All The Doctors

Tonight I will be watching the return of Doctor Who with a brand new actor. I cannot discuss what I am yet to see but I can discuss past actors and how well they were served by the various recent fiftieth anniversary programs.

Hartnell – Troughton – Pertwee

An Adventure In Time And Space was an amazingly well done docudrama showing how Doctor Who started. It focused on William Hartnell as the original actor to play Doctor Who. I personally would have liked to see them extend the story of Hartnell to his limited involvement in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973. This would have then allowed for some depiction of both Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. That may have made the story even more depressing than it was but it is the story of an old and sick actor so I would cop that for the sake of another concept. I personally think that the collected programming during the fiftieth anniversary should have done justice to all the past incarnations of the Doctor.

Baker

Tom Baker is amusingly impersonated in the comedic mockumentary The Five-ish Doctors Special which lampoons his absence from past televised reunion shows. However then there was the surprise coup of him having a cameo (as an un-named character) in the Day Of The Doctor. That was spine-tingling. Also I have been watching some old Doctor Who recently and always find I am most drawn to the Tom Baker era. Despite my protestations that I have a number of favourite incarnations I suspect that maybe I do have one favourite.

Davison – Baker – McCoy

The Five-ish Doctors Special was possibly the best thing produced for the fiftieth anniversary. Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy are a wonderful comedic trio in playing themselves as past Doctor Who actors desperately seeking to get into the Day Of The Doctor. This cack-fest is worth seeing over-and-over and has a wonderful cinematic Hobbit reference in it. I may be saying this in part because the 80s was my time as an avid Whovian.

McGann

Apparently Paul McGann is called 'the longest and the shortest' Doctor in the sense that he was only in one telemovie but has been in the most other media such as audio-plays and novels. However for me TV is what defines Doctor Who and therefore it was wonderful to see McGann in the online mini-sode The Night Of The Doctor. I think this was the most exciting moment for me suddenly seeing what could-have-been if McGann had been in a continuing series. It was also nice to see him have a cameo in the Five-ish Doctors Special as someone who is a successful jobbing actor.

Eccleston – Tennant – Smith

I touched on both my approval for Day Of The Doctor and my desire for changes to it here. What if the special had included all three actors of the revived era? I would have loved to see Christopher Eccleston as well as David Tennant and Matt Smith. The fact that producer Stephen Moffat managed to get Tom Baker involved but never managed to bring Eccleston back into the fold is a huge pity. The one implication of my futile wish however is that a show with the three latest actors would never have needed the invention of the War Doctor played by John Hurt.

I admire John Hurt but a seasoned actor like him could have taken on another role in the special. I personally would have liked to see a wise elder figure in the role of the Interface of the doomsday device the Doctor took to that hut in the Gallifreyan desert. Why? That hut intrigues me. What is it and why did the Doctor go there? I think it has personal significance for him. There are mountains in the background and this reminds me of tales told by the Doctor in the classic series of a hermit who lived in the mountains behind his childhood home and who was a mentor for him. It would make sense for the Interface to imitate a past incarnation of that character.

But what of Rose you say? Well it was never Rose – just a computer simulation. New Who has plenty of fan service as is and you cannot have everything in your special. What of Jack? Or Martha? Or Amy & Rory? All recent companions could have worked in a reunion show.

However I personally think that the likes of Kate Stewart and Queen Elizabeth I give the Doctor plenty of supporting characters to play with. I enjoyed the show and think it was one of the most well-developed adventures I have ever seen but I can also lament lost opportunities.



Capaldi

And now I come to the new actor who will play the Doctor from this weekend. At the time his tenure was announced I knew nothing of Peter Capaldi. Apparently he plays a political advisor in a satire who uses expletives with aplomb. He is Scottish of Italian background - his grandfather came from Italy and operated an ice-cream van that his father later took over.

I bet the Capaldis faced slurs like 'dago' and yet some fans regard the new actor as 'just another white' man. It is ironic that over a few generations the same family has likely been subject to both racist harassment and the racialist dismissal of glancing at a mug-shot and sticking it into an anthropological box. But the program has and will surely continue to reflect the changing face of British culture as time passes. And despite its name Doctor Who has always focused on the adventures of a group.

Another thing of interest is the age of Capaldi. He is old in a culture that commodifies youthfulness and contrasts markedly with his many young predecessors. I hope the gravitas warrented by the character of The Doctor will be something that Capaldi can easily convey. The glances we have so far got look promising. The few seconds focusing on just his eyes and voice in the Fiftieth Anniversary also hint at someone rather severe but I wonder how well that fits the triumphant note with which that special ended.

Due to various plot twists the Doctor has expended all his regenerations but then got a brand new set and that is what we start with tonight. It will be interesting to see how this first incarnation of a new batch fares in investigating the whole of Spacetime.