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Jodie Whittaker Deserved Better From ‘ Doctor Who’

By Alex Zalben Twitter @azalben Oct 23, 2022 at 9:30pm Photo: BBC

Where to Stream

Doctor Who

Powered by Reelgood Doctor Who did Jodie Whittaker dirty. There are probably less colloquial ways of saying that, or more elaborate ones. But it’s the simplest way of getting the point across, which is that Jodie Whittaker — who wrapped up her four year run as The Doctor on Doctor Who today with the episode, “The Power of the Doctor” — deserved better than what she was given by the series. And no episode drove that point home better than her finale; which had its high points, but spent most of the near-90 minute running time sidelining the main character. On July 16, 2017, Whittaker was announced as taking over the role of The Doctor, a historic first for the franchise. In the show’s 50+ year history, there had never been a woman in the lead of the show, which focuses on a near-immortal Time Lord who “regenerates” — aka, gets recast as a new actor, albeit with a continuity that holds over from the previous actor (versus, say, how James Bond essentially resets with every new face). The news was resoundingly celebrated, though with the usual trolls grousing about how the “woke BBC” was ruining their favorite show. Still, Whittaker tackled the role with aplomb, and seemed perfectly suited for both the hyperactive nature of The Doctor fans knew and loved, and the darker tone and continuity new showrunner Chris Chibnall was looking to tackle. Whittaker never lost that energy, through the multiple episodes and series where she portrayed The Doctor. Where she was betrayed was the structure, and the writing. There were high points to the run, mind you. A New Year’s Special, “Eve Of The Daleks” found a fresh twist not just on the titular, classic Doctor Who villains, but a time loop episode as well, thanks to a diminishing New Year’s-style countdown. And “Fugitive of the Judoon” made the incredible decision to reveal a second, surprise Doctor with Jo Martin; making Whittaker technically the second female Doctor, and Martin the first Black Doctor. History is cemented through repetition, and prejudices are broken down through the same… Adding Martin only helped secure Whittaker’s legacy, as well as pave the way for the upcoming Fourteenth Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa. But those highlights were few and far between. Often Whittaker’s Doctor Who run was characterized by convoluted plots that found The Doctor as confused as her Companions, unable to suss out situations that were ultimately pale reflections of adventures that had come before. And worse yet, Whittaker’s Doctor was written as dismissive and mean, snapping at her friends in a way that didn’t make sense for the character, or the actor. Whittaker excelled in those classic Doctor moments where she struck on a moment of genius, or gave a classic, inspiring Doctor speech. Whenever she was telling Companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop) to get lost, it wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was confusing. Photo: BBC Studios/BBC America There are ways of making these moments work, and The Doctor has often been painted as a character both uncomfortable with humans, and enamored by them. Peter Capaldi’s version of The Doctor could seemingly barely tolerate the people around him, and often would have preferred to be left alone. Yet deep down, it was clear he needed his Companions to keep him anchored to what really mattered: the lives he was saving around the universe, and why he was doing that. Whittaker was never really given those moments, mostly running around from adventure to adventure, always left two steps behind the villains, her emotional motivations unclear. That gets to the core of the issue: certainly there are times when the bad guys are ahead, but The Doctor has never let on about that; or at the very least, figures out the situation right at the last second. Whittaker’s Doctor was written as perpetually confused and overwhelmed; reacting, instead of acting. It’s possible this was a conscious choice on Chibnall’s part, but it led to an extremely frustrating experience on the part of the audience, as one inherently unchangeable part of the series is that nobody should be smarter than The Doctor, least of all the viewers at home. One exception to the rule? The Master, the evil opposite of The Doctor played in this era by Sacha Dhawan. He was the main villain in today’s episode, and it’s through him it becomes clear where Chibnall’s priorities lie: not with The Doctor. In the episode, The Master has pulled out yet another convoluted plan that involves — and spoilers past this point — teaming up with villains The Daleks and The Cybermen to take over The Doctor’s body through forced regeneration, and then destroying the Earth using volcanos. That’s pretty much the sum of it, though it takes a while to get there, and involves multiple moving parts including a train robbery, a new type of all-powerful alien, stolen paintings, kidnapped seismologists, and several returning Companions, including Ace (Sophie Aldred) and Tegan (Janet Fielding). They’re far from the only returning Companions in the episode, which also tosses in emotionally charged resolutions for Ace and Tegan with their respective Doctors thanks to a post-humous hologram created by The Doctor that allows her to change into various other, previous Doctors for this express purpose. And there’s even a new wrinkle to the regeneration mythology, where all the previous iterations of The Doctor who were available for filming (sorry, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Christopher Eccleston) hang out by a cliff and tell Whittaker that it’s not her time to go. Photo: BBC Point being, it’s a lot to deal with, on top of it also being not just Whittaker’s final episode, but also the last one for Dan, and more importantly Yaz. Because of this, two grievous errors happen in the episode. The first is that Whittaker spends a fair amount of time off-screen/”dead” while Dhawan runs around in a mish-mash costume composed of various Doctors’ costume pieces — which is a lot of fun, but again, sidelines Whittaker for a good chunk of her final hour. The second, and far more grating error is The Doctor’s resolution with Yaz, something that drives home all the faults with this era of Doctor Who. After years of fans wondering if Yaz and The Doctor were more than gals who were pals, the aforementioned New Year’s special drove home the point thanks to dual conversations with Dan. In the episode, Yaz all but said that she loves the Doctor in a romantic way, while Dan needled The Doctor about whether she felt the same. That conversation somewhat continued into the next special, “Legend of the Sea Devils”, with The Doctor explaining that “I can’t fix myself to anything,” essentially saying that because of her long life, and the danger she faces that she can’t be in a relationship with a human. So how does this trilogy of episodes end the potential, budding romance between Yaz and The Doctor? With them eating ice cream on top of the TARDIS, looking at the Earth, in a lovely little scene after The Doctor has been mortally wounded by The Master. And then The Doctor essentially kicks Yaz out of the TARDIS, and sets her up with a support group of other Companions, all of whom have been traumatized by The Doctor in different ways. There’s no mention of the romance, no resolution there. And while it was perhaps naive to expect that Yaz and The Doctor would finally kiss as the light of regeneration flashed around them, ultimately ending in Yaz kissing a man she doesn’t know, the fact that there is no resolution is gutting for the one consistent emotional thread that’s been woven through Whittaker’s years. Photo: BBC It’s also a slap in the face for fans who had the idea of a canonical, LGBTQ+ relationship dangled in front of them, only to have it snatched away so that Yaz can be written off the show and The Doctor can be regenerated into the next actor and showrunner (more on both these things in a second). Yes, the Whittaker era made history with two female Doctors, the first Black Doctor, and multiple episodes that at least attempted to deal with complicated moments in history (“Rosa”, which dealt with racism in America; and “Demons of the Punjab”, which dealt with British colonialism). But backing off from one last moment in history shows a level of cowardice that’s unfortunate, not least of which because it’s a massive swerve from the story the show seemed to be telling. One could intuit that at least part of the Whittaker-sidelining that happened this episode is because of the final moments, which — again, spoilers — feature a surprise regeneration into not Gatwa, but the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant. This will take us right into the sixtieth anniversary of Doctor Who, which will be celebrated by three specials that begin airing in November, 2023, and feature not just the return of Tennant, but also showrunner Russell T. Davies, who reinvented the series back in 2005. It’s a pleasant surprise to see the beloved Tennant at the end of the episode, and the energy he brings to The Doctor perfectly matches Davies’ writing, even if it’s just Tennant checking his own teeth and shouting “what?” a bunch.

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But what it also leaves the viewer with is relief. Relief that the show is back in the stable hands of Davies, and relief that we have Tennant, a beloved actor and fan-favorite lead of the show at the helm. That relief, though, is immediately followed by sadness that Whittaker’s era doesn’t end triumphantly, with a celebration of who she was and her history-making run on the show, but a sense of thankfulness that it’s over. That does a disservice to Whittaker, it does a disservice to the show, and it most of all, though assuredly not on purpose, almost seems to prove those minority of trolls right from back in 2017, that having a lady Doctor would never work. It could have, and it occasionally did. Whittaker was certainly giving every moment her all. But thanks to the scripts she was given, and that her final moments end in the return of a beloved man, “The Power of the Doctor” betrays the promise of what Whittaker’s run could have been. Here’s hoping she’s given the same shot as Tennant to come back in the future, under more confident writing that utilizes her talents properly. It’s what we — and most importantly Whittaker — deserve.

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