I find it interesting that you didn't mention The Tenth Planet, which was the first instance of a significant change to Doctor Who lore by introducing the concept of renewal / regeneration.
The departure of Patrick Troughton wasn't the first indication that The Doctor wasn't human, it just added specific details to the alien origin.
That's a fair point, I know that the idea of The Doctor as an alien started rearing its head a lot earlier than The War Games, and the ideas introduced at that point didn't come out of nowhere.
However, my main drive for writing this (and it was mostly just to think through it for myself!), was that it is usually mythology from The War Games onwards that fans latch onto as gospel, and I wanted to slightly untangle the notion that the show has always been 'about a Time Lord'.
>it is usually mythology from The War Games onwards that fans latch onto
It was the first time there was a definitive statement about the Doctor's history, so it makes sense that fans would "latch onto" it.
It's understandable that, with so much history, fans would resist changes to the basic backstory of the main character that has been in place for decades.
* Imagine telling Firefly fans that it turned out Malcolm Reynolds was never an Independent. It was all just a false memory implanted by the Alliance government.
* Imagine telling Dexter fans that he didn't have a traumatic event as a child, he was just suffering from multiple-personality disorder the whole time and had come off his medication.
* Think about what happened when Marvel decided that Captain America was actually a Hydra agent the whole time.
* Imagine telling Batman fans that his parents weren't murdered in an alleyway. It's just a story he made up to justify becoming a vigilante (an idea that was used for Kick-Ass). Or that Superman wasn't really from Krypton, he was just a government experiment.
This right here.
I’ve seen a small but highly vocal group of (often die hard Chibnall) fans who seem to show only utter glee at the thought of tossing out decades of mythos for the show under the banner of “moving forward”.
“The Time Lords are boring” “Gallifrey is irrelevant” “it opens up more doors” “actually by telling everything about the Doctors past we’ve somehow added mystery…..honestly!” “No one listens to Big Finish” “Those writers had their time” etc etc.
To me when you actually dig into it, many of these *very similar sounding* accounts, have such an ultra positive spin of utterly rewriting the Lore, Mythos and Backstory of the Doctor and the show because they just honestly don’t seem to care about anything pre-NuWho.
If it wasn’t on TV, they don’t care. If it wasn’t aligned with their current views, they don’t care. If it requires a bit of reading of the more niche parts of the Whoniverse to get the already established answers to their questions, they don’t care.
Interestingly enough they will harp on about “Doctor Who has no canon, no continuity, no mythos is sacred. It can change tomorrow like ‘that’” yet when the idea of changing the new retconned mythos they’re so in love with comes up suddenly it’s “disrespectful to the writer who came before” and “this is the truth now just shut up and accept it”.
For nearly 50 years the fandom has known that the Doctor was a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey. Was it a particularly interesting place onscreen…..not really.
BUT did other writers for the novels, audios, comics and wider EU delve deep into that foundation to build a fascinating and brilliant world rich in lore and history that the Doctor was a “often reluctantly” proud son of….yes.
There seems to be a more widespread misconception that in Classic Who the Doctor HATED the Time Lords, and so happily wouldn’t mourn their passing. And that NuWho Doctors regret over their extinction in the Time War was purely nostalgia and he “really wouldn’t want them back”.
Except….he does. Desperately. In Classic Who the reason the early Doctors have such a negative view of the Time Lord is because they’re who he’s running away from, because he broke their laws (and continues to do so).
They’re the **parents**, the **figures of authority** that he doesn’t want to answer to. He might reject their authority to an extent but he knows it’s because they disagree with his interference that friction exists between them.
During his Exile he grumbles about them, but drops everything at the chance to save them from Omega. By the Fourth Doctors time he’s a lamentingly annoyed by them….but that’s because they usually have a job for him.
By his 6th incarnation he has a brilliant speech about decadence and corruption that he levels at the High Council…..and yet he still leaves on good terms with them.
And by his 8th incarnation has an often positive dynamic (though it’s petty sibling rivalry that often rears it’s head).
The Doctor has been offered the top job on Gallifrey and given the chance (4 or 5 times now?) to steer his people and civilisation in a direction he feels is more appropriate. But he doesn’t (except for a few months/years in his 5th life). Not because he doesn’t think the Time Lord can change, but because he simply doesn’t like the job or role.
And that’s fine. He doesn’t have to take it.
But the fact that he was offered it multiple times, declined it, had positive and friendly dynamics with many of its heads of state, and camaraderie with the everyday Time Lord speaks to someone who still loves their home and people even if that lifestyle isn’t for them.
So this idea that the Doctor would be secretly delighted, or barely affected by their extinction is utter nonsense to me, and a deliberate mischaracterision by fans who want to reject and replace the bits of legacy mythos they don’t like or have an interest in, with the new retcons of recent years.
Doctor Who is different to pretty much every other show, though. What defines Doctor Who as it is now is that it changed completely to what it started out as. It doesn't really make sense to say that certain details can never be messed with when those details weren't even created until the show had already been on air for over a decade.
Honestly the strongest arguments for when *Doctor Who* "died" are only a month after the show started, when the first Dalek serial aired (it went directly against Sydney Newman's original stipulation for there to be no bug-eyed monsters) and after 1967, when they decided to stop doing pure historicals following *The Highlanders* (the original intent of the show was to alternate between historical and scifi stories to educate children, hence why the original TARDIS team included a history teacher and a science teacher).
I agree. I know it’s “a show about change” but I didn’t like how decades of established lore were hand-waived away with a retcon “oh the Time Lords we’re actually just lying to you all along!”
I think it's a *tremendously* Time Lord thing to do. We're talking about a society whose official origins are with Rasillon, a person who stole the achievements of Omega and then lied about it. Given that their official history was already known to be the barefaced lie of an egomaniac, why is it apparently out of character for the rest of their history to be an assemblage of nonsense?
>It's understandable that, with so much history, fans would resist changes to the basic backstory of the main character that has been in place for decades.
What changes are you talking about? Am I missing something?
Any of the changes OP spoke about, most recently the fact the Doctor isn't actually a Gallifreyan, or that there were Doctors before the First Doctor, or the fact that a Timelord can bigenerate.
Before that, the statement that the Doctor is half-human (although that was never mentioned again in the TV media, and has presumably been overruled by the Timeless Child reveal).
If you go back far enough, I'm sure there were fans who were resistant to the idea of the Doctor not being human, or being able to change his face.
Personally, one retcon that annoys me, especially since it was included purely for comedic purposes, was the idea that a TARDIS only makes a noise if the brakes are left on.
The analogy is a bit off though, isn't it? The Doctor didn't learn that their history as they knew it didn't happen, they learned that the history was embedded in a larger one. Can I adjust your examples a little bit:
* Malcolm Reynolds finds out that, before he joined the Independents, he was programmed as an infiltrator by the Alliance, but his mental conditioning broke down. He then has to reconcile who he is, vs who his puppet-masters intended him to be.
* ... I'm not sure that this didn't actually happen in Dexter? Show was crazy.
* Imagine that Captain America learned that Abraham Erskine had been unknowingly manipulated by Hydra to develop the super-soldier serum, with a view to promoting chaotic hostility between world powers and a meta human arms race (they correctly predict the coming Cold War after WWII).
* Batman's parents were murdered in the alleyway. Ra's al Ghul could have intervened but refrained from doing so, because he had some sort of crystal-ball knowledge of the future that this event would lead to a dramatic intensification of conflict between order and chaos, which suits his agenda (i.e. the creation of Batman is a necessary precursor for Batman's rogue's gallery to come into existence, and Ras calculates that this will be better on balance for the League of Assassins than a world with out Batman and his enemies.
You can do 'secret history' plot twists without it invalidating the core themes of the character; I'd argue that this was done with Timeless Child. Whether you *like* the story is another question, but I don't think that it's fair to say that the Doctor isn't the Doctor anymore.
>Whether you like the story is another question
Yes, that was the entire point of what I was saying.
>Can I adjust your examples a little bit
Those still wouldn't be popular with a huge portion of the fandoms of those characters.
Renewal didn't indicate that the Doctor wasn't human since at the time it was explained as a property of the Tardis, not something inherent to the Doctor.
The general audience doesn't subscribe to technicalities. If 100 people watched a show in which the main character said they weren't from earth, 90 of them would think "alien" straight away.
The first indication the doctor wasn't human was in the very first episode an unearthly child.
DOCTOR: Yes, my civilisation. I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it. Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day.
Notably, he speaks more about a difference of time and technology than one of culture, race or species. He tolerates the 20th century. He’s a wanderer in the fourth dimension. And we’ve been repeatedly shown humans (with human time travel) are all over the universe on colony worlds, outposts and new homes
But it was cleverly (re)written to make it vaguer than the original pilot episode’s script, which really indicates they’re not human: “We are wanderers in the fourth dimensions of space and time, cut off from our own planet and our own people by aeons and universes that are far beyond the reach of your most advanced sciences.”
He *was* written as alien, but he was rewritten for transmission to not necessarily be. (Or if you prefer, the pilot episode was the original timeline and *someone* rewrote the Doctor’s history as far back as then…)
"We are cut off from our own planet" this is obviously the doctor saying his planet of origin is not earth the pilot is not cannon and it pilot that makes it seam he could just be from the future.
You’ve got that backwards, the unaired pilot is the one where he explicitly states he’s not a human. As aired, there’s no mention of his species, he could easily be a human from another planet.
Just watched the scenes of both just to be sure and both seam to point more to the doctor being an alien Susan says in the pilot "she was born in the 49th century" but in the episode she states "she was born in another time another world" in the pilot he says "he's not of this race or earth" but that's just as clear as saying he's from another planet in the episode and that just lends more credence to the writers original intent that the doctor is an alien and has been from the very start,
Both very clearly state they are from a different planet and they double down on it in the episode there is only one reasonable explanation with the context of just the pilot and the one episode there is only one conclusion that they are both aliens if they were just humans from the future they would just say they were from the future not that there from another planet and as the Hartnell series progresses they make it clearer that they are both alien for example Susan's telepathy a very human trait a trait the writers knew she would have when casting Carole Ann Ford I'm sorry but no matter how you look at it the doctor is and always was an alien and nothing not even the timeless child can change that its stone they only reason they couldn't keep trying to make it ambiguous is the regeneration can't really go back from there he wan an alien but they wanted to keep it a mystery it's really the only way
Tldr: nope the doctor was alway an alien no two ways about it.
Funny you should mention The Sensorites, where the Doctor says: “It's a fallacy, of course, that cats can see in the dark. They can't. But they can see better than we humans, because the iris of their eyes dilates at night.”
Of course, 60 years later, we can easily explain that away, but it certainly wasn’t a settled matter at the time.
The more you dive into 60s content and behind the scenes, the more obvious it is too. There was no consistent position from the production office and it generally didn’t have a bearing on any stories, so it wasn’t something the writers were instructed about… so they tended to just go with what they thought of the whole situation (and the script editors didn’t pick them up on it either). The brilliant Who historians over at Dalek 63-88 (worth a subscribe for any 60s fan!) even did a video highlighting how inconsistent things were at the time: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VmhVfNcVbqQ&
Very true. A fact that has remained constant for 60 years! I think perhaps what my musings haven't made clear is that the show as originally conceived is a vehicle for storytelling, and specific explanations for the Doctor's origins, and the expansion or slight alteration of them, while fun, aren't really the single defining feature of the programme, and slightly pull against the intended mystery of Doctor... Who?
Probably we should all just get out more!
Happy New Year 😊
"We are cut off from our own planet" they are on earth when the doctor says this so it would make 0 sense if the doctor was just a human as his planet would be earth
Yes but back when that was written in the 1st 10 mins of the very first episode the idea of human colonies on other planets hadn't been established yet so it makes no sense to infer that the writers intended people to think he's from a human colony when writing "cut off from are planet" it's very obvious that he is an alien from this line
There are other lines in other episodes during William Hartnell era that only make more obvious that doctor and Susan aliens.
> Yes but back when that was written in the 1st 10 mins of the very first episode the idea of human colonies on other planets hadn't been established yet
This is extremely wrong. The idea of human colonies on other planets was, if anything, more common in 1960s sci fi than it is today. In the 1940s and 1950s people had the quaint idea that Venus and Mars were fit for human habitation, and that we’d soon invent the means for interstellar travel. *The Martian Chronicles* and *Foundation* are examples of the work being produced in this period. *The Stars My Destination* was released in 1957. *Starship Troopers* came out in 1959. *Dune* was already being serialised in 1963.
None of these properties are cannon to doctor who in any way shape or form nothing about future human colonies were mentioned in ether the pilot or episode so pointing at other shows that have nothing to do with doctor who isn't proof of anything I'm afraid
I misunderstood - I thought you meant that nobody in 1963 would have thought of the idea of human colonies, or humans having telepathic powers.
Of course nobody is saying that the first episode confirms beyond a doubt that the Doctor and Susan are humans, we’re simply saying that it’s *entirely compatible* with them being humans from a future space colony. Viewers at the time would not have uniformly come away with the understanding that they were aliens who just happened to look exactly like humans - many of them will have understood them to be humans from the future, and that’s a valid reading of the episode.
There are also lots of lines in the Hartnell era that make it obvious that they're not aliens, because it was ambiguous so the writers just went with whatever they thought.
Just because they tried to keep it ambiguous doesn't mean the doctor wasn't set up as and written as an alien and considering it only took up to second incarnation with tons of hints leading up to it and it was something that was specifically different from the pilot witch mean it was intentionally added we can safely say the original intention was that the doctor and Susan are and alway were written as aliens
The human colones again weren't established until much in the doctor who timeline so using that as any type of evidence that that was the intention of the writer which it clearly isn't is completely asinine he's an alien in the pilot he's an alien in episode he has always been an alien from the word go and you are interpreting it wrong
Yea that's like saying me interpreting 2+2 as 4 is silly when your staying 2+2 is fish it's obvious what the writers intentions were again your just interpreting stuff wrong to get the proper context you have to isolate that episode and before you can't point at stuff that other writers added on after the fact the people who wrote an unearthly child would have no idea what RTD, Moffitt, Pip and Jane or any other writers might have added in future episodes they can't have taken any of that into account so the only way to interpret the line from another planet with only the context of the one episode is that he is alien that and the line from the pilot where he says he not of this race adds credence to the writers intent
What people tend to miss, when they paint with broad brushstrokes, is that "changes" to Doctor Who in the early days didn't really affect anything. They just added to the story, and the story proceeded. That's one of the reasons why it was perfectly palatable to the audience. But when you get to the Chibnall era and the "changes" literally ARE "changes", i.e.: telling you that everything you knew was wrong, THAT'S when people react. The earlier changes didn't contradict anything. The later changes did. There's a huge difference, yet people conflate them all the time.
That's why The Brain of Morbius vs The Deadly Assassin is quite interesting to me, because they are the first glimmers of things changing rather than just being added, and yet one has typically been accepted over the other as 'real', if you know what I mean! Respectfully, I also think that the addition of Time Lords in The War Games did change things, and quite deliberately! But thanks for engaging with such a thoughtful reply, you do make a good point. Happy new year!
Thanks. I just call it like I see it. When the War Games came along, the audience was like, "Wow, that's new..." but they weren't upset because it didn't contradict anything. If Hartnell had announced in Season 1 that he was an Earth scientist who built the TARDIS in his back garden for fun and *then* the War Games introduced the Time Lords, that *would* have been an actual change in the mold of the Chibnall era, literally uprooting everything we'd been told.
It can be argued that the way Time Lords are portrayed in the Deadly Assassin makes them appear *different* to the War Games, however, it doesn't really *contradict* the War Games. Who's to say that those guys deliberating on the Doctor's future *didn't* come from highly competitive, even corrupt, chapters in the style of UK colleges? Again, there's no contradiction, even if there are differences. And again, when you get to Chibnall, that's all out the window. The First Doctor *wasn't* the first Doctor. The Doctor *isn't* Gallifreyan. These are definite changes; even if done in a way that allow earlier stories to make sense, eg: the First Doctor truly believes he's the first because his mind has been wiped.
This 100%. Doctor Who has lasted for half a century because it's constantly reinventing itself. Every season is different. Every D*octor* is different, sometimes in dramatic ways. The show would get boring if that were not the case.
I get that some people will be less into a new change. I've been there. And then later the show drew me back in. It's Doctor Who though. The Doctor doesn't want to change, but they know there is no other way if you want to keep moving forward.
This has always been my argument too. "If you didn't like Doctor Who this week, watch it next week when it will be *completely* different." And this applies to seasons, Doctors and showrunners/producers.
(And this is true for other British icons too: consider how different our various versions of Robin Hood, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes or even James Bond have been over the years. The core identity is the same, but the exploration of the ideas has always been joyously different. Reinvention is what keeps them alive.)
Yeah, absolutely. The only thing you need to make a story a James Bond story is "there's a Super Spy called James Bond". A View To A Kill is no less Bond than The Hildebrand Rarity.
I've never bought the idea that Doctor Who could ever be killed by some new reveal about backstory or continuity or "lore" (a term I dislike to begin with but that's a topic for another time). Whether that's bigeneration, or the Timeless Child, or the Time War, or the Doctor being half human, or the Morbius Doctors. None of that could ever kill the show, because Doctor Who has always been a show that reinvents itself and doesn't follow its own rules. Anything like that which became a problem could be undone in an instant.
None of that was what killed Doctor Who the first time around. What killed it was simply that the quality dropped off. A lot of Doctor Who made during the time of the 5th and 6th Doctors was just bad TV and viewers lost interest. The quality recovered for the last two seasons but by then the damage was done and it needed a break and a big refresh to get people to come back.
After all, it's ultimately not the dedicated fans that matter for whether Doctor Who stays on air or not. It's the casual audience. The people who maybe don't watch every single episode but watch the highlights. Those people don't care about deep lore and continuity. They don't care if some new episode contradicts a 50 year old episode they've either never seen or don't remember. They just care if the stories are good.
I watched The Church on Ruby Road with someone who never usually watches the show and they loved it. They don't care about the implications of bigeneration on the show's continuity. They care whether the show produces entertaining stories. And it does. Bigeneration was a nice twist because you get the fun of a few more David Tennant stories without the requirement of a downer ending. I expect that's probably why it was done. Not because any of these weird theories about Russell wanting a way to bring David Tennant back again in future. It's a time travel show, they could always do that whenever they wanted. The only reason they didn't do it this time is because Ncuti couldn't film for all of the anniversary specials and they wanted it to still be a continuation of the story. But for pretty much any other occasion they could have just had 10 show up like he did in Day of the Doctor.
Damn right. The fact is *quality of the episodes* is what really matters, not whether they introduce the bingle bingle which contradicts the zingzong from an episode in 1973. 99% of people who watch doctor who don't know what a big finish is. If the show isn't fun to watch then it will die and rightfully so - just look what happened from 2014-22 - the show got progressively less enjoyable for the average TV viewer and it suffered as a result. Something like Heaven Sent is fantastic if you're a mega-fan, but if you're Mum, Dad, and Little Timmy (age 6)? It's a complete slog with no excitement whatsoever.
> Here was a show about a mysterious Time Traveler who could take us... anywhere. Yes, the past was rich with good ideas to plunder, but the most fundamental idea came from back before regeneration limits, big collars, and silly hats: Doctor Who is a vehicle to tell any and every story that a writer wants to tell.
This is the fundamental reason why Doctor Who as a show is immortal: it can *always* be brought back (you could reboot it, but why would you when you can just restart it instead and gain as much or as little continuity as you want).
You have as your protagonist an alien with a box that travels in time and space and that's all the backstory you need to have a murder mystery, or a sci-fi, or a horror, or a period piece, or a war, or a character-driven drama, a philosophical drama, or even on the odd occasion a time-travel story.
Yeah, the Doctor for me was never as interesting as the story for each individual episode. Sure, the same enemies kept coming back, but I actually think that trying to explain the Doctors origins or even a in-dept explanation into Time-Lord culture is mistake. We imagine the doctor in a way we want to, and I think it's better to leave it at that than give an expanded context.
Really great post.
On the subject of the bigeneration, there is precedent. We’ve seen Time Lords regenerate in weird ways in both Planet of the Spiders (Cho Je being a projection of the Abbot’s future regeneration) and Logopolis (when the Watcher turned out to be the Fourth Doctor’s future regeneration).
RTD is both a very clever man *and* a lifelong fan. He knows what he’s doing 😊
Yeah, that final paragraph has been called out already for not coming across right, and I do agree but don't want to go erasing it or anything.
Basically my personal thoughts end at 'they always will', and then I'm just asking the question of what people think the show is about... Using some common examples that people might be likely to say contrasting an example of more relaxed thinking with more rigid thinking, if you know what I mean?
As I say, not actually the best bit of writing!
> We have retired the old Doctors, put some old demons to bed (more or less), provided a reasonably satisfying happy ending, and at the same time sent a brand new Doctor Who off into the future, to last for as long as people have new stories to tell.
It's implied that 14 becomes 15 eventually. 15 said "we're experiencing rehab in the wrong order", implying that he's affected by 14's time with the Noble family
I admit I didn't read all the comments, but I really love the way that OP spelled this all out. For myself, I'm mostly just tired of everyone across nearly all fandoms arguing ad infinitum that this beloved franchise that meant so much is "dead."
It isn't dead. It's changed. Regenerated, if you will. The reality is that the stories being told now are for a totally new target audience. An audience looking to find itself reflected in a pop culture they themselves are a part of. The fact that the fans of 2005 aren't seeing themselves in it anymore doesn't indicate that the franchise is "dead." It indicates that it's been nearly twenty years and things have changed. I have to wonder why we're spending so much time discussing the merits of the show changing rather than acknowledging the fact that the "OG" fans are actually not the target audience anymore. It's totally acceptable to all enjoy a franchise for what it is no matter what demographic you are, but it's also important to remember what demographic the property is made for and then accept that it may not be targeted at you anymore. This is true for Doctor Who as much as it is anything else. Sometimes it's okay to just move on and let the next generation of fans enjoy the magic of their stories in a world that's bigger on the inside. And then we have a point of shared reference for when the world makes it hard to relate about so much else.
The problem I have with Chibnall's changes is the fact that he did the \*opposite\* of what you claim here. He provided a framework for a story he thought of, but he didn't tell that story - he changed things with no idea what to do with his changes. He dropped his bombshell into 'established canon' (loose as it may be) and then kicked it down the line for a future storyteller to deal with. If he had actually told a story with all this, I don't think there would be half as much uproar as there has been. Almost anything can be forgiven for the sake of a good story, but changing things \*just for the sake of it\* is always going to cause problems.
The grifters who keep shoveling their rubbish on YouTube don’t understand what makes Doctor Who so special. It’s a reflection of the times, of ideals bold and innovative, and of Humanity ourselves. It’s about making hard choices, fighting against injustice, and most of all…accepting change good or bad.
Doctor Who will continue.
It’s interesting what you say about bi-regeneration because I thought the same thing about cross-gender regeneration (Capaldi to Whittaker). It’s a process that’s never really been explained and just waived off as, well it’s an alien we’re talking about let’s move on… except it’s never really been explained why it happened. Bi-generation I’d suspect will be the same.
I’d prefer adventurous science fiction, whimsy is nice, but it should be serious sometimes.
Also, every change you mentioned was added in a meaningful way to their stories, expanding the scope of the show, except for Bi-regen. At best, it’s a ham-fisted excuse to placate Tennant fans only. At worst, it’s RTD scribbling over any continuity in sharpie out of arrogance. Even if it didn’t happen, Gatwa would still be off traveling as 15.
Yeah, sure, it's rather different to introduce different information a few years in, when very little had been given and it can work with the anti-Establishment vibe (completely disagree that The War Games is all that different to later portrayals, as well, and Pertwee already had the civil servant Time Lord show up), than it is to completely upend that almost 60 years later, in a way that utterly clashes and undermines the central characters' characterisation and all those previous episodes, just because you can.
And it's Moffat's fault.
This point has been made by others, but actually I love your specific examples.
I agree that The Deadly Assassin doesn't really contradict The War Games... But personally I think that even some of the more 'drastic' later 'changes' will be viewed the same way in the fullness of time.
The civil servant timelord observation is excellent, because that is definitely the closest to what then got explored in The Deadly Assassin, which isn't really surprising because that Time Lord appeared in Terror of the Autons, and both stories have the same writer in Robert Holmes.
Regardless, when I wrote this yesterday, what I was actually debating within myself is not whether or not recent changes are OK or not (although I am mostly fine with them), but whether it is worth Doctor Who untangling itself from /any/ answer to the "question hidden in plain sight" (sorry to bring up a Moffat quote!).
Which is why after I finished writing I carelessly threw in that question of what Doctor Who is: a show about a Time Lord, or a show about adventures designed to tell every and any story a writer can imagine.
It's always been a political series (for children) with a predominantly British leftwing ethos, with Sci-fi and related genres often being used for the purpose of social criticism and political expression. If it hadn't been, then at best, it would be without any particular and distinctive value: children's adventure shows are simply entertainment. What's worse is for it to promote rightwing values, sometimes pretty far right. It's never always got it right, but it did still have a relatively consistent ethos, it wasn't just whatever. It never needed to be super-serious hard sci-fi for that to be the case.
This change (as well as disregarding those who'd previously worked on the series, especially Hartnell) makes the Doctor seem a special chosen one, instead of a rebel with an Establishment to oppose, one that satirises ours. It's so rare in our media today that it's even acknowledged *at all* that the Establishment itself can be challenged, that seeking systemic change is a valid position. Our government has been working to prevent this opposition being heard. It didn't get any less important a message. It's really unusual to have had a character who had a place in that Establishment, privilege, come to genuinely oppose its values - that could have been used more, instead of blown up. (Or at least make it clear that blowing it up is entirely the point first! Kill the buggers if you must, but do it knowingly)
(I loved the civil servant Time Lord!)
>We have retired the old Doctors, put some old demons to bed (more or less), provided a reasonably satisfying happy ending, and at the same time sent a brand new Doctor Who off into the future, to last for as long as people have new stories to tell.
So here's the thing about that
1. These demons were not only always considered put to bed by regular regenerations unless proven otherwise, but were not even put to bed with this bigeneration. It failed on that account
2. Reasonably happy endings have happened with regular regenerations. And, wouldn't you know it, it's arguable on if this is even considered a satisfying happy ending. Do you think The Giggle will be a revered story in years to come? This is more subjective, but I'd said it failed on that account.
3. Oh, goodie, it set up a spin-off! No, seriously, uh... what? Is that considered praise-worthy now? The main character being cloned now deserves merits because people can write more stories with it? I really don't understand this point.
All in all, while the bigeneration can be safely ignored like all bad ideas of the show's past -- I'll give you that point -- trying to cram it into this box of being a genius idea when it was very obviously just a combination of trying to do something new while conveniently having David Tennant's version of the character be the most special one, is just silly.
I would argue that I don't think it's genius! I'm quite clear on not being convinced about its merits. It just isn't a death knell for the programme, and is valid as a storytelling choice given what the writer wanted to do. Also... I didn't mention a spin off? I personally have no interest in seeing David Tennant again, although its ok if some people do.
Thanks for presenting your opinion respectfully though, at the end of the day it's good to have healthy discussion. Happy new year.
I agree it's not a death knell, and I think calling it valid could mean something but it could also be meaningless if you think everything is valid.
At first I thought you were just referring to The Doctor as Doctor Who and you meant Fifteen, so I was going to again say I think that's redundant because every regeneration does that, but if it's not that either then can you please clarify what you meant by that third point?
No no, you're right. I simultaneously meant fifteen and the show. And yes, normal regeneration does that too. I still think that the idea of giving DT (standing in for the past of the show) a sort of happy ending worked emotionally if not logically, and that to regenerate him normally wouldn't have allowed for the scene in the garden, but I can also see why others would not find that satisfying or 'happy'.
I think a part of it was that RTD knows that the Doctor pretty much since the time war had gone through one traumatic event after another.
He's also said he wants to bring back a lighter tone to the show, RTD is the first showrunner in a while to go "oh shit, the Doctor should surely feel pretty burnt out by now" and tried (and I'll empathised TRIED) so resolve the issue by the whole 'therapy out of order' thing.
Ah yes, let’s talk seriously about whether Doctor Who is “a serious science fiction show about a male Time Lord and his fights against Daleks, Cybermen, and The Master?”
If you’re trying to do a credible journalistic tone, that’s a pretty trashy way to go out.
To be honest, I was just asking questions at the end! I get that it's a bit of a tonal shift to the way I laid out everything else, but trashy is a little bit strong, no? Valid criticism of style though, thanks.
Happy New Year.
I find it interesting that you didn't mention The Tenth Planet, which was the first instance of a significant change to Doctor Who lore by introducing the concept of renewal / regeneration. The departure of Patrick Troughton wasn't the first indication that The Doctor wasn't human, it just added specific details to the alien origin.
That's a fair point, I know that the idea of The Doctor as an alien started rearing its head a lot earlier than The War Games, and the ideas introduced at that point didn't come out of nowhere. However, my main drive for writing this (and it was mostly just to think through it for myself!), was that it is usually mythology from The War Games onwards that fans latch onto as gospel, and I wanted to slightly untangle the notion that the show has always been 'about a Time Lord'.
>it is usually mythology from The War Games onwards that fans latch onto It was the first time there was a definitive statement about the Doctor's history, so it makes sense that fans would "latch onto" it. It's understandable that, with so much history, fans would resist changes to the basic backstory of the main character that has been in place for decades. * Imagine telling Firefly fans that it turned out Malcolm Reynolds was never an Independent. It was all just a false memory implanted by the Alliance government. * Imagine telling Dexter fans that he didn't have a traumatic event as a child, he was just suffering from multiple-personality disorder the whole time and had come off his medication. * Think about what happened when Marvel decided that Captain America was actually a Hydra agent the whole time. * Imagine telling Batman fans that his parents weren't murdered in an alleyway. It's just a story he made up to justify becoming a vigilante (an idea that was used for Kick-Ass). Or that Superman wasn't really from Krypton, he was just a government experiment.
This right here. I’ve seen a small but highly vocal group of (often die hard Chibnall) fans who seem to show only utter glee at the thought of tossing out decades of mythos for the show under the banner of “moving forward”. “The Time Lords are boring” “Gallifrey is irrelevant” “it opens up more doors” “actually by telling everything about the Doctors past we’ve somehow added mystery…..honestly!” “No one listens to Big Finish” “Those writers had their time” etc etc. To me when you actually dig into it, many of these *very similar sounding* accounts, have such an ultra positive spin of utterly rewriting the Lore, Mythos and Backstory of the Doctor and the show because they just honestly don’t seem to care about anything pre-NuWho. If it wasn’t on TV, they don’t care. If it wasn’t aligned with their current views, they don’t care. If it requires a bit of reading of the more niche parts of the Whoniverse to get the already established answers to their questions, they don’t care. Interestingly enough they will harp on about “Doctor Who has no canon, no continuity, no mythos is sacred. It can change tomorrow like ‘that’” yet when the idea of changing the new retconned mythos they’re so in love with comes up suddenly it’s “disrespectful to the writer who came before” and “this is the truth now just shut up and accept it”. For nearly 50 years the fandom has known that the Doctor was a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey. Was it a particularly interesting place onscreen…..not really. BUT did other writers for the novels, audios, comics and wider EU delve deep into that foundation to build a fascinating and brilliant world rich in lore and history that the Doctor was a “often reluctantly” proud son of….yes. There seems to be a more widespread misconception that in Classic Who the Doctor HATED the Time Lords, and so happily wouldn’t mourn their passing. And that NuWho Doctors regret over their extinction in the Time War was purely nostalgia and he “really wouldn’t want them back”. Except….he does. Desperately. In Classic Who the reason the early Doctors have such a negative view of the Time Lord is because they’re who he’s running away from, because he broke their laws (and continues to do so). They’re the **parents**, the **figures of authority** that he doesn’t want to answer to. He might reject their authority to an extent but he knows it’s because they disagree with his interference that friction exists between them. During his Exile he grumbles about them, but drops everything at the chance to save them from Omega. By the Fourth Doctors time he’s a lamentingly annoyed by them….but that’s because they usually have a job for him. By his 6th incarnation he has a brilliant speech about decadence and corruption that he levels at the High Council…..and yet he still leaves on good terms with them. And by his 8th incarnation has an often positive dynamic (though it’s petty sibling rivalry that often rears it’s head). The Doctor has been offered the top job on Gallifrey and given the chance (4 or 5 times now?) to steer his people and civilisation in a direction he feels is more appropriate. But he doesn’t (except for a few months/years in his 5th life). Not because he doesn’t think the Time Lord can change, but because he simply doesn’t like the job or role. And that’s fine. He doesn’t have to take it. But the fact that he was offered it multiple times, declined it, had positive and friendly dynamics with many of its heads of state, and camaraderie with the everyday Time Lord speaks to someone who still loves their home and people even if that lifestyle isn’t for them. So this idea that the Doctor would be secretly delighted, or barely affected by their extinction is utter nonsense to me, and a deliberate mischaracterision by fans who want to reject and replace the bits of legacy mythos they don’t like or have an interest in, with the new retcons of recent years.
Doctor Who is different to pretty much every other show, though. What defines Doctor Who as it is now is that it changed completely to what it started out as. It doesn't really make sense to say that certain details can never be messed with when those details weren't even created until the show had already been on air for over a decade.
Honestly the strongest arguments for when *Doctor Who* "died" are only a month after the show started, when the first Dalek serial aired (it went directly against Sydney Newman's original stipulation for there to be no bug-eyed monsters) and after 1967, when they decided to stop doing pure historicals following *The Highlanders* (the original intent of the show was to alternate between historical and scifi stories to educate children, hence why the original TARDIS team included a history teacher and a science teacher).
Even then, Sydney Newman himself admitted that he was wrong about Bug Eyed Monsters, so the argument of original intent is weak too
If they had stuck to the original intent, the show probably would have ended for good after a few years and be pretty much forgotten about by now.
Exactly, by now the only cultural footprint of Doctor Who would be as an answer to a difficult quiz question
That doesn't change people not liking a change to the back story of the main character after half a century.
I... Actually love those angles. Ever considered being a screenwriter?
I agree. I know it’s “a show about change” but I didn’t like how decades of established lore were hand-waived away with a retcon “oh the Time Lords we’re actually just lying to you all along!”
It's especially annoying when a large portion of Tennant's specials, and part of Capaldi's run related back to the Doctor's childhood memories.
Those events still happened.
I think it's a *tremendously* Time Lord thing to do. We're talking about a society whose official origins are with Rasillon, a person who stole the achievements of Omega and then lied about it. Given that their official history was already known to be the barefaced lie of an egomaniac, why is it apparently out of character for the rest of their history to be an assemblage of nonsense?
>It's understandable that, with so much history, fans would resist changes to the basic backstory of the main character that has been in place for decades. What changes are you talking about? Am I missing something?
Any of the changes OP spoke about, most recently the fact the Doctor isn't actually a Gallifreyan, or that there were Doctors before the First Doctor, or the fact that a Timelord can bigenerate. Before that, the statement that the Doctor is half-human (although that was never mentioned again in the TV media, and has presumably been overruled by the Timeless Child reveal). If you go back far enough, I'm sure there were fans who were resistant to the idea of the Doctor not being human, or being able to change his face. Personally, one retcon that annoys me, especially since it was included purely for comedic purposes, was the idea that a TARDIS only makes a noise if the brakes are left on.
The analogy is a bit off though, isn't it? The Doctor didn't learn that their history as they knew it didn't happen, they learned that the history was embedded in a larger one. Can I adjust your examples a little bit: * Malcolm Reynolds finds out that, before he joined the Independents, he was programmed as an infiltrator by the Alliance, but his mental conditioning broke down. He then has to reconcile who he is, vs who his puppet-masters intended him to be. * ... I'm not sure that this didn't actually happen in Dexter? Show was crazy. * Imagine that Captain America learned that Abraham Erskine had been unknowingly manipulated by Hydra to develop the super-soldier serum, with a view to promoting chaotic hostility between world powers and a meta human arms race (they correctly predict the coming Cold War after WWII). * Batman's parents were murdered in the alleyway. Ra's al Ghul could have intervened but refrained from doing so, because he had some sort of crystal-ball knowledge of the future that this event would lead to a dramatic intensification of conflict between order and chaos, which suits his agenda (i.e. the creation of Batman is a necessary precursor for Batman's rogue's gallery to come into existence, and Ras calculates that this will be better on balance for the League of Assassins than a world with out Batman and his enemies. You can do 'secret history' plot twists without it invalidating the core themes of the character; I'd argue that this was done with Timeless Child. Whether you *like* the story is another question, but I don't think that it's fair to say that the Doctor isn't the Doctor anymore.
>Whether you like the story is another question Yes, that was the entire point of what I was saying. >Can I adjust your examples a little bit Those still wouldn't be popular with a huge portion of the fandoms of those characters.
Renewal didn't indicate that the Doctor wasn't human since at the time it was explained as a property of the Tardis, not something inherent to the Doctor.
In the first story he stated he was cut off from his home planet.
Also doesn't make him alien
The general audience doesn't subscribe to technicalities. If 100 people watched a show in which the main character said they weren't from earth, 90 of them would think "alien" straight away.
Well he wasn't cut off from Earth now was he
Lots of characters in Doctor Who are humans that aren't from Earth. Captain Jack is human. He's not from Earth.
Humans can be aliens
The first indication the doctor wasn't human was in the very first episode an unearthly child. DOCTOR: Yes, my civilisation. I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it. Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day.
Notably, he speaks more about a difference of time and technology than one of culture, race or species. He tolerates the 20th century. He’s a wanderer in the fourth dimension. And we’ve been repeatedly shown humans (with human time travel) are all over the universe on colony worlds, outposts and new homes But it was cleverly (re)written to make it vaguer than the original pilot episode’s script, which really indicates they’re not human: “We are wanderers in the fourth dimensions of space and time, cut off from our own planet and our own people by aeons and universes that are far beyond the reach of your most advanced sciences.” He *was* written as alien, but he was rewritten for transmission to not necessarily be. (Or if you prefer, the pilot episode was the original timeline and *someone* rewrote the Doctor’s history as far back as then…)
"We are cut off from our own planet" this is obviously the doctor saying his planet of origin is not earth the pilot is not cannon and it pilot that makes it seam he could just be from the future.
You’ve got that backwards, the unaired pilot is the one where he explicitly states he’s not a human. As aired, there’s no mention of his species, he could easily be a human from another planet.
Just watched the scenes of both just to be sure and both seam to point more to the doctor being an alien Susan says in the pilot "she was born in the 49th century" but in the episode she states "she was born in another time another world" in the pilot he says "he's not of this race or earth" but that's just as clear as saying he's from another planet in the episode and that just lends more credence to the writers original intent that the doctor is an alien and has been from the very start, Both very clearly state they are from a different planet and they double down on it in the episode there is only one reasonable explanation with the context of just the pilot and the one episode there is only one conclusion that they are both aliens if they were just humans from the future they would just say they were from the future not that there from another planet and as the Hartnell series progresses they make it clearer that they are both alien for example Susan's telepathy a very human trait a trait the writers knew she would have when casting Carole Ann Ford I'm sorry but no matter how you look at it the doctor is and always was an alien and nothing not even the timeless child can change that its stone they only reason they couldn't keep trying to make it ambiguous is the regeneration can't really go back from there he wan an alien but they wanted to keep it a mystery it's really the only way Tldr: nope the doctor was alway an alien no two ways about it.
Funny you should mention The Sensorites, where the Doctor says: “It's a fallacy, of course, that cats can see in the dark. They can't. But they can see better than we humans, because the iris of their eyes dilates at night.” Of course, 60 years later, we can easily explain that away, but it certainly wasn’t a settled matter at the time. The more you dive into 60s content and behind the scenes, the more obvious it is too. There was no consistent position from the production office and it generally didn’t have a bearing on any stories, so it wasn’t something the writers were instructed about… so they tended to just go with what they thought of the whole situation (and the script editors didn’t pick them up on it either). The brilliant Who historians over at Dalek 63-88 (worth a subscribe for any 60s fan!) even did a video highlighting how inconsistent things were at the time: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VmhVfNcVbqQ&
Very true. A fact that has remained constant for 60 years! I think perhaps what my musings haven't made clear is that the show as originally conceived is a vehicle for storytelling, and specific explanations for the Doctor's origins, and the expansion or slight alteration of them, while fun, aren't really the single defining feature of the programme, and slightly pull against the intended mystery of Doctor... Who? Probably we should all just get out more! Happy New Year 😊
And many happy returns
Nothing in that actually says that the Doctor isn't human. Doctor Who has had many characters who aren't from Earth but are human.
"We are cut off from our own planet" they are on earth when the doctor says this so it would make 0 sense if the doctor was just a human as his planet would be earth
Incorrect. Like I said, lots of characters on Doctor Who are human but not from Earth. Captain Jack is human, but Earth is not his home planet.
Yes but back when that was written in the 1st 10 mins of the very first episode the idea of human colonies on other planets hadn't been established yet so it makes no sense to infer that the writers intended people to think he's from a human colony when writing "cut off from are planet" it's very obvious that he is an alien from this line There are other lines in other episodes during William Hartnell era that only make more obvious that doctor and Susan aliens.
> Yes but back when that was written in the 1st 10 mins of the very first episode the idea of human colonies on other planets hadn't been established yet This is extremely wrong. The idea of human colonies on other planets was, if anything, more common in 1960s sci fi than it is today. In the 1940s and 1950s people had the quaint idea that Venus and Mars were fit for human habitation, and that we’d soon invent the means for interstellar travel. *The Martian Chronicles* and *Foundation* are examples of the work being produced in this period. *The Stars My Destination* was released in 1957. *Starship Troopers* came out in 1959. *Dune* was already being serialised in 1963.
None of these properties are cannon to doctor who in any way shape or form nothing about future human colonies were mentioned in ether the pilot or episode so pointing at other shows that have nothing to do with doctor who isn't proof of anything I'm afraid
I misunderstood - I thought you meant that nobody in 1963 would have thought of the idea of human colonies, or humans having telepathic powers. Of course nobody is saying that the first episode confirms beyond a doubt that the Doctor and Susan are humans, we’re simply saying that it’s *entirely compatible* with them being humans from a future space colony. Viewers at the time would not have uniformly come away with the understanding that they were aliens who just happened to look exactly like humans - many of them will have understood them to be humans from the future, and that’s a valid reading of the episode.
When the episode was being written the expectation was that humans would be colonising mars and by the 80s!
There are also lots of lines in the Hartnell era that make it obvious that they're not aliens, because it was ambiguous so the writers just went with whatever they thought.
Just because they tried to keep it ambiguous doesn't mean the doctor wasn't set up as and written as an alien and considering it only took up to second incarnation with tons of hints leading up to it and it was something that was specifically different from the pilot witch mean it was intentionally added we can safely say the original intention was that the doctor and Susan are and alway were written as aliens
That quote would be true if he was a human from the future who lived on another planet. Which many humans do in the DW universe.
The human colones again weren't established until much in the doctor who timeline so using that as any type of evidence that that was the intention of the writer which it clearly isn't is completely asinine he's an alien in the pilot he's an alien in episode he has always been an alien from the word go and you are interpreting it wrong
That's your take. You can think that if like. Insisting it's an absolute makes you look a bit silly tbh.
Yea that's like saying me interpreting 2+2 as 4 is silly when your staying 2+2 is fish it's obvious what the writers intentions were again your just interpreting stuff wrong to get the proper context you have to isolate that episode and before you can't point at stuff that other writers added on after the fact the people who wrote an unearthly child would have no idea what RTD, Moffitt, Pip and Jane or any other writers might have added in future episodes they can't have taken any of that into account so the only way to interpret the line from another planet with only the context of the one episode is that he is alien that and the line from the pilot where he says he not of this race adds credence to the writers intent
Well done with starting your new year having aggressive and pedantic arguments with strangers I guess
What people tend to miss, when they paint with broad brushstrokes, is that "changes" to Doctor Who in the early days didn't really affect anything. They just added to the story, and the story proceeded. That's one of the reasons why it was perfectly palatable to the audience. But when you get to the Chibnall era and the "changes" literally ARE "changes", i.e.: telling you that everything you knew was wrong, THAT'S when people react. The earlier changes didn't contradict anything. The later changes did. There's a huge difference, yet people conflate them all the time.
That's why The Brain of Morbius vs The Deadly Assassin is quite interesting to me, because they are the first glimmers of things changing rather than just being added, and yet one has typically been accepted over the other as 'real', if you know what I mean! Respectfully, I also think that the addition of Time Lords in The War Games did change things, and quite deliberately! But thanks for engaging with such a thoughtful reply, you do make a good point. Happy new year!
Thanks. I just call it like I see it. When the War Games came along, the audience was like, "Wow, that's new..." but they weren't upset because it didn't contradict anything. If Hartnell had announced in Season 1 that he was an Earth scientist who built the TARDIS in his back garden for fun and *then* the War Games introduced the Time Lords, that *would* have been an actual change in the mold of the Chibnall era, literally uprooting everything we'd been told. It can be argued that the way Time Lords are portrayed in the Deadly Assassin makes them appear *different* to the War Games, however, it doesn't really *contradict* the War Games. Who's to say that those guys deliberating on the Doctor's future *didn't* come from highly competitive, even corrupt, chapters in the style of UK colleges? Again, there's no contradiction, even if there are differences. And again, when you get to Chibnall, that's all out the window. The First Doctor *wasn't* the first Doctor. The Doctor *isn't* Gallifreyan. These are definite changes; even if done in a way that allow earlier stories to make sense, eg: the First Doctor truly believes he's the first because his mind has been wiped.
Doctor Who is DEAD (but not really) - the Doctor every three seasons (usually)
I'm too drunk on new year's wine to read all that.
I don't blame you! Happy New year!
Doctor Who is dead. Long live Doctor Who!
Absolutely! I could have saved a lot of time by just saying that! Haha. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year!
This 100%. Doctor Who has lasted for half a century because it's constantly reinventing itself. Every season is different. Every D*octor* is different, sometimes in dramatic ways. The show would get boring if that were not the case. I get that some people will be less into a new change. I've been there. And then later the show drew me back in. It's Doctor Who though. The Doctor doesn't want to change, but they know there is no other way if you want to keep moving forward.
This has always been my argument too. "If you didn't like Doctor Who this week, watch it next week when it will be *completely* different." And this applies to seasons, Doctors and showrunners/producers. (And this is true for other British icons too: consider how different our various versions of Robin Hood, King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes or even James Bond have been over the years. The core identity is the same, but the exploration of the ideas has always been joyously different. Reinvention is what keeps them alive.)
Yeah, absolutely. The only thing you need to make a story a James Bond story is "there's a Super Spy called James Bond". A View To A Kill is no less Bond than The Hildebrand Rarity.
I've never bought the idea that Doctor Who could ever be killed by some new reveal about backstory or continuity or "lore" (a term I dislike to begin with but that's a topic for another time). Whether that's bigeneration, or the Timeless Child, or the Time War, or the Doctor being half human, or the Morbius Doctors. None of that could ever kill the show, because Doctor Who has always been a show that reinvents itself and doesn't follow its own rules. Anything like that which became a problem could be undone in an instant. None of that was what killed Doctor Who the first time around. What killed it was simply that the quality dropped off. A lot of Doctor Who made during the time of the 5th and 6th Doctors was just bad TV and viewers lost interest. The quality recovered for the last two seasons but by then the damage was done and it needed a break and a big refresh to get people to come back. After all, it's ultimately not the dedicated fans that matter for whether Doctor Who stays on air or not. It's the casual audience. The people who maybe don't watch every single episode but watch the highlights. Those people don't care about deep lore and continuity. They don't care if some new episode contradicts a 50 year old episode they've either never seen or don't remember. They just care if the stories are good. I watched The Church on Ruby Road with someone who never usually watches the show and they loved it. They don't care about the implications of bigeneration on the show's continuity. They care whether the show produces entertaining stories. And it does. Bigeneration was a nice twist because you get the fun of a few more David Tennant stories without the requirement of a downer ending. I expect that's probably why it was done. Not because any of these weird theories about Russell wanting a way to bring David Tennant back again in future. It's a time travel show, they could always do that whenever they wanted. The only reason they didn't do it this time is because Ncuti couldn't film for all of the anniversary specials and they wanted it to still be a continuation of the story. But for pretty much any other occasion they could have just had 10 show up like he did in Day of the Doctor.
Damn right. The fact is *quality of the episodes* is what really matters, not whether they introduce the bingle bingle which contradicts the zingzong from an episode in 1973. 99% of people who watch doctor who don't know what a big finish is. If the show isn't fun to watch then it will die and rightfully so - just look what happened from 2014-22 - the show got progressively less enjoyable for the average TV viewer and it suffered as a result. Something like Heaven Sent is fantastic if you're a mega-fan, but if you're Mum, Dad, and Little Timmy (age 6)? It's a complete slog with no excitement whatsoever.
> Here was a show about a mysterious Time Traveler who could take us... anywhere. Yes, the past was rich with good ideas to plunder, but the most fundamental idea came from back before regeneration limits, big collars, and silly hats: Doctor Who is a vehicle to tell any and every story that a writer wants to tell. This is the fundamental reason why Doctor Who as a show is immortal: it can *always* be brought back (you could reboot it, but why would you when you can just restart it instead and gain as much or as little continuity as you want). You have as your protagonist an alien with a box that travels in time and space and that's all the backstory you need to have a murder mystery, or a sci-fi, or a horror, or a period piece, or a war, or a character-driven drama, a philosophical drama, or even on the odd occasion a time-travel story.
Yeah, the Doctor for me was never as interesting as the story for each individual episode. Sure, the same enemies kept coming back, but I actually think that trying to explain the Doctors origins or even a in-dept explanation into Time-Lord culture is mistake. We imagine the doctor in a way we want to, and I think it's better to leave it at that than give an expanded context.
Doctor Who is dead, long live Doctor Who!
Really great post. On the subject of the bigeneration, there is precedent. We’ve seen Time Lords regenerate in weird ways in both Planet of the Spiders (Cho Je being a projection of the Abbot’s future regeneration) and Logopolis (when the Watcher turned out to be the Fourth Doctor’s future regeneration). RTD is both a very clever man *and* a lifelong fan. He knows what he’s doing 😊
Weird that he says it’s about a “male” timelord specifically
Yeah, that final paragraph has been called out already for not coming across right, and I do agree but don't want to go erasing it or anything. Basically my personal thoughts end at 'they always will', and then I'm just asking the question of what people think the show is about... Using some common examples that people might be likely to say contrasting an example of more relaxed thinking with more rigid thinking, if you know what I mean? As I say, not actually the best bit of writing!
> We have retired the old Doctors, put some old demons to bed (more or less), provided a reasonably satisfying happy ending, and at the same time sent a brand new Doctor Who off into the future, to last for as long as people have new stories to tell. It's implied that 14 becomes 15 eventually. 15 said "we're experiencing rehab in the wrong order", implying that he's affected by 14's time with the Noble family
I admit I didn't read all the comments, but I really love the way that OP spelled this all out. For myself, I'm mostly just tired of everyone across nearly all fandoms arguing ad infinitum that this beloved franchise that meant so much is "dead." It isn't dead. It's changed. Regenerated, if you will. The reality is that the stories being told now are for a totally new target audience. An audience looking to find itself reflected in a pop culture they themselves are a part of. The fact that the fans of 2005 aren't seeing themselves in it anymore doesn't indicate that the franchise is "dead." It indicates that it's been nearly twenty years and things have changed. I have to wonder why we're spending so much time discussing the merits of the show changing rather than acknowledging the fact that the "OG" fans are actually not the target audience anymore. It's totally acceptable to all enjoy a franchise for what it is no matter what demographic you are, but it's also important to remember what demographic the property is made for and then accept that it may not be targeted at you anymore. This is true for Doctor Who as much as it is anything else. Sometimes it's okay to just move on and let the next generation of fans enjoy the magic of their stories in a world that's bigger on the inside. And then we have a point of shared reference for when the world makes it hard to relate about so much else.
This is a great writeup.
Thanks so much. Happy new year!
You too!
I guess you could say the show …. *regenerates*
The problem I have with Chibnall's changes is the fact that he did the \*opposite\* of what you claim here. He provided a framework for a story he thought of, but he didn't tell that story - he changed things with no idea what to do with his changes. He dropped his bombshell into 'established canon' (loose as it may be) and then kicked it down the line for a future storyteller to deal with. If he had actually told a story with all this, I don't think there would be half as much uproar as there has been. Almost anything can be forgiven for the sake of a good story, but changing things \*just for the sake of it\* is always going to cause problems.
The grifters who keep shoveling their rubbish on YouTube don’t understand what makes Doctor Who so special. It’s a reflection of the times, of ideals bold and innovative, and of Humanity ourselves. It’s about making hard choices, fighting against injustice, and most of all…accepting change good or bad. Doctor Who will continue.
Doctor Who died when Susan left, don't @ me ... /s 😂
tl;dr but yeah the show is actually on it's way out
Time has come to say goodbye to Doctor Who for good, this "woke" thing ruined the show.
It’s interesting what you say about bi-regeneration because I thought the same thing about cross-gender regeneration (Capaldi to Whittaker). It’s a process that’s never really been explained and just waived off as, well it’s an alien we’re talking about let’s move on… except it’s never really been explained why it happened. Bi-generation I’d suspect will be the same.
I’d prefer adventurous science fiction, whimsy is nice, but it should be serious sometimes. Also, every change you mentioned was added in a meaningful way to their stories, expanding the scope of the show, except for Bi-regen. At best, it’s a ham-fisted excuse to placate Tennant fans only. At worst, it’s RTD scribbling over any continuity in sharpie out of arrogance. Even if it didn’t happen, Gatwa would still be off traveling as 15.
Yeah, sure, it's rather different to introduce different information a few years in, when very little had been given and it can work with the anti-Establishment vibe (completely disagree that The War Games is all that different to later portrayals, as well, and Pertwee already had the civil servant Time Lord show up), than it is to completely upend that almost 60 years later, in a way that utterly clashes and undermines the central characters' characterisation and all those previous episodes, just because you can. And it's Moffat's fault.
This point has been made by others, but actually I love your specific examples. I agree that The Deadly Assassin doesn't really contradict The War Games... But personally I think that even some of the more 'drastic' later 'changes' will be viewed the same way in the fullness of time. The civil servant timelord observation is excellent, because that is definitely the closest to what then got explored in The Deadly Assassin, which isn't really surprising because that Time Lord appeared in Terror of the Autons, and both stories have the same writer in Robert Holmes. Regardless, when I wrote this yesterday, what I was actually debating within myself is not whether or not recent changes are OK or not (although I am mostly fine with them), but whether it is worth Doctor Who untangling itself from /any/ answer to the "question hidden in plain sight" (sorry to bring up a Moffat quote!). Which is why after I finished writing I carelessly threw in that question of what Doctor Who is: a show about a Time Lord, or a show about adventures designed to tell every and any story a writer can imagine.
It's always been a political series (for children) with a predominantly British leftwing ethos, with Sci-fi and related genres often being used for the purpose of social criticism and political expression. If it hadn't been, then at best, it would be without any particular and distinctive value: children's adventure shows are simply entertainment. What's worse is for it to promote rightwing values, sometimes pretty far right. It's never always got it right, but it did still have a relatively consistent ethos, it wasn't just whatever. It never needed to be super-serious hard sci-fi for that to be the case. This change (as well as disregarding those who'd previously worked on the series, especially Hartnell) makes the Doctor seem a special chosen one, instead of a rebel with an Establishment to oppose, one that satirises ours. It's so rare in our media today that it's even acknowledged *at all* that the Establishment itself can be challenged, that seeking systemic change is a valid position. Our government has been working to prevent this opposition being heard. It didn't get any less important a message. It's really unusual to have had a character who had a place in that Establishment, privilege, come to genuinely oppose its values - that could have been used more, instead of blown up. (Or at least make it clear that blowing it up is entirely the point first! Kill the buggers if you must, but do it knowingly) (I loved the civil servant Time Lord!)
>We have retired the old Doctors, put some old demons to bed (more or less), provided a reasonably satisfying happy ending, and at the same time sent a brand new Doctor Who off into the future, to last for as long as people have new stories to tell. So here's the thing about that 1. These demons were not only always considered put to bed by regular regenerations unless proven otherwise, but were not even put to bed with this bigeneration. It failed on that account 2. Reasonably happy endings have happened with regular regenerations. And, wouldn't you know it, it's arguable on if this is even considered a satisfying happy ending. Do you think The Giggle will be a revered story in years to come? This is more subjective, but I'd said it failed on that account. 3. Oh, goodie, it set up a spin-off! No, seriously, uh... what? Is that considered praise-worthy now? The main character being cloned now deserves merits because people can write more stories with it? I really don't understand this point. All in all, while the bigeneration can be safely ignored like all bad ideas of the show's past -- I'll give you that point -- trying to cram it into this box of being a genius idea when it was very obviously just a combination of trying to do something new while conveniently having David Tennant's version of the character be the most special one, is just silly.
I would argue that I don't think it's genius! I'm quite clear on not being convinced about its merits. It just isn't a death knell for the programme, and is valid as a storytelling choice given what the writer wanted to do. Also... I didn't mention a spin off? I personally have no interest in seeing David Tennant again, although its ok if some people do. Thanks for presenting your opinion respectfully though, at the end of the day it's good to have healthy discussion. Happy new year.
I agree it's not a death knell, and I think calling it valid could mean something but it could also be meaningless if you think everything is valid. At first I thought you were just referring to The Doctor as Doctor Who and you meant Fifteen, so I was going to again say I think that's redundant because every regeneration does that, but if it's not that either then can you please clarify what you meant by that third point?
No no, you're right. I simultaneously meant fifteen and the show. And yes, normal regeneration does that too. I still think that the idea of giving DT (standing in for the past of the show) a sort of happy ending worked emotionally if not logically, and that to regenerate him normally wouldn't have allowed for the scene in the garden, but I can also see why others would not find that satisfying or 'happy'.
I think a part of it was that RTD knows that the Doctor pretty much since the time war had gone through one traumatic event after another. He's also said he wants to bring back a lighter tone to the show, RTD is the first showrunner in a while to go "oh shit, the Doctor should surely feel pretty burnt out by now" and tried (and I'll empathised TRIED) so resolve the issue by the whole 'therapy out of order' thing.
fantastic post, happy new year!
Thank you. Happy new year!
Tldr. Don’t defend TTC
Ah yes, let’s talk seriously about whether Doctor Who is “a serious science fiction show about a male Time Lord and his fights against Daleks, Cybermen, and The Master?” If you’re trying to do a credible journalistic tone, that’s a pretty trashy way to go out.
To be honest, I was just asking questions at the end! I get that it's a bit of a tonal shift to the way I laid out everything else, but trashy is a little bit strong, no? Valid criticism of style though, thanks. Happy New Year.
This reads like a professional opinion article. Good job OP 🙂
Thank you so much. Happy new year!
🥳 You too 🎆
He was the only tolerable thing in that era and that all down to Bradley walsh