The Written Podcast: When the Doctor Became the Doctor – Christopher Eccleston’s Moment: Dalek

I started watching the first series of Doctor Who after the third series had wrapped up on BBC 1. BBC 3, before it made the transition from TV to being fully accessible online only, aired repeats of Doctor Who starting from Rose – series 1 episode 1 – to Last of the Time Lords – series 3 episode 13.

David Tennent defined what the character of the Doctor was during my very first batch of 4 episodes starting with Blink. I knew nothing of Christopher Eccleston’s performance until I watched Rose, and it was a decent episode. Told from the perspective of the companion, Rose (played by Billie Piper), she’s the personification of the audience as she’s thrown into a hair-raising adventure with the Doctor. Being a reintroduction to the show and character after being off the air for 16 years, Russell T. Davies had to be careful. He couldn’t throw tonnes of lore at the audience and expect everyone to understand, and he couldn’t leave too much information out it isn’t Doctor Who at all but had to make it a fresh start.

He did this by subtly mentioning a war the Doctor was involved in. This later was explained to be the great time war between the Time Lords and the Daleks. Everyone knows what a Dalek is. From their very first episode they became an instant hit and has seeped into the public consciousness. They’re now one of the most recognisable fictional creatures in TV. Bringing them back had to be a process, however, and what better way to bring the Doctor’s most powerful enemy back by having a single Dalek show its true power. This is where the Time War was covered more, and where the Doctor showed more of his self.

Christopher Eccleston’s performance when trapped in the room with the Dalek, angry and terrified at the same time, showing so much pain throughout the scene. That was the episode when the Christopher Eccleston’s incarnation of the Doctor, became the Doctor. I was a member of the new audience from a generation later than the one who grew up with the show from when it started way back in 1969. Russell T. Davies did a phenomenal job refreshing the show and introducing an element that allows the Doctor to go down a different path, allowing for so much development of his character, and therefore allowing Christopher Eccleston’s incarnation to flourish throughout the episode, Dalek.

The first 5 episodes before Dalek showed the Doctor as a hero. He was a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and he was a confident hero who always has a plan up his sleeve. Dalek showed that even the Doctor can feel vulnerable, scared, and can be forced to take drastic actions when he feels is necessary. When he was shouting at the Dalek, telling it that he was the one to wipe out both it’s and his races, it was a powerful moment, and a truly character defining moment. The Time War was still a new idea at the time, but I truly felt that I’ve seen the Doctor as the Doctor: A hero who still gets scared.

The following 5 episodes returned to what the previous 5 were about, the Doctor travelling through space and time, having fun, and saving people. The two-part story at the end of the series, however, brought back the Doctor’s emotions. This time he wasn’t facing 1 Dalek, but an entire army, and he had run out of ideas, there was nothing he could do, the only plan he had, he’d given up on because it would endanger too many people. Dalek had helped me, and the rest of the audience understand the character so much more than we would have done if Dalek wasn’t in amongst the other episodes. I was going to use the phrase, “happy-go-lucky,” but then I remembered the other phrase, “are you my mummy?” and shivered uncontrollably, but then returned to be happy again when I remembered it was in series 1 that Captain Jack Harkness was introduced for the first time and what a wild ride we got out of his character.

Christopher Eccleston’s tenue as the Doctor only lasted for one series, but for that short period of time, he was the Doctor, there was no doubt about that. As the years went by and Russell T. Davis’ idea of the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks was mentioned more until featuring properly in the 50^th anniversary episode. Christopher Eccleston refused to return as the Doctor, which is a shame, but prompted Steven Moffatt – the head writer who took over from Russell from series 5 to 10 – to rewrite the episode. In that episode, we discovered that the Doctor never destroyed Gallifrey, but instead saved it. However, due to the jumbled nature of the timelines, once he had regenerated from the War Doctor to the 9^th, he would firmly believe to have destroyed his home world. As the War Doctor said, “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know if we actually succeeded. But at worst, we failed doing the right thing as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong.”

Of course, we later found out that the Doctor had successfully saved his home world. Watching series 1 back, a whole new perspective had been put on his rage against the Dalek in that episode, because I knew he doesn’t remember anything that happened in the past. This added another layer to the Doctor’s character. In that moment, he became even more like the Doctor than he was the first time I saw the episode, which goes to show the powerful development the Doctor has been through over the years.

Next article will focus on the moment when David Tennant became the Doctor. His tenue started at the end of series 1 and ran for 4 years until 2010, on New Years day, he regenerated into Matt Smith.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)