Sidney Newman was 'ere...

Dear  Mr Miller 

Thank you for contacting us with your feedback on the Doctor Who Series 12 finale.

Doctor Who is a beloved long-running series and we understand that some people will feel attached to a particular idea they have of the Doctor, or that they enjoy certain aspects of the programme more than others. Opinions are strong and this is indicative of the imaginative hold that Doctor Who has - that so many people engage with it on so many different levels.

We wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers and we feel that creating an origin story is a staple of science fiction writing. What was written does not alter the flow of stories from William Hartnell’s brilliant Doctor onwards - it just adds new layers and possibilities to this ongoing saga.

We have also received many positive reactions to the episode’s cliff-hanger. There are still a lot of questions to be answered, and we hope that you will come back to join us and see what happens, but we appreciate that it’s impossible to please all of our viewers all of the time and your feedback has been raised with the programme’s Executive Producer.

Kind regards,

BBC Complaints Team

Dear BBC Complaints Team

I am sorry I do not agree with you that creating an origin story is a staple of science fiction.  One does not recall H G Wells or John Wyndham engaging in complex back stories for their characters. Actually origin stories are a staple of comic strip writing.  The original premise of Dr Who is we should know as little as possible about the Doctor’s origin.  I refer you to Sidney Newman and C.E. Webber’s notes which state that

“Dr. Who has a mystery about him that should always be maintained. He is believed to be a criminal fleeing from his own time. Dr. Who stole his machine.” 

For the first 6 years of Doctor Who the Doctor had little or no back story at all.  We knew he had a grandchild and we knew he they were “exiles? Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection.” 

The Doctor’s back story started to grow in 1969 when the production team needed an excuse to exile him to earth for pecuniary reasons.  The program was now being filmed in colour and budgets were much tighter.  So the Time Lords were invented.  Originally God like but bureaucratic and cowardly beings they were later shown to be corrupt in the Deadly Assassin.  So the Doctor already has an origin story.  

The problem with the new pre-origin story is not the idea that versions of the Doctor existed before but that they raise questions that can only disappoint/confuse the audience?  For example - since it was established that the Doctor can only regenerate 12 times a vast number of plot points had been built around this.  The Doctor memorably offers to give up his limited regeneration energy in Mawdryn Undead, the Doctor uses up a regeneration when he is shot by a Dalek in The Stolen Earth, donates regeneration energy to River Song and an entire Matt Smith story arc was created to get the Doctor a new regeneration cycle.  So if he once had unlimited regenerations then either he has lost this power or all these previous storylines about the Doctor’s regeneration energy being limited were inconsequential because it wasn’t true?   

This is disappointing for the audience because what it says is that everything they knew at the time was fake.  If the Doctor was unaware that he had unlimited regenerations but still had them then then the moral dilemmas presented to the audience were entirely inconsequential...?  There are obvious problems with telling the audience what they were watching previously was nonsense.   

I fail to see how this “does not alter the flow of stories from William Hartnell’s brilliant Doctor onwards”.   

More obviously in dramatic terms if there is no limit on the Doctor’s lifespan where is the threat in any of the stories?  He’s now the ultimate superhero.  Indeed, he is virtually a God.  An immortal?  Perhaps the producers need to find a way to put this genie back in its bottle?  It's noticeable too that as the Doctor gets more immortal each series his companions' mortality has become a bigger and bigger theme of the show.  Is the real reason the companions keep dying or being exiled to other dimensions that creating mortal peril for the Doctor is no longer possible?  2 companions died in the show's original 26 year run.  In New Dr Who almost every companion has either died or been banished to another dimension or time with the singular exceptions of Martha Jones and Captain Jack (who doesn't count as he's immortal anyway).  Didn't the Tardis reject Captain Jack as he's a fixed point shouldn't exist or something...?  So if the Doctor is immortal wouldn't that break the Tardis? 

There are numerous other continuity problems created which either the production team are unaware of – in which case perhaps they should employ a continuity advisor like John Nathan-Turner in the 80s – or worse, just don’t care about.  

For example, we know the Doctor’s Tardis in its default mode does not look like a police box and only became a police box in 1963 so why does Jo Martin have a police box for a Tardis?  Of course it could be the Tardis reverted to a previous design but as Sidney Newman points out the Doctor stole his Tardis – an event that was shown on screen in The Name of the Doctor…?  So how did the Doctor know to steal the correct Tardis?   We also saw all the way back through the Doctor’s timeline in this episode so if there were lots of other Doctors pre-Hartnell why weren’t they seen then like John Hurt?  Perhaps if the production team could close some of these plot holes... One suspects the reason Jo Martin has a police box like Tardis is to reassure the audience that she is the Doctor but because it doesn’t make sense it’s just alienating.   This is either a brilliant red herring designed to confuse the audience or... Its a cock up? 

And why does the showrunner have to go on record saying “Jo Martin is the Doctor, that's why we gave her the credit at the end which all new Doctors have the first time you see them.”  Surely this should be explicit in the program and not have to be explained to the audience outside its run time?  Perhaps the reason it needs to be explained so explicitly is it is not that obvious?  If there’s no narrative problem why does the audience need to be told directly by the head writer what they’re watching?

There's a reason Sidney Newman didn't want the Doctor's back story revealed and it's this - the whole premise of the show (a person traveling through time and space in a police box that's bigger on the inside) is nonsense.  The more you try to make sense of it the less it makes sense. For example as one commentator on YouTube points out if there are an infinite number of Doctors they will eventually fill all of space and time and cause the heat death of the Universe.  Honestly it's better not to look. 

Yours sincerely 

Anthony Miller