10 Reasons Doctor Who Is Better When You're An Adult
6. The Writing - Masterful Character Arcs, Wonderful Worlds And Clever Dialogue
Doctor Who is renowned for its ingenious settings and carefully crafted plots, but a few less-action packed episodes sometimes went over our heads as children. Boom Town, often deemed as a ‘budget-saving’ episode, has Slitheen Margaret Blaine exchanging beautiful dialogue with the Doctor. The line “you're pleading for mercy out of a dead woman's lips” could rival any Marvel hero’s retort to a relentless villain.
But what if the Doctor was to become his own antagonist? This idea is explored phenomenally in the season three two-parter Human Nature and The Family of Blood, where we see the Doctor become a human.
It’s instilled into us from a young age that the hero always saves the day. But John Smith, the Doctor’s human counterpart, is too afraid to do so. Any second we expect to see the Doctor’s heroic attitude before he morphs back into his old self, but Smith repeatedly refuses to sacrifice this version of himself and the life he’s created to save the planet.
This opens up a whole new side to the character and the hero archetype as a whole. Forcing us to debate whether being good is a characteristic we learn or are born with, and if being unquestioningly heroic is only achievable for an alien who doesn’t factor the fate of loved ones into his decisions. Would we have sacrificed our lives and families in Smith’s place? Only as adults can we fully grasp his impossible choice.