Curmudgeon mode activate!
Back in The Before Time, which few alive remember, the Doctor was a misfit rebel who fled a stultifying, conformist society in order to live life on his own terms.
Beautiful. Ten out of ten for premise.
This Doctor was almost… ordinary. Sure, he had a blue police box that wheezed about time and space, but otherwise... he was mortal. A savvy scientist, to be sure, but frequently out of his depth. Every time the TARDIS doors opened, he was as surprised, curious and discombobulated as his companions.
The show’s original intent was to explore history and science for the benefit of children.
This direction was quickly derailed by the Daleks, who changed the show’s DNA forever. The bug eyed monster of the week, exactly what the show’s creator had sought to avoid, became the new paradigm (from the second serial, so pretty much out of the gate).
The Doctor was often recognized by his ‘favourite’ villains, but he wasn’t famous across time and space.
Towards the end of the classic run, the Doctor became outlandishly arrogant (Colin) and Machiavellian (McCoy). He was less a traveler exploring the wonders of the universe and more of a strutting, pompous peacock, a companion strangling ass wearing cast off clothes from Jesus and the Technicolour Dreamcoat.
Or was it an old quilt?
The gap between the all-knowing Doctor and his companions grew over time. Liz Shaw was an early equal, but viewers didn’t like her so she got swapped out with the delightfully ditzy Jo Grant. Fun character, but by no means an equal to the Doc. Pertwee positioned himself as a teacher and patriarch who was often exposed as over confident.
I particularly dislike Colin and McCoy’s take on the Doctor. Baker’s wardrobe was an aesthetic atrocity, and it’s obscenity of his jacket should never have gotten past BBC censors. I’d rather gaze upon Magnus Greel’s half-melted visage.
Baker’s pomposity exceeded that of Hartnell by a wide margin, and while the first doctor could be endearing and kind at times, Colin was a thoroughly unpleasant, tirelessly disagreeable blot.
But he was still ‘just’ an itinerant Time Lord.
Things took a turn for the worse, proving it this was indeed possible, with Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor. A tea time reinvention of Batman’s Penguin, this Doctor was no longer a half-bumbling space hobo. Sly was always one step ahead of the villains, plotting their demise in elaborately convoluted ways he’d hint at with fourth wall breaking winks.
The show runners felt he was boring being ‘just’ a Time Lord. The mystery was gone! Answers had been given to the audience, and that would not do! The Doctor had to be more mysterious and god-like. Because reasons. Stupid reasons, but reasons!
And so the Doctor was made to blurt out, “I am far more than just a Time Lord.”
That’s right: the Doctor couldn’t be a rebel misfit hobo noncomformist. The show runners planned to reveal him as ‘The Other’ a god like figure, one of the founders of Time Lord society, along with Rassilon and Omega.
Instead of being one of the people, he was reinvented as a member of the cosmic elite, because if there’s one thing British society cannot stand it’s a pleb. Officers had to be of royal lineage, after all. Pip pi and God Save the Queen. Or that Charles guy. Whatever.
Make. Me. Barf.
Fortunately, the Universe itself was offended by this idea so much it cancelled the show before the travesty could be implemented.
Cue Russell T. Davies and Chilly Chris Chibnuts.
When the show came back, the Doctor was no longer just a smart guy with a blue police box. He was ‘The Oncoming Storm.’ He could dissuade aliens from invading earth by just identifying himself as its protector.
Modesty was dead.
The Doctor and his narcissistic, egotistical companions (I’m looking at you, Jack. But I bet that makes you happy) would sit around talking about how brilliant and awesome they were.
Davies would talk up his own show as brilliant and amazing and fantastic, as if he was God’s gift to television.
The Doctor no longer dealt with little things. The scale kept increasing. The Daleks didn’t want to just take over the earth, or the solar system, or the Milky Way. No, no, no. They wanted to destroy REALITY ITSELF.
Because anything less just isn’t big enough stakes.
The Doctor became increasingly a legend in the TV show’s mind, and his companions took on larger than life abilities. They get tied into the nature of reality itself. Or they’d become immortal plastic. They no longer seemed like real people, even when they came from ordinary origins. Being with the Doctor elevated them into hyper-capable demigods. We were no longer watching ordinary people flitting about the universe, we were watching demi-gods doing demi-god things. Like Thanksgiving turkeys, just with ego stuffed up the ass.
The grandiosity and self-congratulating narcissism of the show runners kept in lock step with the increasing egotism of the characters.
Capaldi and Clara was the nadir, for me. Two highly unpleasant, disagreeable malignant narcissists, it was hard to decide who I wanted to see die more.
And lo, Chibnuts saw this and said unto thee, hold my beer. He brought back the McCoy-Merlin roaming god-king idea with The Timeless Children. Admittedly, I haven’t watched this. It’s totally anathema to my idea of Who the Doctor is. Rather than just a hobo nonconformist, he’s a mysterious, endlessly reincarnating being, the progenitor of the Time Lords. Could he/she be more important? Could it get more grandiose?
Just as Blofeld is now James Bond’s long lost brother, yes. Yes it could. Give it time and the writers will make the Doctor God. This is inevitable, as every set of writers on the show want to outdo and undo the previous set.
Nothing is ever enough if it can be more.
The inevitable conclusion, then, is that the Doctor is God, his companions are angel siblings, The Master is The Devil (and God’s former lover), Davros his long lost son, and the Daleks snot from The Divine Schnoz.
Mark my words: it’s going to happen.
Then, and only then, will The Great Enshittification of Doctor Who be complete.
Why couldn't they explore the mystery of Colin Baker's hideous coat? Could anything be more terrifying?
Sure, Three and Four (my favourites) could be egotists, too. But that egotism was frequently, and pointedly, punctured, with the Doctor proven disastrously wrong over and over. The Doctor was flawed, and his flaws were punished. The companions were grounded, not tiresome Mary Sues.
Sarah Jane was one of the most can-do characters to ever grace the telly, but she was also wonderfully, fallible human. She wasn’t tied into the Code of the Universe. She was relatable in ways modern companions never are (Donna excepted). Elizabeth Sladen herself played a big role in fleshing out Sarah’s personality, and deserves a lot of credit for creating one of the show’s most memorable companions. Her banter with Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter), who was as good natured as he was bumbling and sexist, was frequently hilarious. And who could forget Leela? She played off Four to great effect: pairing our favourite nerdy space misfit with a murder-happy savage (‘Shall I kill him, Doctor?’) was the highlight of Baker’s run.
The modern show leans heavily into hyper-powered protagonists, like lead ingots in jello. Hand wavy magic thing-a-ma-jigs make them god-like every other episodes (I exaggerate slightly for dramatic effect here).
Science, admittedly, has never been a particularly strong point of Who. But the rebooted science-fantasy series leans heavily into outright magic, throwing away the fig leaf ‘science’ prefix entirely; but like the statue of David, the show’s more palatable with it.
This just isn’t Who for me.
Hopefully it’s Who for you.
Like no show in history, Doctor Who reinvents itself. The best seasons, the Fabled Golden Age, of the program is… when you were ten.
Even if Robert Holmes was deliberately writing for fourteen years old and wouldn’t allow younger kids to even watch the show without supervision.
