Doctor Who (26 page)

The job of costume design eventually fell to Lucinda Wright. In the book
Doctor Who: The Inside Story,
she explains her take on the man.

 

I thought about Christopher Eccleston, and what you get with him is that he's rather raw, isn't he? . . . He's slim, tall, and angular. Because I wanted him to be a Doctor with a silhouette you could instantly recognize. . . . We must have gone through hundreds of jackets. . . . I really wanted Chris to have input because he needed to be comfortable, able to run in it and also have something he could throw off. We decided the jacket needed to look as though it had been lived in for a long time.

 

Wright also gave the Ninth Doctor shirts in muted colors so he would never distract from the various aliens or strange settings he encountered. Eccleston commented that the outfit wasn't something he personally would wear, but he believed it perfect for his Doctor. This design, matched with Eccleston's closely shaved hair, reflected what McGann had wanted for his own Doctor. At the Armageddon convention in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2010, McGann joked that seeing Eccleston get away with such a costume and haircut made him “hugely bitter,” adding, “I was first, I wanted to do it first!”

Because Davies wanted fans both old and new to enter the show on a level playing field, he didn't ask the previous Doctor to return to film a regeneration scene. It was clear for older fans, however, that Eccleston's incarnation was experiencing the first hours of his life. When he enters Rose Tyler's apartment, he sees his reflection in a mirror. Surprised by his
own face, he remarks, “Ah, could've been worse. Look at the ears.” Though not angry about the situation, Paul McGann did tell
Digital Spy
in 2009 that he felt “short-changed” at not having the opportunity to do an official regeneration scene. Still, the episode “Rose” seems to sneak in a reference to the Eighth Doctor when the Ninth plays with a deck of cards to see if he possesses his previous incarnation's skill at sleight of hand. To his disappointment, he doesn't.

To balance this strange hero, the companion Rose Tyler was played by Billie Piper—known for years in the UK as a musical pop star. Some worried that her casting meant the show wasn't taking itself seriously and wanted to court younger viewers with famous faces. But Piper had already received positive reviews for her role in
The Canterbury Tales,
and approached the role seriously, finding Rose an interesting character, heroic but also quite childish and selfish.

In
Doctor Who Annual 2006,
Davies revealed further background information about Rose. She'd turned her back on school, her boyfriend Mickey (played by actor and writer Noel Clarke), and her mother (played by Camille Coduri) when she'd fallen in love with a young musician named Jimmy Stone (mentioned in the premiere episode, “Rose”). To live with Jimmy, Rose even stole money from her mother. But the musician's eye wandered, and Rose returned to her mother and the forgiving Mickey. She took a job in a clothing store to make back the money she'd stolen and earn her keep. As she later described it, she had no purpose or joy in life and was going through the motions. Until the Doctor came along.

When we first meet him, the Doctor isn't terribly concerned with how blowing up a building may affect others as long as no one's inside. He knows Rose's boyfriend has been kidnapped, but it doesn't occur to him to figure out if Mickey is still alive. When he invites Rose to join him and she initially refuses, his face shows an instant sadness. Yet there's still a bit of fun in this Doctor, who cracks jokes, shouts “Fantastic” when he's excited, and gives ridiculous answers to annoying questions.

In the commentary for “The Space Museum,” Maureen O'Brien said, “For me, Christopher Eccleston is the closest to [William Hartnell's Doctor] because he has such danger. . . . He has a dangerous personality, and he has a love of danger, which is what makes him want to go and explore.”

“Christopher Eccleston was, in a word, fantastic,” according to Sylvester McCoy. “His Doctor was alien. Dangerous. I was a huge fan of his. Even when he was being comedic, his Doctor seemed uncomfortable with the humorous part of him. You can feel he has secrets and guilt. So interesting.”

Post-Traumatic Stress Doctor

Davies's relaunch operated on the premise that the Doctor was now the last of his kind, traveling in the last living TARDIS in the universe. RTD spoke of a Third and Last Great Time War, which ended with the Doctor making a final play that wiped out both sides.

Many on the staff found this notion surprising. It drastically departed from the old show's atmosphere, in which Time Lords could drop in at any moment to force the hero into a new mission or act as obstacles. But Davies argued that it simplified matters. The Doctor would be alone in the universe, and if things got really bad you couldn't wonder
Why doesn't he swallow his pride and call the Time Lords for help?
It also made situations more dangerous and history more unstable. In “The Long Game,” the Doctor finds humanity's future altered and can't truly explain why. In “The Unquiet Dead,” he reveals that history can alter in a snap. The Time Lords can't tidy up all the paradoxes and ripple effects now. The Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey was said to ensure things neither fluxed nor withered—what if it had acted as an anchor for reality itself, and now that anchor was gone with the planet's destruction?

RTD felt this simplified continuity and baggage. We now have an alien meeting a human, two individuals. In a BBC interview, he explained, “He's not bringing his whole civilization with him. She's bringing hers because we understand hers. But actually they are alone in the universe together.” Julie Gardner adds: “It also strengthens the relationship with Rose the companion. If you're the last Time Lord traveling through time and space, you need someone. You may not acknowledge that, you may not even really know it. . . And it becomes a much more intense and more dramatic experience and relationship, I think.”

The Ninth Doctor definitely had a more dramatic relationship with his companion than previous incarnations had. Their combination hit a chord,
as did their adventures, blending humor and an embrace of absurdity with serious discussion on morality. As writer Simon Guerrier said, “This was truly universal programming. Kids were actually planning their nights around being able to watch
Doctor Who,
and parents were watching with them.”

The day the new
Doctor Who
premiered, Eccleston did an interview on
BBC Breakfast.
He said: “Hopefully, it's going to be a program that the family will watch together, like all the best television. I would like eight- to twelve-year-olds to take me into their heart. I don't think I've got much of a chance with Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee fans, and I respect that fidelity, really. I have it myself to Sean Connery as James Bond. But I'm hoping that eight- to twelve-year-old children will—I'll be their first Doctor, and they'll love me the way people love Baker.”

On
BBC Breakfast,
Eccleston was directly asked if he might stay on the show for as long as Tom Baker. “I can't answer that,” he replied. “It's impossible. If you think about it, thirteen forty-five-minute episodes in the old days is two series . . . forty-five minutes, not half hours. I've done two series already.”

Soon after the transmission of the second episode, “The End of the World,” reports leaked that Eccleston was leaving at the end the first season and it was later confirmed. Eccleston was reportedly quite angry that the news had leaked, spoiling the drama of the Ninth Doctor's upcoming regeneration.

Only 900 Years Old?

“I'm called the Doctor. Date of birth . . . Difficult to remember. Sometime soon, I should think.”

—Fourth Doctor, from “Nightmare of Eden” (1979)

 

The Doctor's age was a matter of debate during Hartnell's years. Newman settled on the hero being between 600 to 650 years old, but others in the production staff believed he was centuries older or younger. On-screen, the Doctor finally mentions his age for the first time in the 1967 Second Doctor story “Tomb of the Cybermen,” the hero saying he is roughly 450 by Earth standards.

In “Planet of the Spiders” in 1974, the Third Doctor was said to be 748 years old. In the 1978 story “The Ribos Operation,” the Doctor said he was now 756, but was then informed that he'd lost count and was actually 759. The next story “The Pirate Planet” established that the Doctor had been traveling in the TARDIS for 523 years, which would mean he had been 236 on the day he stole the TARDIS. Since the person making this claim was Romana, it seems likely she measured in Gallifreyan years, and it's uncertain how that translates to Earth years.

Years later, the Sixth Doctor claimed he was 900 years old, though later amended that this was a rough estimation. Hours after his regeneration, the Seventh Doctor mentioned in the 1987 story “Time and the Rani” that he was now 953.

The age became a topic of debate again when the modern day program began. Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor said he was 900 years old, a creative decision by Russell T. Davies. Throughout the modern day program, the age was now referenced again and again and it's become a marker of linear time passing for the hero even in a show about time travel.

The Eleventh Doctor said he was 907, but then spent several periods traveling alone in between his adventures. In the sixth season opener “The Impossible Astronaut,” he said he was 909. During the last episode of the season, he said he was now 1103. By the 2012 episode “A Town Called Mercy,” he claimed to be about 1200.

Steven Moffat had evidently tried to write in an explanation for why the Ninth Doctor's age contradicted what was said in the classic program. In the 2005 episode “The Empty Child,” the Doctor said he had been
traveling
for 900 years, implying he was now counting his age from the day he'd left Gallifrey. On the other hand, the 2011 episode “The Doctor's Wife” said he had only been traveling for roughly 700 years.

Fourth Doctor Tom Baker said in different interviews that he imagined the Doctor lost track of his age often due to absentmindedness and how relative time became when you lived in the TARDIS. In the 2009 Big Finish audio drama
Orbis,
the Eighth Doctor admits he not only loses track of his age often, but also sometimes changes the system of dating he's using. When asked about the age contradictions, Steven Moffat has repeatedly
suggested that the Doctor simply has no clue how old he is and is constantly lying.

The War Continues

The sixth episode of the first new season marked a halfway point, and Davies treated it as a second pilot. The Doctor and Rose would appear without making much mention of the previous five episodes and their dialogue would summarize who they were for any viewers discovering the program that week. The sixth episode “Dalek” also acted as a major link to the past by referencing not one but three archenemies. Finding himself in a museum of alien technology and biology, the Doctor sees a Cyberman head and is then confronted by a living Dalek. When asked about Davros, the hero simply describes the scientist as a madman.

For a while though, it looked as if the Daleks wouldn't return in the modern program. The Terry Nation estate and the BBC argued about creative control regarding the stories and episode writer Robert Shearman was advised that he might need to write an alternate version introducing a new enemy, a race powerful enough to engage in a Time War with Gallifrey and evoke the same sense of dread in the Doctor that the monsters from Skaro had once done. Fortunately the pieces fell into place. “Thank God we got the Daleks back. It would have been a poorer series without them,” Davies later told
Doctor Who Magazine.

Robert Shearman loosely adapted parts of the episode “Dalek” from a successful audio drama he'd written for Big Finish entitled
Jubilee.
Knowing that people mocked the Daleks' resemblance to pepper shakers and their seeming inability to traverse stairs (despite evidence to the contrary), Shearman emphasized their danger, particularly their single-minded purpose.

The Dalek's height was increased so the monster could stare Rose Tyler in the eye. RTD also wanted to add a sense of weight, so the casing was made to look like brass and decorated by rivets. Originally, bullets bounced harmlessly off the Dalek shell, but the production team quickly realized it would cost too much to animate a spark for each ricochet. To save money, it was established that Daleks now had a force field that disintegrated bullets before they made contact. While the Seventh Doctor story “Remembrance
of the Daleks” showed a Dalek with limited hovering capability, this new version would be able to truly fly.

Although an operator still sat inside the Dalek prop, another person now moved the head piece by remote control. These two coordinated their moves with Nicholas Briggs, who provided the voice from another position on set. (Briggs couldn't provide the voice and control the head piece at the same time since the ring modulator's signal interfered with the radio control.)

When the Doctor told Rose that his people had died fighting the Last Great Time War with a powerful enemy, many classic series fans assumed he meant the Daleks. Shearman's episode confirmed this and added that the Doctor had brought the war to an end. “Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second. . . . I watched it happen. I
made
it happen!”

When asked about the Time Lords, the Doctor said that his people had “burned” alongside the Daleks. He didn't survive the event by choice, either because he didn't expect to regenerate or because something else happened. No wonder he seemed so scarred and guilty now, driven to anger when others didn't hold up his expectations. He was still angry at himself, not only for having to destroy his own people but perhaps for not having destroyed the Dalek race when he'd been present at its genesis.