Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Nikola Tesla’s Night Of Terror
8. Why Was The Doctor Such A Fan Of Tesla?
The Doctor has never been shy of bragging about her various encounters
with famous and significant people from history. She is a habitual namedropper.
We’ve seen her react with almost childlike excitement on meeting other VIPs for
the first time (most recently, Babbage and Lovelace in Spyfall), but the
unexpected encounter with Tesla sends her fannishness into overdrive. She is
gushing in her admiration for the scientist and inventor, to the extent that we
are left to wonder why the Doctor hadn’t manufactured a meeting many Time Lord
years ago.
In one of the standout scenes of the episode, a lovely bond is struck between the Doctor and Tesla who both know how it feels to be seen as an outsider. The connection between them adds authenticity to what would otherwise be a convenient shortcut for the writer to bring awareness of Tesla’s achievements to the viewer. The Doctor identifies with Tesla’s experience of not fitting in, of being out of place. She is the champion of the underdog, of those who continue to pursue their dreams against the odds, and of those who can think outside the box and challenge the establishment.
Tesla ticks all the right boxes (so long as with the writer we ignore his views on eugenics), and to top it off he is a pioneering inventor – something that has become the 13th Doctor’s chosen specialist subject.