As we embark on the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, it’s time to talk about some inconvenient truths – one inconvenient truth, in particular, which is that Jodie Whittaker has been the worst Doctor so far.
The celebrations for the 60th anniversary of this long-running series, Doctor Who, a show created by a Canadian genius who happened to find himself in Britain at the time, right after he had given us the wonderful The Avengers, are kicking into gear, with Whovians the world over awaiting the arrival of the three specials on BBC in the UK and on Disney+ in the rest of the world. These specials are truly special, not only because they mark 60 years of the Doctor, but also because the Doctor in these specials will be the Tenth Doctor, but now regenerated as the Fourteenth Doctor, David Tennant.
Everyone has their favourite Doctor. For me, the best Doctors we’ve ever had are William Hartnell (the first one), Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Peter Capaldi. But I liked the other ones too. Well, except for one – Jodie Whittaker. She was the worst Doctor ever, hands down. (I also have a choice for second-worst Doctor: Colin Baker.)
I remember when it was announced that Jodie had been chosen to play the Thirteenth Doctor. There were many people who were dead set against a woman playing the part, and online comments ranged from silly and dumb to outright offensive. I didn’t have a problem with a woman playing the part. As far as I am concerned, anyone can be the Doctor – women, non-white actors, etc. In fact, the Doctor can regenerate into anyone and anything, even a Slitheen (though that’s very unlikely, as no one wants to watch one or two series with a Doctor who suffers from severe trapped wind issues and a zipper malfunction).
Jodie was not completely unknown to me at the time, as I had seen her in several other films and TV shows. But here’s the thing: every character she had played up to that point was… utterly forgettable. Hundreds of other people could have been cast in the characters she had played, and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the respective role. That’s how non-special and forgettable Jodie is as an actor.
After seeing her first episode as the Doctor, I was shocked, and saddened. Half the time she didn’t know what to do with her arms and legs (her generally poor posture didn’t help either), her voice (and accent) was grating, to say the least, and everything she did or said came across as studied, rehearsed and artificial. In short, it was a nightmare.
I mentioned I felt saddened. I felt that way because I instantly knew that she was going to destroy the franchise; that this was going to be the end of Doctor Who. To make matters worse, they had showrunners and writers that were completely wrong for the series. Whovians have now breathed a collective sigh of relief, because Russell T. Davies is back in the showrunner’s seat. Russell steered the ship from 2005 to 2010, and those were some of the finest years in the history of Doctor Who, at least during the so-called “Revived Era”.
Yes, Jodie did wreck the franchise: people stopped watching and lost interest in the Doctor. It’s therefore no surprise at all that Russell has recently announced that the next series (or season, for Americans who don’t speak English), featuring the brand-new Fifteenth Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, will be referred to as “series one”. In other words, the Revived Era (2005 – 2022) is over; it crash-landed with Jodie, and now we’re starting a new era. I wonder what this new era will be called. The Classic Era ran from 1963 to 1989, followed by what I call “Limbo” (and just one Doctor Who film, featuring the Seventh and Eighth Doctors and filmed in Vancouver in 1996) before the franchise was finally revived in 2005. Should we call this new era the “Post-Jodie Years”? Or the “Post-Apocalypse Era”?
Again, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe that a woman could play a fabulous Doctor – and there was one! In Jodie’s final series, Jo Martin, a Black woman, played a version of the Doctor from a time long before the Classic Era. I think Jo did a wonderful job, and I remember thinking: OMG, why didn’t they cast her right from the start, instead of freaking Jodie?
But by then, it was too late. Jodie had already killed off the Revived Era.
Time to move on and forget about Jodie Whittaker. With David Tennant’s surprise return, it is to be hoped that no one ever comes up with the silly idea of giving Jodie another shot at the helm of the TARDIS. I look forward to seeing Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor, and from what I have seen so far, I believe he will be a great Doctor.
In the words of certain Doctors: Geronimo, allons-y!
Doctor Who will be on BBC in the UK and on Disney+ in the rest of the world. And for those who’d rather follow the adventures of a certain translator (me!), there’s always Translator Who!
Werner, the Translator, translates his way through space and time in his TARDIS (Translational Ameliorative Reconstitution Dimension In Space)