How To Write The Doctor

If you ever have a conversation with a Doctor Who fan, a topic that will always come up is who is their favourite Doctor? Or a more recent topic is their opinion on Peter Capaldi, the current Doctor and whether or not they like or dislike him. More often than not, when people say they dislike Capaldi it's almost always comparing him to Matt Smith, the previous Doctor, sometimes even inadvertently. One of the complaints that I've heard from someone is that they don't like that Capaldi knows what he's doing, the Doctor (to them atleast) is a man who improvises and most of the time he just ends up lucky that he won or he thinks of a solution at the very last minute. Now for a lot of people, this is what makes a good hero, someone who gets beaten down to their lowest and when they rise up and win at the very last minute we can cheer for them. Of course for The Doctor it's mostly a battle of wits (with the occasional sword fight). Smith isn't the only person to play The Doctor like this, Patrick Troughton, Tom Baker, David Tennant, etc, they all played a variation of this trait. But then you have Doctors like John Pertwee or Sylvester McCoy, these men who always acted like they were in control of everything because most of the time they were. So saying it's Un-Doctor like for Capaldi to be perfectly in control is a false statement.

Truth is, it's almost near impossible to identify The Doctor because there is no one way to write him. I've said it before and i'll say it again, The Doctor is everything, he can be your goofy best friend or he could be a cold hearted warrior, each actor plays the role differently and from this large line-up of actors, somewhere you will find a character archetype that you latch onto (FYI, my favourite is David Tennant). But then some might say if The Doctor is everything then how can he be an actual character? Well that's because there are a few traits that are carried over from Doctor to Doctor, keep in mind this is still the same man so each Doctor has to have some resemblance of each other. But surprisingly, for such a complex man, his traits are very simple; the first and arguably most important aspect is his intelligence.

The Doctor is a genius, by anyone's standards, he's thinking 100 things at once yet has a short attention span and always loves to brag about how clever he is. In this aspect, The Doctor is as middle class as you can get, this is the only way whatsoever that he would call himself better than other people, he would willingly show you up in a game of wits, possibly mock you or sometimes just the fact that you know he's better than you will be enough for him. Again, every Doctor will play a variation of this, Smith for example almost felt like he rubbed it in accidentally, but then again Smith was the most compassionate out of The Doctors so far in my opinion. While Christopher Eccleston preferred to keep his intelligence hidden and only use what was necessary, that is until someone starts to try and show him up and he will beat your ass into the ground to prove how smart he is. William Hartnell, the first Doctor rarely rubbed it in, but his disgruntled behaviour with people and how he bossed them around, make no mistake he did think he was better than you, but rather than bring himself up, he'd lower you down. So yes, even with his core traits, The Doctor still has variety in how they're portrayed. Going back to when I said The Doctor is middle class, this also goes along with how he dresses. The Doctor is extravagant, he's flamboyant, he will wear whatever he wants to wear, most of which sit within a realm of dignity and a traditional smart attire yet also being goofy as hell, yeah it's a hard mixture to get right.

The other trait The Doctor must always have is that he is brave, but again, there are multiple ways to interpret this. He could be brave in the traditional sense of never fearing his enemy, but he can also be brave enough to make tough choices and let innocent people die for the greater good, he can be brave enough to sacrifice his pride so he can live another day. Bravery comes in many forms, but whatever you define as brave, at some point, The Doctor has been that. So as far as i'm concerned, those are the only two traits that The Doctor absolutely needs to have, apart from that, feel free to write him in anyway you desire, because, i'll say this one more time, The Doctor, is everything.

-Danny