Why the 9th Doctor deserves some respect
Preamble
2005
was an important year for Doctor Who and it was an important year me too.
Though no doubt many Whovians associate it with the start of a new glorious (to
some hated) era of Doctor Who, to me it was more personal. It was when I found
‘My Doctor’ in Christopher Eccleston.
To
those not in the know, due to the amount of changes (notably its casting of the
titular Doctor) the show has gone through in its 50 years and the sheer time
it’s been running, to stop pointless fan debates of which portrayal was the
‘best’, some fans have taken to calling their personal favourite regeneration
‘My Doctor’. It recognizes that it was the first time the show clicked with
that particular fan and that, in a moment of self awareness far too rare in
most fandom’s, nostalgia may blind that fan to that era’s particular
weaknesses.
So
whilst admittedly that Eccleston being ‘my Doctor’ means that I admit his run
is far from perfect, this doesn’t mean the series has no merit. His era was a
brand spanking new start for a show that had been mothballed for close to 16
years 1. As such it was full of a real sense of adventure,
enthusiasm and a slightly rebellious attitude. Rose and The Doctor quipped back
and forth like they were auditioning for a part in a Joss Whedon show. There
was action and adventure on a grand scale. We had a companion, Jack, not afraid
to get up in people’s faces and who fulfilled the long absent roles of the
brawn and sex appeal all rolled into one, this time for both the gentlemen as
well as the ladies. You know what, there
was even a hint of danger that had long departed the show, as companions and
even main characters were offed left right and centre at a startling rate.
You
can see a series trying to escape the boundaries of the old show, still pushing
for the fringes of what could be done in the format, whilst still recognisably
the same show old time fans could associate with (and which you could argue fell
back on old habits in later seasons via a more traditional Doctor).
A new Doctor for a
new era
At
the heart of it all, was Christopher Eccleston. A Doctor of contrasts, he would
be one moment likely to start a war, the next almost childlike and giddy with
glee, all with a twinkle in his eye. Over everything else, your like and
dislike of Eccleston’s portrayal of the Doctor will probably be the big decider
as to if you like the series or not, with many people I know loathing his run
based on just his portrayal alone.
His
version was a cool, far more stripped down version of many past Doctors,
lacking some of the eccentricities that had characterised past Doctors, a
deliberate attempt on writers Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner's part 2.
His
Doctor was ultimately one who lived for the moment, in an attempt to forget the
past traumas he had gone through (which we now understand to be the Time War,
but at the time was a vaguely hinted at thing with a name and not much else).
More than that, whilst he was disdainful of humanity at times, it was only
because those around him were failing to live up to their potential and what he
knew what we were capable of.
Unlike
the later series and the mopeyness of Tennant, he didn't dwell on it too much.
His Doctor was very much of the present and a man of action. Sure, by other
shows standards he was still a bit of a coward (and admitted as such in Parting
of the Ways), but then thats always been the endearing thing about the Doctor.
He's sees bravado as stupid and usually would rather out think his opponents
instead.
Still,
by even the old shows standards, he has more in common with the third Doctor
than the sixth, rarely roused to anger but unstoppable when done so. I can
think of no greater match of actor and role, to the point where if I didn’t
know any better, I would say that the role was created so Eccleston could walk
on set in the morning ready to go with minimum prep as he was already in
character as a grumpy Time Lord with a chip on his shoulder3. But no
matter how down the Doctor got, he was always seeking hope and trying to
recapture that youthful glamour that evaded him after the events of Time War.
To
do that, he knew he had to go back to basics.
25th century companions
On
the face of it, Billie Piper was an unusual choice for Doctor Who. A former pop
star just starting a transition in an acting career, she had been mostly known
for the tabloid furore surrounding her and Radio DJ Chris Evans marriage. Which
made her appearance in the show even more of a revelation. To be sure, it’s not
as if she was the greatest actor, but she brought to the part a real sense of a
modern forward looking companion to a series with the same outlook.
It’s
true that not all the scripts dealt with her character properly and reduced her
to the Doctor Who staple of ‘eye candy that screams and needs rescuing by the
Doctor. But the most part she was not
only capable, but by coming into the world of the Doctor and standing up to
some of his greatest enemies, she proved herself his equal. Her arc from the
beginning of the series showed how she became more capable, but by accepting
the Doctor’s offer to travel with him and rescuing him in her first appearance,
she showed that she had the seeds of that within her all along, they just
needed to be nurtured.
Captain
Jack...well if you are reading this blog, I’m sure you understand just what
it’s like to have a crush on the hunk that is John Barrowman. Make no mistake;
he made Billy Piper look like an Oscar winning actor. But what he lacked in
acting chops, he more than made up in with sheer charisma and enthusiasm. This
was also a glimpse of Jack as a scary mofo, a capable conman, time traveller
and sexy spy all round, capable of rescuing worlds at a time if needed, all
with a winning smile on his face.
Of
the other companions, I think we can forget Adam, but he showed us, if nothing
else, that when you join up with the Doctor, you don’t dick about on his watch.
Thats something only the Doctor is allowed to do ;-). Mickey though, well I love
Mickey. My god he could be a selfish prick at times and most of his development
was left until season 2, but Noel Clark really captured the feel of someone
completely out of his depth, but still trying to make the world a better place.
In
the end what all of these companions had, and this is something Steven Moffat
could learn from, was an arc. They were clearly different people by the end of
the series. Rose, was a far more seasoned traveller and could no longer stand
by and let events take their course. Jack had turned from a cowardly man living
off other people’s misfortune to a man of action, willing to lay down his life
to protect others. Mickey learnt that Rose really didn’t love him, but that he
didn’t have to be defined that anymore. As for the Doctor, well...
An angry and broken
man.
To
me, the greatest achievement of Nu Who was creating a Doctor suffering from
PTSD. There’s a fan theory that I see circling the net every now and then that
each regeneration is a reaction to the prior incarnation. Where the first
incarnation was a dour old man, the second was a jovial clown who hid a mind of
steel that was always thinking.
This
theory makes more sense when applied to Doctors of Nu Who certainly, with each
regeneration since the absence between the 8th and 9th
becoming more and more jovial the further he gets from the events of the Time
War (with the 11th and current regeneration being a determined
response to put the angst of the 9th and 10th entirely
behind him). Multiple theories even circulate to explain the so far unexplained
absence between the 8th and 9th , some saying that the 9th
Doctor is a new regeneration spawned at the end of the Time War in response to
the 8th s actions, others that the 9th took part and
ended it4.
Regardless
of the truth, what is apparent is that during the 9th Doctor is
haunted by something. You can see it in his eyes and his every moment. Almost
too jovial at times, Eccleston’s eyes always betray him. His was a serious
Doctor and one who was still on a war footing, concealing real anger at his
loss to the point where he can barely even talk about it, only spilling details
when forced to. To him, the trauma he went through5 in his actions was
still fresh and it took him finally facing up to that in the Parting of the Ways to begin to get over
those events. But here I am mentioning themes and missing out on the biggest of
them all.
Nothing will ever be
the same
The
key theme of the new series was change and that with the passing of the Time
Lords, nothing was truly safe anymore. Past series had always had a somewhat
carefree attitude to them. The Doctor arrives on the scene, gets involved and
leaves at the end of it with things, if not perfect, then better than before.
There were few consequences for his actions and very little was a stake, as
long as things wrapped up by the end of the story. That wasn’t the case
anymore. If anything, the expansions in later series of the Doctor being a
vengeful god were trialled here. The events of World War Three had consequences in Boom Town. The Long Game’s conclusion paved the way for the
terrifying events of Bad Wolf. The
message was clear: the Doctor could make mistakes now and as much as he could
see the events of time, without the help of the Time Lords he was still just
one person; unable to see the big picture anymore. Even events that would have
been relatively safe, such as visiting ones past, was now dangerous and could
potentially destroy all of time and space itself.
That
element of danger, of consequences mattering now, helped suspend my disbelief
over a concept that in the past hasn’t caught my attention too much. After all,
where was the element of danger in the past? With the Time Lords ever present,
any catastrophe could be averted if the Doctor was there or not. Now...well
anything could happen. It frequently did.
Nowhere
was this more apparent than the bringing back of the Daleks. Long derided
through years of ever exposure to the point of being laughable tinpot
dictators, the show pulled off the miracle of making them scary again. How was
this feat achieved? A two pronged attack was how.
Bringing back the
Daleks
First,
Dalek showed us just how much carnage
a single, damaged Dalek could do and how much it scared the Doctor who, until
that point, had been unflappable in the face of ghosts, alien invasions and
shop dummies capable of killing people. The slightly jokey, jovial Doctor we
had grown used to was gone, replaced by the cold fury of a being who wished
nothing but death and destruction upon the other sole survivor of the Time War,
even if it damned him in the process. In a turn of phrase that summed up both
his hated enemies position and his, the Doctor put it best
“Whats
the point? Don’t you see? It’s all gone. Everything you were, everything you
stood for”
By exposing us to the last survivors, we got
to see not only the fury that the 9th Doctor had to exercise to rid
himself of the guilt of his actions, but we saw the real pain he had suffered
from having to bottle all that emotion up, unleashed against a foe that,
despite being deadly beyond belief, we sympathised with. We saw just how far
the Doctor had gone to end the Time War and just what it had cost him.
By
letting us see all of that, it left an audience hungry for more, until the reveal at the end of Bad Wolf. That
moment when the Dalek fleet is revealed, you can see the Doctor’s eyes widen
and he takes an involuntary step backwards. The slight quiver in his voice. The
fear. If the Doctor had been furious in Dalek,
he was now terrified at the sight of close to half a million of them. But the
presence of Rose, of dredging up things he was ashamed of, had stirred
something in him and started to make him a better person. He was no longer the
same person who had consigned two species to death. He was the coward we always
knew he was. And damn proud of it too, if being a coward meant that never had
to commit genocide of such an unprecedented scale again.
He
was finally someone at peace with who he was, because if all his actions saved
the people he cared most about, that was all he could ask for, even if it meant
his own death.
Christopher
Eccleston’s time on the show may be clouded with controversy these days, but at
the time he brought hope to many. A new generation fell in love with Doctor Who
and old farts like me fell in love all over again. Sure, looking back on that
series it has its faults. It was certainly a little rusty round the edges and
twice as brassy.
But
it wore its heart on its sleeve and introduced an audience to a more mature,
grown up Who far removed from the dodgy sets and even dodgier monster
stereotypes the show had been associated with in the past. It was, to quote the
Doctor one last time
“Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic”.
You can find the
writer of this piece on Twitter. Reece likes
comics, running and talking about his unfortunate obsession with a certain
Michael Fassbender. He’s dreamy.
All images copyright
of the BBC
1 Yes, I’m aware that
there were novels that ran in between the two eras of the show. But there are
of questionable quality, so I discount them as they have never been
acknowledged in a serious manner by anyone on the Dr Who team since the return
of the show. Sorry fans, but it’s true.
2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/03_march/10/who_davies_
gardner.s html
5. Revealed to be
having to not only destroy the entire Dalek race, but watch his own change into
something he could no longer recognise, until he had to lock them away from
time itself.
