It's Not WHO... It's HOW, or, Why the Problems with Doctor Who AREN'T What You Think They Are
Certain questions require you to take a step back in order to see the answers. Especially if these are questions you're looking for answers to.
Take a couple steps back, and this hot take turns into something of a damp squib... and yes, I know you've got your arguments all prepared and you've got issue numbers and citations and everything. But in the words of 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper, "Just when they think they have all the answers... I change the questions!"
Questions like, "Do you think it's reasonable if DC Comics never publishes another story featuring the Joker?" or how about, "Do you think a vast corporation like Warner Brothers is going to willingly divest itself of one of its most valuable pieces of intellectual property?"
And the benefit of these questions is that they actually provoke the sort of answers that might get shit done in a way that transforming the character into some eternal, unkillable malevolent entity of madness and chaos (transforming subtext into text) or making the character into three separate guys who've all been masquerading as the one guy for ages (the retcon patch-job) won't.
They might also lead to the most useful question of all:
"The character is over three quarters of a century old, and for decades, this wasn't a problem. What is it that's changed in how the character is presented that's suddenly made this an issue?"
And so we get to 'Doctor Who'.
Since the revival in 2005, fans have been going through the same cycle of anticipation, ecstasy and contempt with each new Show-Runner and new Incarnation of the Doctor being greeted with the same joyous optimism, only to sink back into malaise again, until the optimism of a new show-runner/incarnation is announced and hopefully, this'll be the one to get it back on track.
Because of Fandom's obsession with characters, the solution is often presented as being about the people. We need a new show-runner. We need a new lead. We need better companions. And I mean, that's reasonable, the show is made by people. It stars people. It's got "who" in the title. So it seems natural that the solution would involve finding the right person, right?
But what if we took a step back and asked a new question:
"The show is over half a century old, and for decades, this wasn't a problem. What is it that's changed in how it's is presented that's suddenly made this an issue?"
Not 'Who'... 'How'?
The original version of 'Doctor Who' was presented in serial form. Each story took place over a number of episodes, with cliffhanger endings, until the resolution in the final episode of each story. Since the revival, the story has largely been told as 'done in one' episodes, with occasional two-parters.
So how does that change things?
In the original series, The Doctor was a Mystery Man. Very little was known about him, and what was known was often dispensed in tiny nuggets of information given out sparingly at irregular, but usually long, intervals. The Doctor's companions were most often ordinary people, there to ground the series and provide an audience perspective on the events occurring (as well as give the Doctor someone to talk to).
Most of the stories involved some kind of pre-existing situation or calamity, with the Doctor wandering in from off-stage (as though someone from another production had just decided to enter the story) and starting to mess with things and cause trouble.
The nature of the serialized episodes meant that we were given time to understand and appreciate the situation and the characters involved before the Doctor came on scene. It meant that the focus was on the situation, and that The Doctor's role would mostly be expressed in terms of his actions. How he did things was more important than who he was, and who he was was mainly communicated by showing what he did.
Let's give a for instance.
In 'The Frontier in Space', a 1976 serial starring Jon Pertwee as The Doctor, we are introduced via a number of different points of view, to a precarious situation - two empires on the verge of war, with only a fragile detente between them.
The first characters we meet are a crew of down-on-their-luck asteroid miners. We learn from them that there are two empires - the Humans and the Draconians. That these empires are at loggerheads and that war may be imminent. We learn of a stretch of space between the two empires which is a "no fly zone" patrolled by war vessels of both sides.
The miners have illegally entered this zone in search of rare minerals as an act of desperation, fully aware of the danger that they're in; that if they're caught, it'll mean ruin for them all, if not death.
Soon after, we meet several crewmembers of a human warship patrolling the borders of the zone. We learn that they're nervous about the possibility of war because they're right on the firing line and are desperately hoping that the fragile peace accord stands. However, they are also aware of a number of mysterious attacks upon vessels of both sides which have occurred in the zone and are on high alert in case they are attacked.
Later, we meet the Earth President, who desperately craves peace and is under tremendous pressure to appease those who desire peace, and a more warlike faction which believes that Earth needs to assert its dominance in space by striking against the Draconians. This faction is represented by her second-in-command, who considers her a weakling, and is looking for a chance to take her job and assume command. She is preparing for a meeting with the Draconian Prince, son of the Emperor, to negotiate a continued peace.
The story ran for six episodes of 20+ minutes each, with a total run-time of about two and a half hours. In that time, the writers were able to establish a relatively complex situation involving several factions, all with their own motivations, goals and circumstances to deal with that prevent them achieving these goals before the Doctor and Jo Grant can even really get involved. And even when they are involved, they're largely responding to the situation, with the majority of the narrative driven by the supporting cast.
As a contrast, let's examine a comparable storyarc from modern 'Doctor Who' - 2013's 'Cold War', an excellent episode which has several of the same themes as 'Frontier in Space'.
In this story, the Doctor, played by Matt Smith, and his companion, Clara, find themselves trapped aboard an imperiled Soviet Submarine travelling near the Arctic Circle in 1983. Unknown to the Doctor initially, the submarine has discovered an Ice Warrior, a member of an alien people, frozen. As the Ice Warrior thaws out, he begins to wreak havoc upon the already precarious position of the submarine and its crew.
As with 'Frontier in Space', we are given a situation with an imminent threat and a number of conflicting points of view. Submarine Captain Zhukov wants to ensure the safety of his submarine and his crew, Scientist, Professor Grisenko, is fascinated by the Ice Warrior and wants to understand it, Lieutenant Stepashin, the submarine's second-in-command is a diehard Cold Warrior and something of a warmonger whose first resort is almost always suspicion and violence, and the Ice Warrior himself, who desires only to be reunited with his people.
Unlike 'Frontier in Space', however, 99% of the action is chanelled through the Doctor and his companion. The cast's interactions with one another is minimal, with most of the time dedicated to their interactions with the Doctor or Clara. Their motivations, which are well-established, tend to be pretty facile, with their characters defaulting to fairly two dimensional stock characterizations. This is especially disappointing in this case as Zhukov, Grisenko and Stepashin are all played by excellent character actors, in Liam Cunningham, David Warner and Tobias Menzies respectively.
The most fleshed-out supporting character is probably the Ice Warrior himself, who achieves a nice balance of menace and pathos, though again, 99% of the action is chanelled through Clara, who communicates with him telepathically, and the Doctor, as their words are relayed back and forth to one another.
At a running time of 45 minutes, the show establishes a situation, but unfortunately, barely has enough time to do more than sketch out the details, and the excellent supporting cast largely serve as background colour for a narrative primarily driven by the Doctor and his companion.
Now don't get me wrong.
In many ways, 'Cold War' is superior to 'Frontier in Space'. But it's also one of the last episodes of 'Doctor Who' that I scrupulously watched as it came out. Because I recognized that 'Cold War' is about as good as the done-in-one formula will permit 'Doctor Who' to be.
The series has gone from a show largely driven by plot, where most of the characters largely served to drive the narrative, to a show largely driven by the character or a quirky and interesting lead and their often equally intriguing supporting cast as they encounter various situations. And the reason for this is time.
The 45 minute format does not have the time to present a rich, full supporting cast, so the focus will have to be on one or two leads. In the old series, the Doctor could afford to be something of a blank slate, a mystery man, and the writers could dispense the occasional tiny skerrick of information for fans to latch onto and speculate over, because the show was about what was going on... and as long as the actor playing The Doctor was sufficiently charismatic, with sufficient chemistry with the companions, that was all we needed.
In a character-driven show, we have to know about the character. There needs to be a pay-off for our investment, so instead of dispensing lore with an eyedropper, we're practically soaking in it. Unfortunately, the more lore we're given, the more we lose of that original mystery-man feeling that attracted us in the first place, the more we lose sight of that original lure... plus, with half a century of backstory, this new lore is frequently contradictory, leading to new facts being dismissed as quickly as we receive them... and suddenly, each new piece of information, instead of being received with wonderment and curiosity, is just another red herring on an increasingly large and stinky pile, which will accumulate until a new show-runner comes in and tosses the whole thing out.
So if we can't unload all our baggage on the Doctor, who else is there?
The Companion of course. Since the arrival of New Who, we've seen the role of companion go from relatively ordinary point-of-view character for the audience to connect with, to a succession of increasingly preposterous magical pixie dream girls, before attempting a course correction post-Clara Oswald back to more relatable characters.
And again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. There have been a number of excellent done-in-ones and some well-executed revelations. In addition, the shorter run-time has resulted in less padding (something the original series fell prey to quite often) and tighter stories.
But I do believe that the transition from plot-driven serial story-arcs to done-in-one episodes with occasional meta-plots has resulted in something of a spiral of diminishing returns, and that the spiral is nobody's fault per se, just a result in a change of format, almost certainly brought about by logistical, economic or marketing-related concerns.
So will a new/old show-runner fix it?
Well, step back and ask yourself...
What is "it" that needs to be fixed? And is it more a matter of "How" than "Who"?
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