10 Things Doctor Who Should Never Have Got Away With
8. Doctor Number Eight And A Half
Current showrunner Steven Moffat is expert at teasing the audience with one thing, then delivering quite another. This tendency reached its apotheosis in the anniversary year when the Internet was rife with speculation about the title of the Series 7: Part 2 finale The Name of the Doctor. What would it be? Keith? Predictably in retrospect, there was no such revelation. Instead, he blindsided us with the secret incarnation who acted not in the name of the Doctor. Introducing John Hurt as the Doctor. Retconning, the process of suddenly revealing that the history of a TV show was not what you thought but in fact something the latest writer has dreamt up instead, has had a bad name in television since Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower. In Doctor Wh fandom, it tends to be the hallmark of bad fan fiction revealing that Borusa was really the Meddling Monk using Navarino technology to disguise himself. Here, Moffat pulls the ultimate retcon by inventing a brand new past Doctor to nestle in between McGann and Eccleston, thus messing up our numbering system forever (seriously, which number Doctor is Peter Capaldi?). Beyond the initial shock value of the cliffhanger, though, the gimmick works thanks to the simply genius casting. Sir John Hurt would be brilliant as anything so he totally nails the War Doctor. Good writing helps, too. The Day of the Doctor, in which he starred alongside both Matt Smith and David Tennant, was recently voted the best story of all time by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine. It probably wont retain that crown as the years pass but its not a bad recommendation for now.
I teach literature of all types but when I write, it tends to involve "Doctor Who". My fiction can be found in unofficial anthology "Seasons of War"; my non-fiction in the "You and Who" books as well as the forthcoming "Hating to Love" and "Blake's Heaven".
