Written by The Wandering Fox
Oh look, another Doctor Who essay I’m sure will get lots of readers, yay…yeah, I know, these essays don’t get the focus lots of other blog essays do on here. Though I feel I have to try and talk about it as I want to try and give others a different take on her era without going “Just pretend it ended with Capaldi”. I know, the Thirteenth Doctor era is a mess, and the Fifteenth Doctor is no improvement for the series, but I still would like to try and make it work. Hence I, the Wandering Fox, will take it upon myself to try and sort this out.
Let’s try and begin with the Doctor’s character. The Thirteenth Doctor is a bit of a mess of a character with her befuddling morales, her hypocritical handling of giant spiders, the talk of Graham’s cancer and the forced relationship drama of her and Yaz. Honestly, I can see Chibnall was trying to go with starting his Doctor lighthearted who had strong morales but then become a darker character who would find herself and her morales tested. The guy went the wrong way about it.
He needed to have had a better story in mind, as well as having a stronger take on his Doctor. So, I would say this: in the first series, the Doctor is lighthearted though not as she was in the series, only a friendly woman who just wanted what was best for others around her though would get blunt and hard the second she was facing a enemy or a danger while retaining her general friendliness. The second series you gradually shift her character into a darker role as questions on some choices she has made and wonders if being nice and kind is the true way of going forward. Final series you have her come to accept though she’s not perfect she tried her best and can save the others as well as she can.
For an example let’s look at the Spiders episode. You know the Doctor trapped the spiders in a room do they could eat each other but then got angry at the last spider being killed? How about instead, you have the Doctor lure them to the TARDIS, get inside and take them to another planet they can live in peace on? It ties true to the Doctor in not wanting a violent end to the adventure and trying to treat the spiders humanely.
Or how about have her take Kerblam down for its many crimes? This is in the first season, you start with giving her a clear enemy to defeat, she stops them and has Kerblam closed.
You want to start making her a bit more morally challenged in the second season, have her question her desire to help find good in others after meeting the Master again, with her first thinking this is the Master after Missy hence she thinks she wasted her time with her, have her defeat evil manipulative villains with her being as manipulative, it is noticed by her friends who are worried as to what is going on with the Doctor.
You have the Doctor go on a character journey, by the end of which she remembers who she is, she’s who stops monsters, who has friends and helps others.
I’ll go in more detail with this further down, but I think what also can help the Doctor is a costume change. The costume, despite some swaps in t-shirts and coats, is just overly similar. I think what would’ve been cool is if they did what they did with Tom Baker’s costume in his first few seasons. He started out wearing a red jacket, a jumper with a string tie, then he begins swapping it out, in Planet of Evil he’s wearing his brown and yellow waistcoat and velvet tie, then Pyramids of Mars he’s wearing his dark brown trench coat.
I think this ought to have been the case with Jodie’s Doctor. Begin her with the charity shop t-shirt and coat, have it continue up until the Spiders episode, after which she changes it up, swapping the coat for a white trench coat of maybe a cotton fabric with a black collar shirt with a little ribbon tie? Then you have her swap these costumes around with a blue or burgundy shirt with burgundy trousers or dark orange ones with a pale blue coat? Oh and give her a cooler sonic screwdriver.
What could help is her TARDIS interior. Chibnall noted he’s a Classic Who fan, so why not go with a Classic looking TARDIS? Have it with a creamy bronze look with white roundels, the rotor connects to the ceiling, have a few doors on the other side, end of.
Oh and cut down the companions. If you want to go with companions who travel with her, then have Graham and Yaz be regulars while Ryan and Grace are more like the UNIT cast, they only travel with the Doctor on the rarest of occasions. I’d rework Dan in having a tighter tie with Yaz and Graham. Grace lives instead of dying as I think it was a waste of killing her, her being a nurse at a hospital gives Graham something to stay for, while the Doctor and Grace will challenge each other in how they handle certain things in a hospital. Dan would be reworked as a paramedic. The companion format would’ve been Graham, Yaz and Dan travelling with the Doctor here and there.
Lastly I would’ve tried to have kept Jodie around for the 60th. I didn’t like the 60th with it being a David Tennant fan fest, hence instead I’d make the 60th with Jodie being given a goodbye story with McGann, Tennant and Smith returning in major roles and have Whittaker regenerate in Jo Martin. Yeah, coming to Jo Martin, I have to explain this: while I personally think she could be in between Troughton and Pertwee, if I was given the chance to rewrite the Thirteenth Doctor era, I’d have Jo Martin be Jodie’s successor. The reason being is Jo’s introduction was in at the same moment as the Timeless Children. Hence instead I think Jo taking on the Fourteenth Doctor role would be better.
With those done with, the episodes I would keep will be the following:
The Woman Who Fell to Earth
The Ghost Monument
Rosa
Arachnids
Kerblam
Demons of the Punjab
It Takes You Away
Resolution
Spyfall
Can You Hear Me
Halloween Apocalypse
Village of the Angels
War of the Sontarans
Eve of the Daleks
Just cos I’m keeping these stories doesn’t mean they will stay the same. Grace survived in Woman Who Fell to Earth, Ghost Monument has the Doctor, Yaz and Graham finding the TARDIS, Rosa has the villain instead be a Chaos Agent who just wants to muck up the history by killing a few historical figures, Arachnids has the Hotel abandoned with the spiders in the hotel and the Doctor takes them to another planet, Kerblam has the Doctor finally close down the company, Demons has it be Yaz with the Doctor, It Takes You Away doesn’t have Grace in it, it will be different. Resolution has the Dalek defeated differently in the past, Spyfall has the Master try taking over the community to turn them against the Doctor then reveals he’s in between the John Simm Master and Missy, Can You Hear Me replaces the cancer scene with the Doctor more compassionate, the Halloween Apocalypse, War of the Sontarans and Village of the Angels are not tied to Flux, Eve of the Daleks ditches the stalker.
The Dalek of the Resolution episode needed a lot of rework. Instead of it having been defeated in the ancient years, this Dalek was defeated by none other than the UNIT, which thought they killed the Dalek mutant only for the mutant to escape and control a UNIT character in retrieving its casing, hence UNIT call on the Doctor to help them stop the Dalek. The Dalek’s only thing to recreate was its mid-section as that was destroyed by UNIT.
For episodes that will replace the others, they’re just basic things with the idea stage but they are the following:
Series 11:
Hospital episode: Bodysnatchers is a theme of the episode with the Doctor working along with Grace at the hospital after a few bodies go missing, with Yaz as a supporting character.
Space episode: Replaces Tsrunaga Conundrum with it as a siege story with the characters hunted by bounty hunters with the Doctor and Yaz protecting them.
Historical episode: Set in America during the Salem Witch Trials, it follows a plot similar to Witchfinders only instead the villain is an alien who wants to play mind games with the community.
The finale is It Takes You Away with it as a two parter. During a trip to the hospital Graham finds out his cancer has come back and he is depressed. The Doctor feels dreadful as she doesn’t know what to do though Graham ends up going to a holiday retreat which offers to “free” him of his pain. Trapped in a false reality by aliens who feed upon Graham’s mental trauma and have him a husk.
I don’t have much for the next season other than doing something different with the Time Lords. The idea is Rassilon takes Galifrey again and the Master has helped him. The Doctor, Yaz, and Graham help take Galifrey back with Rassilon casted into a void with the Master imprisoned, though he reveals he doesn’t remember much of the events on the Mondas ship, other than crawling in his TARDIS and regenerating, thus the Doctor knows now Missy could still be out there.
The Haunting of the Villa Diodati is not tied to the Timeless Children or the finale, instead it’s the Doctor taking Grace back to meet Mary Shelley. The Cyberman stalks the Doadatti after a lightning bolt reawakens it and it tries to unearth its ship and convert those in the Diodati.
The Halloween Apocalypse would be a Halloween two-part special with the Doctor and Yaz having a getaway to a small village only to encounter a cult led by a professor who seeks to rebirth the legendary being Dyron, theorising the balance between reality and the undead are weakened on Halloween. Dyron is revealed to be an entity from another dimension, who seeks to turn everybody in his slaves, thus the cult are brainwashed while the Doctor and Yaz have to try and banish him back to his dimension.
It’d honestly be a bit like how they do lots of creature makeups, it’s basically a mask but you have little holes for the actor to see out of, there’d be a little platform underneath his feet for him to stand on for a full shot of him with his insect legs.
He basically feeds on the negative auras of others hence he will grow stronger by feeding on those who have anger, sadness, rage or others to make them his husks who will help him. Dyron is brought to our universe after the cult who worship him use a scientific tuning machine to do this, they have it in the old farm house where they summon him. Dyron can mor-h his hands into tentacles and can project laser beams from his eye to kill or knock unconscious.
The last series has Dan captured by a galactic medical team who are looking for those to help the injured in a war against the Sontarans. The Doctor and Yaz venture into this battle to help Dan and encounter others in the fight with the Sontarans. The Weeping Angels have been sending others back to the war merely to make themselves more stronger. The series ends with Eve of the Daleks, with the Doctor taking Yaz and Dan home with the Doctor asked to join for New Years Dinner.
The Thirteenth Doctor’s last story is the 60th, the Doctor and Yaz are caught in the Toymaker’s games with the Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors caught in the games. Ace and Tegan return with small encounters with their Doctors. Though the Doctors complete the Toymaker’s game, the Toymaker guns the Thirteenth Doctor down just as he’s defeated. The Doctor takes the TARDIS to the hospital to bid goodbye to Grace, Graham and Dan, regenerates with Yaz at her side with Jo Martin’s Doctor coming in as the new Doctor.
Characters:
Graham has much trauma of his cancer treatment though tries be more upbeat of being alive. The Doctor becomes a good friend of his and tells him to never give up on hope. Graham does stop travelling with the Doctor after It Takes You Away, focussing on his cancer treatment and Grace.
Yaz is dutiful as a police officer tho it ends to clash with the Doctor on how to approach things with those they end up fighting. Yaz does feel romantic towards the Doctor but knows there’s little chance of them being a item. Yaz is quite a clever woman which she throws in with her job as an officer.
The Master is revealed to be in between the John Simm and Michelle Gomez Masters. After he regenerated his TARDIS was found by Rassilon, who had him work for him in finding the Doctor. He finds out how close the Doctor has become to the community of Sheffield, hence the Master disguises himself as a local radio DJ and has his telepathy to brainwash everybody to turn against the Doctor. The Doctor is more bitter upon meeting him, explaining she wasted her time in trying to help him. The Master is confused as he only remembers he himself ditching the Doctor to fight the Cybermen alone, thus the Doctor ends up learning later this Master exists before Missy. The Master is defeated after the Doctor defeats him in a psychic wrestle hence the Master retreats, with him later revealed to have been helping Rassilon. The Master returns to Galifrey and convinces the Galifreyeans outside of the Citidal to try taking it over, though he’s defeated after the Doctor traps Rassilon in a void. The Doctor has a final conversation with him in which she hopes there’s still a chance for him in the future.
Rassilon wants to take Galifrey back upon learning the Doctor had abandoned it, finding the Master and having him help him. Rassilon might’ve regenerated by this hence he’s a younger looking guy. He has his gauntlet back and has it torture the Master in obeying him. The Doctor admits she was not in the best of moods during her last trip to Galifrey and abandoning it was utterly wrong, hence after Rassilon is defeated, there’s a gap in between series 12 and Halloween Apocalypse with her helping restore Galifrey to how it is.
The Toymaker ended up escaping to the real universe during the Halloween Apocalypse with him keeping low and finding out what had happened. He becomes eager to play with the Doctor at his lowest in his lives, hence he goes after the Eighth Doctor during the Time War, the Tenth Doctor in his last year alive, and the Eleventh Doctor while he’s exiled himself to the Victorian era. Tegan and Ace end up captured by him but he lets them call to the Thirteenth Doctor for help. Investigating, the Doctor and Yaz are taken in the Toymaker’s realm in which they have to play a game in “save the companions”. They briefly meet the other Doctors during this before they go to do their own games. The Toymaker is defeated in a game of chess, though just as he’s sent back to his universe he injures the Thirteenth Doctor, who spends her last moments with Yaz before regenerating. The Toymaker tries breaking the Doctors by having them think they reunited with their dearest friends like Susan, Donna and Amy and Rory, only to reveal they were dolls, though the Doctors remember them and look forward to the future with the Thirteenth Doctor, reuniting with Tegan and Ace in joy as they defeat the Toymaker.
Honestly, this is the most I could do. I do wish the Thirteenth Doctor era turned out much better. If you have your own ideas of the Thirteenth Doctor era then tell me down below.
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