, was at least partly responsible for this event, and serves the ghostly Time Lords as penance. Again, not so different from the background of the new TV series. The following adventure was planned to be Blood of the Robots by horror novelist Simon Clark, with such impressive names as Stephen Baxter and James Swallow lined up for further serials. This was not to be. Scream of the Shalka was the final BBCi webcast featuring the Doctor.

The REG Doctor was overshadowed by the announcement of the new TV series, but not immediately forgotten. As well as a novelisation of Shalka, the REG Doctor had a chapter to himself in the BBC's official fortieth anniversary celebration book, Doctor Who: The Legend. (In the updated reprint, two years later, he had been reduced to a footnote.) The mysterious version of the Doctor that appears in the novella The Cabinet of Light holds a resemblance to Grant's Doctor in his description, apparently entirely by coincidence. And of course fan fiction featuring this Doctor abounds, revelling in the chance to fill in the blanks.

While the REG Doctor has been relegated to a sideline – made 'Unbound' in Big Finish parlance – there are, potentially, ways of reconciling him with the rest of the Whoniverse. He never states that he is the ninth incarnation, although he hints at it once or twice. Perhaps he is a future version of the Doctor, having rescued the Master from oblivion in the time-locked death of Gallifrey. Or perhaps he lies in a parallel universe, split from the main timestream by the catastrophic events of the war? Many fans wondered if he really was the ninth Doctor, existing between the McGann and Eccleston versions, forcibly forgotten for some terrible crime (a storyline that now seems to be in use for John Hurt's mysterious incarnation). The appearance of Richard E. Grant as Dr. Simeon/the Great Intelligence in the most recent TV series perhaps offers another answer. Perhaps the Intelligence's infiltration of the Doctor's timeline has led to is sprouting alternative incarnations that look like Simeon – a dark, warped ninth incarnation and a cocky, vain tenth – living in closed off, anomalous timelines?

Today, after eight years of hugely successful Doctor Who television productions, Scream of the Shalka is little more than a curio. Nonetheless, we can wonder where this most mysterious of Doctors may have taken us in the distant parallel world where the series never returned to TV; a world where we instead had an internet-based cartoon series led not by a Northern bloke in a leather jacket but by a prickly, sullen Victorian.

Stuff:

This is an expanded and updated version of an article that originally appeared in Panic Moon.

As well as being available on DVD, Scream of the Shalka is still viewable for free on the BBC Doctor Who website if you have an archaic enough version of Flash. The Feast of the Stone is still available on the 'Vampires' page. The artwork heading this piece is taken from that site and is by Daryl Joyce.

For fan fiction featuring further explorations of the Shalka Doctor, try reading my own A Spoonful Weighs a Ton.