Doctor Who's grandiosity creep But Pertwee, for all his sexist condescension, allowed his patriarchal pomposity to be regularly punctured: his character flaws were exposed and punished repeatedly.

Curmudgeon mode activate! 

Back in The Before Time, the Doctor was a misfit rebel who fled a stultifying, conformist society in order to live life travelling through time and space 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 (regeneration wasn't even invented yet). 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 jerk, wearing cast off clothes from Jesus and the Technicolour Dreamcoat. 

Or was it a recut 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. She was fun, but by no means an equal to the Doc. At least Pertwee, for all his sexist condescension, allowed his Doctor's patriarchal pomposity to be regularly punctured: his character flaws were exposed, and punished, repeatedly. 

Wasn't that the point of his final story?

Personally, I disliked Colin and McCoy’s take on the Doctor. Baker’s wardrobe was an aesthetic atrocity, more horrible to behold than Magnus Greel's half-melted face, so obscene it should never have gotten past BBC censors. Baker's prickly pomposity exceeded even Hartnell's; at least Hartnell could be endearing, even kind, at times.

Thankfully, he was still ‘just’ an itinerant Time Lord. 

Then the impossible happened: things took a turn for the worse. Sylvester McCoy became The Doctor. A diminutive 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.

That wasn't enough. The showrunners felt he had been stripped of mystery (as if that's why I watched the show). Answers had been given, and that wouldn't do! The Doctor had to be 'more mysterious and god-like'. Because reasons. Stupid reasons, but reasons, nonetheless!

And so The Doctor was made to declare, “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, our dotty Doc was reinvented as a member of the cosmic elite, because if there’s one thing British society cannot stand, it’s a pleb. The Doctor, like officers of the British Empire, simply must be an aristocrat. Central to the structure of the universe, like Zaphod Beeblebrox. The Chosen One. That's just how it's done. Pip pip and God Save the Queen. Or that Charles guy.

Make. Me. Barf.

The Universe itself was so appalled it cancelled the show before this narrative travesty could be implemented.  A bullet had been dodged, but the reprieve would only be temporary, because that bullet was a a multiple metaphor and also like a bad penny. It kept coming back.

Cue Russell T. Davies and Chilly Chibnuts. 

In the rebooted show, the Doctor was no longer an itinerant smart guy with a blue police box. He was ‘The Oncoming Storm,' who could dissuade aliens from invading earth just by identifying himself. He didn't dotter, he smugly swaggered.

The Doctor and his narcissistic companions (I’m in particular looking at you, Jack, but I bet that makes you happy) would sit around talking about how amazing they were. Like thanksgiving turkeys, just with ego stuffing instead of, you know, dressing.

Back in the real world, Davies endlessly blew smoke up his own show, hailing it (and himself) as brilliant. God’s gift to television. Modesty is not his modus operandi. He's half-salesman. What planet are they from, again?

Scale kept getting dialled up: the Daleks didn’t want to just take over the earth, anymore. Or the solar system, or the Milky Way. No, no, no. They wanted to destroy REALITY ITSELF.

Because anything less than everything isn’t big enough.

The Doctor became a legend in the show’s mind, and this time his companions were included in the scope creep. They got tied into reality itself, made immortal plastic, accomplished super human tasks that defied comprehension. It was like watching the unrestricted imagination of a six year old, realized with a BBC budget. 

We were no longer watching ordinary people flitting about the universe, we were watching demi-gods doing demi-god things. 

Capaldi and Clara was the nadir, for me: both 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 god-progenitor with a vengeance in The Timeless Children, which was totally anathema to my idea of who Who is. Rather than just a hobo nonconformist, he’s a mysterious, endlessly reincarnating god-being, the basis on which the Time Lord civilization was built. 

From rebel without a system to system without a rebel. 

Bow down before your God-King Chosen One, unwashed masses, we have a new uber-anointed one! 

Thanks a lot Chilly Chibchunks, you wanker. Did your mother not pay you enough attention as a child?

Could Dr. He/She be more important? 

Well. 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. Remember, every self-absorbed, ego driven scribe wants to outdo and undo the previous set. Just ask me.

Nothing is ever enough if it can be more. 

The inevitable conclusion? The Doctor will be God (but also Merlin), his companions inbred angel siblings, The Master The Devil (and God’s former lover), Davros his long lost son (Evil Jesus), and the Daleks snot from The Divine Schnoz, and everyone in the universe will talk all the time about how WONDERFUL Trump is. Sorry, I mean, The Doctor. The huge egos involved make it hard to tell them apart.

Mark my words: it’s going to happen. 

I mean, they've already had snot monsters on Who. 

Then, and only then, will The Great Enshittification of Doctor Who be complete.

Well. Until they decide the Doctor being God isn't mysterious ENOUGH, and they will make the Doctor something more powerful and mysterious THAN God.

Because imbeciles.

Why couldn't they explore The Mystery of Colin Baker's Hideous Blinding Coat? Does no one else want to know how he stole it from Jesus?

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. Pertwee took that in good humour. The Doctor was flawed, and his flaws were repeatedly punished. 

The companions were grounded, not tiresome look-at-me Mary Sues prancing about in their plot armour. 

Sarah Jane was one of the most can-do characters to ever grace the telly, but she was also wonderfully, fallible human. She got shit done, despite not being tied into the Code of the Universe. She was relatable in ways modern companions never are. 

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 other highlight of Baker’s run.

The modern show leans heavily into hyper-powered protagonists, which play like lead ingots floating in jello. 

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. I don't want to look at Who's great big fantasy dong. 

That isn’t Who for me. 

Perhaps it’s Who for you.

Thanfully, like no show in history, Doctor Who reinvents itself. One can only hope.

It's worth noting that the best seasons, the Fabled Golden Age, of Who 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. 

Sadly we only get one pass.

Damn reality, always raining on my thought parade...

Photo of the Brigadier on set of the lost Doctor Who serial, "Attack of thekeep left pylons", which can be seen in the background menacing a priest played by Jimmy Saville. That one gave me nightmares as a kid. Thanks BBC.