Doctor Who (25 page)

The EDA series met with mixed reactions. Some enjoyed its high-­concept science fiction plots and strange developments. Others criticized it for lacking the same fun and morality of
Doctor Who.
Even those who consider themselves fans have remarked that certain plots and ideas seemed to be forced retroactive explanations and unwanted twists; Romana regenerating from friend into ruthless adversary, and the Eighth Doctor suffering from amnesia twice more, the second time having it last for several books.

With the arrival of the modern-day TV program, the EDA series ended in June 2005 to make way for novels featuring the new on-screen Doctor.
The Gallifrey Chronicles,
the final EDA book, had an open ending: Readers received three potential versions of the Ninth Doctor yet to come—a joke since by this time audiences had seen Christopher Eccleston, Richard E.
Grant, and Rowan Atkinson all play the role in some form (as we'll soon discuss). While Gallifrey is destroyed in the novel, the Eighth Doctor possesses all its knowledge and information in his mind and can apparently restore it.

The novels and comic strips generally didn't consider each other's continuity. The Big Finish audio drama
Zagreus
later implied, helpfully, that they were actually two parallel timelines. Big Finish also acquired the license to publish new
Short Trips
anthologies featuring tales of the first eight Doctors. The
Repercussions
collection implied that time paradoxes and shifts sometimes removed events and even companions from the Doctor's life. Since it's apparently the Eighth Doctor who later fought in the Last Great Time War imagined by Russell T. Davies, some fans have assumed that the Eighth Doctor's multiple continuities are a side effect of the massive temporal chaos unleashed by the conflict. But one version of the Eighth Doctor has the added support of including the direct participation and approval of Paul McGann himself.

Callback

In 1999, impressed with their work on the Bernice Summerfield audio dramas, the BBC granted Big Finish Productions the license to make new
Doctor Who
adventures featuring the past Doctors. After a year of new audio plays featuring the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctors, Big Finish approached Paul McGann about reprising his role. They worried initially that he might not wish to return to the part, but the actor happily joined in.

In January 2001, Big Finish released the audio drama
Storm Warning,
written by Alan Barnes, who also wrote many of the Eighth Doctor's comic strip adventures. An undefined amount of time following the events of the TV movie has passed, and the Eighth Doctor finds himself aboard the R101, the famous airship that crashed in 1930. There he meets Charlotte “Charley” Pollard, a young woman who claims the title of “Edwardian adventuress.” Although he knows that history recorded Charley's death aboard the R101, the Doctor, taken with the young woman, recruits her. India Fisher, who made her voice work debut in the Fifth Doctor audio drama
Winter for the Adept,
played Charley.

The two characters become fast friends, hurtling from one adventure to another, teaming up with Lethbridge-Stewart, exploring a haunted house where it's always Christmas and there's a murder every hour, and stopping the Daleks from wiping Shakespeare from history. Old and new fans praised McGann's reprise, finally seeing what kind of Doctor he could have been. By the fortieth anniversary story,
Zagreus,
it was clear that the Eighth Doctor was changing. Defeats hardened his attitude and made him more cautious. As seasons rolled forward, he felt an ongoing disappointment in the universe. Whereas once the Time Lords had exiled him, now he chose full exile rather than stay in a society where half the people were crazy and the other half were boring.

Years after she first brought Charley to life in the audio dramas, India Fisher had an e-mail conversation with show runner Russell T. Davies about the new program. Fisher said that Russell loved the character of Charley Pollard and even told her, “without her as a vanguard, Rose Tyler would never have been written.” Following Charley's departure, BBC7 produced further adventures of the Eighth Doctor, now joined by the acerbic and occasionally reckless Lucie Miller, played by Sheridan Smith. Lucie's sarcasm, humor, and occasional impatience with the Doctor made her a fan favorite who stayed for several seasons.

Julie Cox (Mary Shelley in the audio dramas)

Photograph courtesy of Big Finish Productions

Big Finish released other audio dramas of the Doctor from before he met Lucie or Charley, revealing adventures he'd shared with novelist Mary Shelley. In November 2012, the company released the mini-series called
Dark Eyes,
taking place after Lucie's departure and introducing new companion Molly O'Sullivan, an Irish World War I nursing assistant played by Ruth Bradley. As the
Dark Eyes
stories begin, the Eighth Doctor, emotionally damaged by recent experiences, now sports the short
hair and dark leather coat that Paul McGann always wanted. He even has a new sonic screwdriver, one with a wooden handle that matches his TARDIS console and utilizes a blue crystal similar to the ones seen in models used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. When McGann modeled his new costume at a convention, some wondered whether the design heralded the Eighth Doctor's return to TV.

Ruth Bradley (Molly in the audio dramas) and Paul McGann

Photograph courtesy of Big Finish Productions

Nicholas Briggs couldn't be happier with how the Eighth Doctor continues to gather new fans almost twenty years after the TV movie. “We really got something quite special with Paul,” he said. “I sometimes get nervous he'll decide, ‘Well, that was nice, but enough's enough.' But each year, he's willing to do more. I think he really came to appreciate how much people love his Doctor and what a large world
Doctor Who
really is.”

Paul McGann himself said at Gallifrey One: “You'd think people would be bored with me, but I guess you can't play the part just once. . . . And that's the beauty of it—this is a story that can do anything. There's time travel and regeneration, and each Doctor can grow and change on his own. You never have to stop.”

Half Human?

When the 1996 TV movie aired, something made many Whovians scratch their heads: The Master notices the Doctor's retinal pattern and concludes that our hero is actually half human. Later in the film, the Doctor is trying to charm a scientist and remarks, “I'm half human—on my mother's side.” He then reveals to his friend Grace that this remark was just a distraction while he pilfered the scientist's ID badge.

Some fans accept that the Doctor is half human. Others argue that the Master or another Time Lord should have realized this earlier if it was simply a matter of looking into the hero's eyes. In the 2008 episode “Journey's End,” it is confirmed that the Doctor is not part human when he is surprised to meet a version of himself who is. Another point against the Doctor having a human mother comes in the two-part special “The End of Time,” in which a character appears in visions, a Time Lord whom the credits identify as The Woman. Many wondered if this Time Lord was supposed to be the Doctor's mother. Writer Russell T. Davies later revealed that he did intend this, but he also didn't specify it in the dialogue to give later storytellers the option of revealing her as someone else.

Many fans who don't accept the Doctor as half human have chosen to assume that the Master made an error in his conclusion, a result of his increasing mental instability. Seen another way, the Eighth Doctor's joke was just that: a remark meant to distract the listener that happened to match up with the Master's conclusion.

As time has gone on, more and more fans are adopting the idea that, although the Doctor doesn't have a human parent, his eighth incarnation did leave him with human traits during that life. In “Destiny of the Daleks,” Romana showed she could regenerate into a seemingly non-human/Gallifreyan form if she wanted. The Eighth Doctor also told Grace that Time Lords could change species (or seem to) when regenerating. The Big Finish audio play
Circular Time
features a story in which a Time Lord directs his regeneration so that his next incarnation will adopt traits of the dominant native life form, seemingly becoming a hybrid.
Perhaps the Doctor recognized that his eighth body had human features, which prompted his joke.

Some fans have also hypothesized that the Doctor's final thoughts and regrets before regeneration may influence his next incarnation's behavior. The First Doctor knew he was irascible and bad tempered, so he changed into a more jovial, outgoing person. Thus was born the Second Doctor. As Professor Langley puts it: “Each new Doctor seems to be a reaction to the last one. . . . As he's looking back on his last life just before regeneration, thinking about how he could've been different, it could be like a person focusing on something just before sleep and then having that idea become an influence in their dreams.”

The Seventh Doctor often seemed disturbed by his actions and how aloof he had to be for his plans to work. In the 2006 audio drama
Time Works,
the Eighth Doctor remarks that his previous incarnation realized in later years how much he regretted becoming a master planner, more of a Time Lord, when what he really wanted deep down was to be more human. Perhaps his regeneration into his eighth form, a difficult one altered by drugs, temporarily granted his wish in a strange way.

19

The Last of the Time Lords

“It won't be quiet, it won't be safe, and it won't be calm. But I'll tell you what it will be: The trip of a lifetime!”

—The Ninth Doctor, from BBC commercials (2005)

 

It's the first day of shooting for Christopher Eccleston. He's running down a hallway—practically a
Doctor Who
trademark—chasing a pig in a space suit while nearby military men look up in confusion. The role he accepted months ago has become very tangible. The cameras are rolling. Now and for the rest of his life he is the Ninth Doctor.

The journey began a couple of years earlier. The BBC couldn't ignore that every year letters and phone calls still poured in, asking about
Doctor Who
returning to the air. Polls in magazines and online forums showed a strong desire for the program's return.

Russell T. Davies, a writer and executive producer often referred to as RTD, had impressed many at the BBC. His acclaimed series
Queer as Folk
had inspired a US version and he had gained a good reputation with colleague and crew. RTD, a known
Doctor Who
fan, had written for the tie-in media. By now, new blood was coursing through the BBC, and those in charge had fond memories of
Doctor Who
from their own childhoods.

But although the BBC was interested in discussing a new version of the program with Davies, there was a problem with the rights. Between the film deals and the TV movie, only tie-in media seemed able to tell new Doctor stories and BBC Worldwide wanted to look into a theatrical film again. Davies knew of these issues, so he dismissed these early calls from the BBC, thinking any
Doctor Who
deal would stall at the development stage.

Despite this hassle, bits of
Doctor Who
did still appear on-screen. For 1999's Red Nose Day—a British charity telethon event—Steven Moffat wrote a comedy short that included the Master and the Daleks. “The Curse of Fatal Death” opened with Rowan Atkinson as the Ninth Doctor, who
regenerated several times in the story, becoming Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, and Hugh Grant. When the Doctor's thirteenth life ended, the hero impossibly regenerated again into the Fourteenth Doctor, played by Joanna Lumley. “The Curse of Fatal Death” played for laughs, but Moffat seriously loved
Doctor Who.
In his hit series
Coupling,
one character, a die-hard Whovian, constantly refers to the show.

Meanwhile, BBCi (the BBC's network of websites that is now once again called BBC Online), experimented with continuing the show as an animated “webcast” (a web-based broadcast). Sylvester McCoy appeared in
Death Comes to Time
in 2001, an adventure that strangely ended with the hero's death, negating the TV movie and anything that came afterward. The 2002 webcast
Real Time
featured the Sixth Doctor and his Big Finish companion Evelyn Smythe and was largely recorded, as the title suggests, in real time. Using scripts of the unfinished Fourth Doctor story, Paul McGann and Lalla Ward performed in the
Shada
webcast in 2003.

These webcasts engendered new hope for a full-blown TV program. Some still claimed the show wouldn't work for a modern audience, that it was either too old-fashioned or that the larger effects budget that a new science fiction audience demanded would ruin the show's charms. But various new media were approaching familiar tropes with a postmodern take, so the BBC considered restoring the property with a fresh approach.

In 2003, BBCi released an animated
Doctor Who
webcast written by Paul Cornell and featuring Richard E. Grant.
Scream of the Shalka
was intended to be the first in a series of webcasts officially continuing the franchise. The BBC, still unsure whether a live-action program would happen any time soon, recognized Grant's animated incarnation as the official Ninth Doctor, a cynical and sarcastic man, whom the actor described as Sherlock Holmes from outer space. At his side (and voiced by Sir Derek Jacobi) stood the Master, forced to atone for his past by helping our hero, his essence trapped in a robot body that couldn't leave the TARDIS.

But then on September 26, 2003, everything changed. BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey had determined to get the program back on the air, with Davies at the helm, and she no longer cared about BBC Worldwide's plans for a film. On the audio documentary
Project: WHO,
Heggessey recounts, “I just said, ‘Enough! We have to do it, we have to do it now. I
don't care what the situation is, get it sorted. And BBC One should now take priority because we've been waiting for this movie that hasn't yet appeared.' ”

That September morning, she announced that it was happening, and it wouldn't be a reboot, as some expected, but a continuation of the old program. Over the years, others had pitched ways of reimagining the franchise from scratch—ignoring that the point of the show was that it rebooted itself internally—often with a darker, cynical edge and using a TARDIS with a working chameleon circuit. Davies didn't want to obey every single bit of continuity established by the original program, nor did he want to ignore it. Repeats of classic adventures had been airing on television for years following cancellation, and the parents of many children watching the new show would recall watching previous actors in the role. It had to be a continuation, and it had to be the Ninth Doctor, not a new First Doctor.

Some asked why RTD didn't recruit Paul McGann. Davies answered that it was important to approach this as a completely new show. The audience would meet the new Doctor and not need to know anything about him. Older fans wouldn't be telling newer fans of past stories featuring the hero seen on-screen. They'd discover the character together.

While Davies acknowledged the legitimacy of Paul McGann's Doctor and praised it, he didn't consider
Scream of the Shalka
in line with his vision of the character and didn't find its depiction of the Time Lord particularly impressive. In statements to the press, he made it clear that the new Doctor would be the official Ninth Doctor and he wasn't worrying about the webcast. Richard E. Grant's incarnation became known as the Shalka Doctor to fans, a parallel universe version featured again only in one other prose story, “The Feast of the Stone.”

Building the Show

Initially, the plan called for a season of six episodes, a standard in the UK for many dramas, and the BBC suggested multi-episode arcs relying on cliffhangers. It was a classic
Doctor Who
formula, but Davies countered that modern audiences were used to what he called the American model: stand-alone episodes that formed a larger saga but also worked on their own.
Davies suggested that new
Doctor Who
episodes have a cold open, allowing a mini-cliffhanger before the theme music began. When he later realized his episodes tended to end shorter than what was needed, he added previews for the subsequent adventure at the end.

The BBC agreed and then increased the number of episodes from six to thirteen. Davies needed more writers and now had to reconsider the general character arc. Converting six of the episodes into three two-part stories (a formula that RTD generally followed for the next few years) allowed for more nail-biting storytelling. As this was now a mainstream Saturday evening drama with a respectable budget, it was a very different atmosphere from previous
Doctor Who
eras. Months were spent filming, with episodes going through weeks of post-production work before they would be ready to air.

As producer Phil Collinson saw it, while the new program wouldn't be beholden to the original, it was still important to keep the atmosphere and inspiration consistent. Along these lines, executive producer Julie Gardner expressed that the creative team had no desire to alter the character significantly. He would still be a centuries-old Time Lord with two hearts who enjoyed traveling in a stolen and unreliable time ship that looked like a police box.

Russell T. Davies did want to tap into some of the sensibility of the Paul McGann TV movie, particularly that the Doctor could appeal romantically to someone who traveled with him even if he didn't (or wouldn't) return those feelings. He also took influence from
Smallville
and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
wanting characters to make similar comments and comparisons to classic science fiction television, echoing the thoughts of the audience.

Davies also decided to focus on Earth-bound stories, believing that going to a planet with a society unlike Earth's to protect people unlike humans might prove difficult for some audiences to embrace. Seeing humanity in different time periods gave a stronger connection. Even if the Doctor did take Rose to another planet or a space station, humans were walking about. Likewise, RTD didn't want the companion to come from another planet or time. To keep the Doctor a mystery, the companion needed to become the focus, someone whom the audience could relate to and who wouldn't regenerate if faced with certain death.

Rose Tyler was a working class girl who'd dropped out of school and lived with her widowed mother, occasionally hanging with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Mickey Smith. She was making a living but not living her life.

Rose and the Doctor meet in the series premiere episode, the hero grabbing her hand and yelling at her to run from a horde of Autons, living mannequins not seen since the 1970s. The style of this introduction for the Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston, met with some debate. RTD explains:

 

Jane Tranter, who was the control of Drama, wasn't happy with the Doctor's first appearance [when he says, “Run!”] . . . that's exactly how it was written. When you look at it now, you sort of think,
Actually the door should have flung open, and there should be back lighting and smoke and, you know, this . . . terrifically powerful man should've gone, “Run!”
. . . I'm glad we never reshot it because in my heart . . . it's meant to be quite low-key. . . . Because this whole thing is from Rose's point of view. So to her, he's just a stranger that pops up and says, “Run!” and she's running. . . . It's a hard one, isn't it? It's tricky.

Meet the Doctor

“Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!”

—The Ninth Doctor, from “Rose” (2005)

 

Christopher Eccleston trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Appearing in various film and television roles throughout the 1990s, he became well known as a regular cast member of the series
Cracker
and then
Our Friends in the North.
He played the lead in
Second Coming,
an ITV miniseries written and produced by Russell T. Davies that the BBC had turned down. Broadcast in February 2003,
Second Coming
had ratings of more than six million, a pleasant surprise for a station criticized for presenting unchallenging drama at that time.

Months later, Eccleston heard the announcement that Davies was bringing back
Doctor Who
to the BBC. He wanted in. Eccleston admittedly
had never followed the classic program as a dedicated fan. He'd watched several episodes casually and always made sure to see certain Dalek episodes and the Doctor's regenerations. But even as a child, the idea of a man who could alter his body and mind fascinated him. Now he wanted to play the hero himself. In many interviews, when asked why he developed such an interest in portraying the Doctor, Eccleston's go-to answer was: “Because Russell T. Davies was writing it.”

In
Doctor Who Magazine
#343, Eccleston said that the more he thought about the role, the more he fixated on the strange hero.

 

I remember thinking,
He's always moving through time. He's never at home.
That struck me as quite sad, really, and quite resonant for our times—somebody who feels out of place, but also seems to care about human life. I thought about that quite a lot, that melancholy side to him. And then, that night, I happened to watch
Blade Runner
for the first time in my life. Although I'd seen the film, I never properly watched it, and I was very, very affected by it. The whole thing you get with [Roy Batty] longing to be human, and all the stuff about whether [Rick Deckard] is human or not. I thought that was very moving, and in some ways it complemented what I'd been thinking about the life of a Time Lord. So I e-mailed Russell with my thoughts about it. Afterwards I felt quite pretentious about sending it, as I do now talking about it. I put a P.S.—just on instinct, really—saying, ‘If you're auditioning for
Doctor Who,
can you put me on the list?' He never replied to say whether or not he thought the e-mail was pretentious, but he did say, ‘Of course, I'll consider you.' That was the end of 2003.

 

Eccleston met with Davies and discussed more ideas about the Doctor's nature. The actor wanted to emphasize that the Doctor would lose patience with humans who were not patient themselves, that he found closed minds frustrating, but would also care about people to a fault, sometimes taking on too much responsibility. Eccleston once mused: “He has two hearts. Does that mean he cares twice as much?”

After Eccleston secured the role, the next step of course was wardrobe. What do you wear to portray a centuries-old alien whose technology makes him seem magical? Davies didn't want to give him a costume as Nathan-Turner had, nor did he want the Doctor of the twenty-first century to look like someone who belonged to the nineteenth. “The Doctor is already eccentric,” Davies said. “He doesn't need to dress eccentrically.” According to Julie Gardner, “We met lots of costume designers and production designers who had brilliant ideas, but they were thinking in a sci-fi way . . . the color of the costume changing every time he's in oxygen—nonsense things that you really didn't need.”