A Way To Fix The “Rose Doctor”

Yeah, a bunch of people aren’t happy about this. Because it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Chibnall “unlocked” the possibility of crossgender regeneration, but it never made a lot of sense and was just done for sociopolitical reasons, not story reasons. I wasn’t a fan of it before, but this is weirder. This has come up again thanks to discussions by former writer during the allegedly good Russel T. Davies run (I disagree) that first brought the show back to British TV as well as the US thanks to the then-branded Sci-Fi Channel.

In a recent interview, writer Robert Shearman joined the list of people pretty sure Doctor Who is a dead show due to Billie Piper’s appearance. The interesting quotes:

“At the moment I’m in a ‘pull’ phase. It’s weird because the show is probably as dead as we’ve ever known it.”

“After 1989, we had, for years, a current Doctor. Now, everything that is ever going to be produced in Doctor Who terms is going to feel retrogressive. At least with the New Adventures [novels] and then the BBC Books, you thought, ‘It’s the current Doctor – McCoy or McGann.’”

“No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means.”

In the classic series, the Doctor tried to talk Romana out of assuming the form of someone they had just recently met, the show trying to find an excuse to get an actress they liked in that story to come in as the new Romana just as Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi both would as the Doctor himself in later regenerations. Now here’s the Doctor taking on the form of his first Companion of the new series. I mean, I know why Davies did it. His obsession with Rose Tyler and Billie Piper came into play. The man named his studio after that time Rose became the “bad wolf”. He started his first run and the new series with Billie, so why not end his second run on her? Was this also his way of ending a series that had not changed with him, not creating to be a source of activism? Political commentary stories in Doctor Who rarely go well, and both Davies and Chibnall couldn’t stop themselves from doing so, pushing feminist and LGBT+ characters and themes, especially with Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor, over quality storytelling. It’s possible, being upset that fans didn’t “evolve” with him, he scuttled the show at the end with a ridiculous regeneration.

But can we make a story that explains this and introduces a proper Doctor? Off the top of my head (so not nearly as thought out as past pitches and “how I’d write” articles), I do have one vague idea of what could be done. Curious what people think, because the odds of the British show using an American writer is kind of low. Doctor Who is British at the core and that shouldn’t change, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come up with an idea.

The Doctor really hasn’t been himself lately, especially after being herself. In my initial complaint I did offer the possibility that the female regeneration was a rare occasion in male Time Lords (not “male presenting”, male), a result of an inversion in estrogen and testosterone levels during regeneration. We also saw a female Time Lady do this. Ditching the Timeless Child nonsense (let the “Fugitive” be the Timeless Child but not the Doctor, as that’s not a terrible regeneration origin on its own), the Doctor has had his life cycle rebooted by the Time Lords on Trenzalore. Gaining the face of one of the Pompei family he saved, the Doctor assumed that face was his mind trying to convince himself that he needed to be kind, something he tried to get back to since what we used to call the 10th incarnation before they screwed up the numbering system. The “Timelord Victorious” had let his anger over all that happened (The Doctor Who Remembers) mess him up. That forced “11ish” (The Doctor Who Forgets) to block that out in order to save his soul. “12ish” had to reset himself and become kind, which he forced on “13ish” to the point that I’m willing to write many of her failings off as overcompensating.

Meanwhile, the previous two incarnations have not felt like the Doctor. “14ish” Seemed a lot more clueless, possibly resuming that form as a “second chance”, while “15ish” really suffered from the testosterone/estrogen inversion. Between the Time War and the crossgender regeneration and whatever the Master did (I wasn’t watching the show at the time) that forced the bi-generation nonsense, the Doctor has not been in the best of mental health, especially compared to what he was. The Doctor started out just trying to escape the Time Lords and boredom by seeing the universe. It was his various Companions that convinced him to help without screwing up the timeline, something “10ish” had to relearn. Yes, the real reason was Davies thought bringing the popular actor back would bring people back…before outright damaging him with social nonsense, but I’m trying to work this out in-universe.

So…Billie Piper. The Doctor? Nobody, including Piper and Davies, have committed to that, and with the BBC and Disney+ also silent about the show’s future it just comes off as a lame ending so Davies can have his favorite girl back. I don’t think she actually would be the Doctor, and she shouldn’t. No offense to Piper, who I hear does okay as an actress, but she hasn’t done anything I’m interested in. I just don’t think she’d be right as the Doctor. I don’t want to see any of the Companion actors and actresses as the Doctor because it’s weird. So I propose the following to whomever takes over if Davies is hopefully gone from the show and someone picks it up from Disney and Bad Wolf Productions:

This isn’t the Doctor. This is in the Doctor’s head. He’s mid-regeneration throughout the story, ending on whichever actor is chosen. (Long overdue for that ginger.) The Doctor is trying to find himself, trying to remember who he is. So in his head all his former selves and Companions are staging a sort of “intervention” for the next Doctor. “13ish” had something similar but apparently it didn’t take. For one thing it felt more like trying to convince the audience that she IS The Doctor more than preparing for the next Doctor. Now he really needs a deep exploration of who the Doctor is, what he was and what he became, and what he wants to be going forward. How many of the original actors would or could return I don’t know. It could be explained that the visions of Susan were the start of this final intervention, put “Susan” in charge of the intervention, with Rose chosen first because she was the first person he allowed himself to care about after the Time War…depending on what Big Finish has in store, of course. The Companions that Eight had in Big Finish were acknowledged in “Night Of The Doctor”, so something there is canon.

From there it’s a trip down memory lane for the Doctor and the fans. If good writers and showrunners were involved, this would indication a plan to bring the Doctor back to his roots to properly evolve him as a character, not forgetting the past but building on it, good and bad. Every Companion lost, every monster he ever faced, balanced out by every Companion whose life was made better because he or she travelled with The Doctor, every life the Doctor saved. All of failures that plagued the Doctor balanced against his many successes. Davies tried to make the case through Clive that where the Doctor went, death followed. That’s not the truth. Death was already there, and the Doctor came to stop the claiming of any more victims.

After this mental intervention, the Doctor finally pulls himself together and we see the regeneration completed into the true new Doctor. My vote is this guy.

Then again, I’m not up on my British actors. Again, American. New England doesn’t count.

Of course, all of this depends on who takes over the show. There has to be someone in the UK would be happy to bring Doctor Who back to what brought new fans in and made many old fans happy while entertaining everyone else. I’m still convinced Davies only brought the show back to TV to push Torchwood by showing the BBC that sci-fi was still profitable, or using the still popular brand to push the show out. The official website was working on an animated webseries and already had one episode out, “Scream Of The Shalka”, and that felt more like the Doctor Who I grew up with than anything Davies or Moffatt ever put out, and certainly more than Chibnall’s mess. Instead we got the show and I’m not sure we were better off, but at least it used to be good. It can be again. The Doctor is all about change and renewal. If the show gets renewed, it’s time to restore the Doctor to the character people have loved over the years. If the Doctor dies now, it ended on a terrible note.