Random Topic Generator: Doctor Who Theory – Why the 12th Doctor is so different from past incarnations.

Since its first broadcast in 1969, Doctor Who has become a cultural phenomenon. William Hartnell played the first incarnation of The Doctor. His companion was Suzan, his granddaughter, and he was known as a grumpy old man. He has been described as cantankerous by some, abrasive and patronising. During his adventures, he started to enjoy his adventures and started to become a kinder and gentler person.

The Doctor is an alias. In the 50^th anniversary special, we learn that he chose the name out of a promise he made to himself. The Doctor, a person who saves and heals. It’s a name that uses to remind him of the person he wants to be. The 10^th Doctor and 11^th Doctor, along with the War Doctor, explain this promise by saying, “never cruel of Cowardly; never giving up and never giving in”.

Over the course of the 50 years, we learn only, but small portions of the Doctor’s life now and then. With having multiple regenerations, travelling across time and space for thousands of years, The Doctor has had a huge life, gained a lot of experience, but he has always stuck true to that promise he made. One of the beauties of the show is, with The Doctor’s life consistently shrouded in mystery, and small or huge revelation about his life can be automatically classed as canonical, and it makes perfect sense. We only learnt about the promise he made during the 50^th anniversary, but we see exactly that throughout the course of the show. The Doctor has always stuck to his promise.

When a Time Lord regenerates, everything about him, except his memories, changes. His body literally changes form, from one person to another. The process of regeneration was introduced when William Hartnell was too ill to play the role anymore, but the show was too popular to cancel. Patrick Troughton played the second incarnation of The Doctor. This opened up a so many opportunities for the BBC, and is one of the many reasons why the show has lasted for as long as it has, and why it will continue on for many years to come.

During one of Stephen Moffatt’s interviews, he explained “if you put on a new suit, a different hat, you act differently, so can you imagine how different you would feel if you changed your entire body?” His many adventures have also changed him, including the companions he’s met, and the monsters he’s faced. Doctor Who has the most unique opportunity for developing a character than any other show. With a new incarnation, a new personality; it’s essentially an entirely new show, always keeping it fresh and not boring for the audiences across the fifty years. It did have a large hiatus from 1989 to 1996 when the current head of the BBC saw the gradual dip in viewers and decided to pull the show from the air. It came back in the form of a TV movie, but that was for the purpose to try and get the show picked up in America, which didn’t work. In 2005, the BBC finally brought it back and its popularity has only but increased over the 12 years it’s been on air.

But why did the views start dipping? Well, Colin Baker was a darker incarnation. The BBC wanted a different route and decided to mix things up a bit, but it unfortunately didn’t work as well as they had expected. It’s not the main reason for why it started dipping, but it most definitely didn’t help. Sylvester McCoy took over the role, the last actor before its cancellation.

I cannot pin down where exactly I heard this piece of information, but it does explain a few things. Regeneration is an unpredictable procedure that’s essentially a lottery on whether it’s successful or not. In this case, during the transition from fifth to sixth, the regeneration didn’t go as well as hoped, resulting in the unpredictable nature of the 6^th Doctor. Whether this was the BBC’s intention all along, or was a theory devised by fans to explain the sudden shift in the personalities and tone of the show, it does make a lot of sense and I, for one, can accept that theory. The revived series has made nods to how unpredictable regeneration is, unintentionally solidifying that theory even further.

My theory extends on that, but also, hopefully, explains why the 12^th Doctor’s personality shifted dramatically from 11’s. Before the 11^th incarnation regenerated, he was protecting the town of Christmas from countless enemies who were trying to stop him from saying his real name. If he were to say his true name, it would unlock the doorway to allow the Time Lords back into the universe, which would instantly bring about another time war. The Time of the Doctor’s story was after the 50^th anniversary, after he established the promise he made to himself. During that episode, he stuck to his morals and promises for 900 years, protecting the humans of Christmas, being The Doctor we all know and love. That episode defined exactly who he was as a person, no matter how many regenerations he has, or what personality, he has; he proved to the universe that he was The Doctor; the one and the only.

When he was given a new set of regenerations by the Time Lords, allowing him to push death back for a few more life times to come, we said goodbye to the 11^th incarnation and welcomed the 12^th, (or 13^th if you count the War Doctor, or 14^th if you count the regeneration the 10^th Doctor had during the two-part storyline, The Stolen Earth, and the Journey’s End, where he healed himself, but didn’t change appearances).

12^th Doctor proved to be a darker incarnation that before, which surprised me. He appeared to be contradicting everything he said and done during The Day of the Doctor and the Time of the Doctor. It didn’t make any sense. I continued watching the show, because I’m a massive fan and if I miss an episode, I could be missing a huge revelation or some continuity that they’ll refer back to in later episodes, and that would only confuse me. The story arc of series 8 focused on The Doctor asking the question, “am I a good man?”.

Why was he asking that question when he only just proved that he was a good man by protecting the town of Christmas? It felt unnecessary to question if you’re a good man after showing the entire universe that you are.

It has been established that the 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th, Doctors are mirroring that of the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th. 4^th is considered one of the best incarnation of all time, and the 10^th is considered the best incarnation of the revived series, possibly of all time. 11^th is a hyperactive man-child similar to what we saw with the 5^th incarnation, and the darker version of the Doctor shown with the 6^th is mirrored by the 12^th. History is essentially repeating itself, but I doubt it would go so far to get cancelled again, not when the show has become imbedded in our culture and is making the BBC a monumental amount of money, but that’s not really the point. During series 8, I devised the theory that, maybe the regeneration went slightly wrong again. The 12^th incarnation is unpredictable by the way he constantly changes his outfit. Since returning in 2005, The Doctor had just returned from the last great time war, and he was darker than previous, but over the course of the first series, he lightened up considerably, thanks to Rose Tyler. The following incarnation continued with that change, but occasionally went a little dark now and again, but his change was finalised with the 11^th incarnation, as proved in the episode The Time of the Doctor.

Then a new, suitable theory popped into my head whilst thinking about the previous paragraph. All the previous incarnations have been from his own regeneration energy. He had one hiccup with the 6^th incarnation, but that’s to be expected with the unpredictability of the process, but mainly he’s only but changed by using the energy within himself. When he changed from the 11^th to 12^th, he used the regeneration energy given to him by the Time Lords themselves. We’ve learnt during the revived series just who the Time Lords turned into during the war, and what they now mean to the universe. The race is now considered a dark race, a disturbing race, hell-bent on being the ones who are victorious no matter what – this tone was brought about when fighting the Daleks, and the Doctor had to stop them both from going too far and literally destroying all of time and space.

So, what if, the 12^th incarnation of the Doctor is the way he is now because the regeneration energy he was given wasn’t his, and therefore hasn’t learnt or adapted to the person he has become, but instead includes small traces of who the Time Lords were at the current time of giving him the energy, and so he had to question if he was a good man because the regeneration energy changed small amounts of him to do so. He’s still the Doctor, because, with 2000 years of experience and development, his true personality will always dominate any trace of darkness inside the regeneration energy the Time Lords game him.

Over the course of series 8, 9, and the current series 10, we’ve seen him soften up, similar to the first incarnation did during his run as The Doctor. His overall personality has finally beaten any and all traces of who the Time Lords are. Going by the continuation the 9, 10, and 11 incarnations experienced as their overall character arc, the next incarnation, when he’s expelled some energy to change form, that should be the final battle and The Doctor should be free from any traces of the Time Lords and can once again be his true self without any inner battles.

Doctor Who is a show that’s constantly changing and adapting to the current times. When the 12^th incarnation leaves and the 13^th is introduced, the tone of the show will shift once more and it will feel like a completely different show altogether after a couple of episodes, especially so with Chris Chibnall stepping up to become the new head writer. That’s why the show has lasted for so long, because it changes and refreshes itself, paving the way for more stories and of course, more theories. I very much doubt history will truly repeat itself and the show is cancelled after this next incarnation of the doctor, because there would be many, many protestors aiming their anger at the BBC for years to come until the show is brought back as a television movie… but again, I doubt that would happen.

What do you think about my theory? Is it just an excuse to defend the 12^th incarnation, or does it make any sense?

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)