Written by The Wandering Fox
Huh. Thought that I was done with Doctor Who in talking of it, yet here we are, I have another topic in my mind of Doctor Who. This going back to an era which has only recently ended, the Whittaker era. Let's just say it lightly: this era was incredibly heated among fans. You have those who like it and will end up angry if you don’t like it, there’s those who don’t like it for a number of reasons, yet finally there’s those who try to be balanced with it and find themselves feeling it wasn’t good but there were some bits in there they like.
Yet the very character which has left lots of fans incredibly divided on is the Thirteenth Doctor. Until recently I’d say she was the most disliked by the fandom until Gatwa took on the role. From her inconsistent character to incredibly controversial story arcs, the Thirteenth Doctor came out of the series somewhat scathed. Though with the reveal of Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill reprising their roles for Big Finish, I HOPE they can get better stories there as well as better character arcs.
But what exactly do I think let down the Thirteenth Doctor?
Well I’m the Wandering Fox and I’m here to discuss this.
I just want to note this mostly covers the Thirteenth Doctor herself, not the Timeless Children or the Thasmin stuff, though I will touch on the former.
The Writing and Chibnall
The ultimate blame I think comes to Chris Chibnall and his writing style and choices in the writing room. The writing covers much from characterisation and story, which falls squarely on his shoulders. Its annoying cos you can easily see what he was trying to do but he needed somebody there to stop and guide him on certain things. I can see he wanted to start the Thirteenth Doctor as a lighter hearted character who slowly becomes withdrawn after some intense adventures. It's how he done it that went wrong from destroying Gallifrey and retconning the Doctor’s origins which not only made us look at the Doctor differently but also changed the show.
The Doctor’s characterisation with what we were seemingly being told was she’d be a kind, compassionate Doctor who strives to do the right thing while enjoying her life. While we get moments of that in the series, there’s sadly moments in the series which goes against this idea of her character. For example, in her first series, there’s an episode in which these spiders have been affected by chemicals which turns them huge. The Doctor’s idea of stopping them is luring them in a room where they can eat each other. This itself was a dumb idea and goes against the Doctor’s supposed compassionate character, yet what comes next is just crap. The hotel guy finds there’s another spider left and the Doctor wants it spared.
This is strange cos the Doctor just led the other spiders to their deaths. Yet she wants to save the last spider? Then it gets daft cos the hotel guy then kills the spider, much to the Doctor’s anger. Yet she just had other spiders EAT EACH OTHER!
I saw a fan suggest on reddit the better thing to do was to have the Doctor lure them to the TARDIS then take them to Meetalbus 3 where the spiders there could look after them, and hey, those spiders were from Earth as well so it wouldn’t be out of place. This way the Doctor is resolving the problem as peacefully as she can.
Then we get the cancer talk with Graham.
Yeah. You basically have Graham opening up to the Doctor of his fear of his cancer coming back. It is obviously a very horrible thing to think of if you’ve beaten it but fear it can come back. Then the Doctor says “I should say a reassuring thing now, shouldn’t I?”
Though this scene with her and Graham was so bad the BBC had to come out and explain what the intention of the scene was. Which fine, but the scene itself should’ve made it clearer yet instead you have to save the Thirteenth Doctor by having the owners of the franchise explain it, which does her a disservice in terms of writing.
I know some will look back to Classic Who and take note of how the Doctors then were a bit cold or uncertain if it came to the death of somebody, say like how Marcus Scarman is basically a dead puppet of Sutekh and the Fourth Doctor scolds his brother for still thinking Marcus is there and can save him. Or the Fifth Doctor trying to not think of Adric’s death. Thing is, there’s a difference between bluntly noting there’s no saving somebody or trying hard to move on then you’re haunted for the rest of your life, to this being a compassionate Doctor who has nothing to say to Graham.
I have to remind you Adric’s death did haunt the Fifth Doctor till his regeneration, his last words being “Adric? Oh no!” Then we have the Eighth Doctor movie in which the Doctor is in awe of Grace’s love of being a doctor, telling her how she dreamt of holding back death. Or how the Doctors of the future do what they can to help somebody with an illness, like how the Tenth Doctor saved Lazlo. Or what did the Twelfth Doctor say?
“Always try to be nice! And never fail to be kind!”
How is this being kind or nice? It’s like Terry farting his ass off in some effort of cheering up Viren after his anxiety almost led him to falling off the side of a mountain.
Like I said, the BBC did apologise and explained but still, Chibnall should’ve thought again of this scene and maybe have it written again with the Doctor responding more kindly to Graham.
Its stuff like this which doesn’t do much favour for the Thirteenth Doctor. What I will credit her for though is, unlike the Fifteenth Doctor, she doesn’t cry every bloody episode or behaves like a millennial. There's moments here and there like her technobabble or her awe of delight in the beauty of the universe which I feel really worked for her.
I honestly hope Big Finish does look at the complaints and see what they can do to try and make her Doctor work.
However, this isn’t the only thing I feel which let the Thirteenth Doctor fall.
Other Doctors
Ever since Series 12, the Thirteenth Doctor has been largely overshadowed by other Doctors, starting with the Fugitive Doctor, then the Timeless Children and the Morbius Doctors. Lets just focus on those for a moment.
The Fugitive Doctor is a somewhat grey character in where she stands with the fandom. Some like her, others don’t. It doesn’t help she was made at the last second as Fugitive of the Judoon was going to be about a princess on the run from the Judoon. But to make matters harder for Jodie Whittaker, there’s the other lot in the fandom who think Jo Martin was a better female Doctor than Jodie, many feeling Jo just stole the episode and the character with ease.
Honestly? I do like Jo Martin. She has a cool TARDIS, a neat costume and has this air of maturity and gruffness to the Doctor which could’ve honestly worked following Capaldi. Yet this has left things tricky for Chibnall because he introduces this mystery Doctor who seems to feel more like the character than Jodie does to several fans.
The problem with the Fugitive Doctor is her implied to be before Hartnell as the Timeless Children reveals the Doctor had HUNDREDS of faces before Hartnell, which I just find baffling cos the Third Doctor explained how he grew up in the mountains with his family then there’s seeing the First Doctor as a kid in Listen. I would go with the idea she’s in between Troughton and Pertwee, there’s at least some leeway of getting her there.
The Timeless Children is something I don’t like, and RTD has just given more reason as to why it doesn’t work cos he thrown in the Shalka Doctor’s face in Rogue and used the Timeless Children as an excuse, which makes no sense cos the Master, albeit trapped in the body of a android, was travelling with the Shalka Doctor and Shalka was the Ninth Doctor before Eccleston.
Yet this does have to do with how other Doctors ended up overtaking Jodie’s Doctor. These are faces of the Doctor, brand new faces. And some old faces we didn’t know were the Doctor’s but now is the Doctor.
There, you see? They goes back to the Brain of Morbius revealing those faces were the Doctor so you’re turning to a Fourth Doctor story with the Thirteenth Doctor!
I know Chibnall wanted to do the Timeless Children in the first series, his idea inspired by himself being adopted. This just makes you think of things.
Why didn’t he just make a story arc which saw the Thirteenth Doctor shine on her own instead of relying on the Doctors of the past and brand new Doctors? Surely he could’ve known this wouldn’t have been fair on Jodie.
Why did he even think this was a good idea? He’s been a Doctor Who fan since the 80s so surely he must’ve known the fandom were incredibly iffy on the Doctor having a complex origins like how the Cartmel Masterplan was set up with the Seventh Doctor. Or how he saw how everybody felt with the Doctor telling others he’s half human? This is as bad as RTD creating his fanfic of Sutekh hugging the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars.
With these I can’t help but wonder if the BBC felt it was a mistake with Jodie and started to demand other Doctors come back to help the franchise? I mean, we know The Power of the Doctor was going to be the end of the series until RTD came back. Its why I look back on this with some thought of what exactly was going on.
Lets see, you do a big spin off based on the Tenth Doctor in a dark moment of his life, you have Paul McGann and David Tennant having big starring roles in the event, you have Rose, Daleks and Ood involved. This was going to be a multimedia event spanning books, comics, novels, audios and stage plays! Of course, the last of which didn’t happen cos of Covid. This was quite the big eye catcher back then and while Time Lord Victorious didn’t end up as well as they hoped, it was a intriguing concept. If they did stage plays, can you imagine Paul McGann or David Tennant doing such a thing in costume? It’d overbear the Thirteenth Doctor a lot.
Then there’s Christopher Eccleston returning to Doctor Who.
Then we come to Jodie’s final episode which sees the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Fugitive Doctors return with David Tennant appearing at the end with Jodie regenerating into him.
Conclusion
The Thirteenth Doctor suffered because of Chris Chibnall just being a weak show runner, relying too much on the past to boost his era up while Jodie got somewhat the short end of the stick with lots of her predecessors coming back.
Jodie should’ve had her own story arc to stand on her own as the Doctor. I honestly hope Big Finish gives her that and not just have her meet the Tenth Doctor straight in on her first boxset. With Doctor Who being such a letdown lately I’m not holding my breath though I do want it to be good. But what do you think were the weaknesses of the Thirteenth Doctor? Do leave a comment below.
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