10 Huge Questions After Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils
4. When Did The Doctor Do Dating?
The Doctor’s honesty with Yaz is a refreshing change, even if it puts an effective block on this particular queer relationship ever going anywhere. One can only hope that in the next iteration of the series such partnerships are celebrated and allowed to stand, whatever characters are involved. For now though, it’s another case of producers trying to contain fan-fiction, welcoming it on the one hand, but putting it in its place on the other.
We’ve heard the Doctor say it before in different ways, putting up a guard to prevent themself from getting too close, knowing that it will never end well. The 13th Doctor admits to Yaz that she used to date and wishes she could again. Perhaps this is an affirmation of slash fiction - it certainly doesn’t exclude the possibility of the Doctor having physical relationships in the past - but it’s not something that has ever been explored in any depth in the TV series.
The Doctor has never been asexual, that much is clear from the very beginning when he is introduced as a grandfather, but it’s part of their lives that we are not given much of a window into. The revived series was less afraid to go there, but still it has reduced the Doctor’s love life, whether to a series of frivolous and not always fully consensual flings (Queen Elizabeth I, Marilyn Monroe) or by making him need to become human in order to have one. The one exception to the rule is of course River Song, and even there the nature of the relationship is shrouded in mystery. River gets a little nod in this episode when the Doctor admits to once being married, and we are reminded of the last date we saw the Doctor go on – at the Singing Towers.