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How I would restore Doctor Who after Chibnall

by   Nicholas de Lioncourt on February 23 2019 12:14 zulu

Peter Capaldi was the final TRUE Doctor Who
(... originally a private May 2018 entry in my personal writing journal; copied herein with limited abridgement.)

In the 1970s and 1980s, children - that is to write, those misfits of youthful social strata - could be classified according to their fantastical passions: Star Wars, Star Trek, Comic Book Super Heroes, et al., yet through some congenital eccentricity (I assume this to have been the same cosmic antic that manifest me as a Depeche Mode and Visage fan), I did not enjoy comic books and thought the Superman movies nonsensical.

While I shared common enthusiasm for Star Trek and Star Wars, not once did I envision myself giving commands aboard the Enterprise or running through swamps of Dagobah with a verdant raisin instructing me in the ways of The Force.

No.

I wanted to be Doctor Who. I wanted to live in the TARDIS.

Unfortunately, living in the South-Eastern United States, I had no one with whom to share my devotion, to role-play as Tom Baker or Peter Davison, to discuss the latest episodic events; no, and not until the ascendency of the Internet did I know there had been many other social oddities like me - others with passion for Doctor Who - others whom the technical limitations of my own childhood made inaccessible in those influential and lonely years.

 

THE PREMISE

An idea I am constructing as I write this - without excoriating the tragic, the abhorrent execution, the heinous castration, of the Doctor by Chris Chibnall; which would delight the WOKE coteries while assuaging nothing and resolving less, I am turning my thoughts to how I might rewrite and restore Doctor Who if I were assigned such a labor of love.

In confession; I have neither the inclination nor ambition to write a script for an audience of apathy and soundless applause, so I will constrain my concept extempore to script points:

 

01. Chris Chibnall's misandrist abomination might be undone without insulting the concept of female timelords; even ennobling the current actress' regrettable portrayal. There is certainly no reason against series with a woman as a timelord.

 

02. Reveal to the audience that Chibnall's Doctor is a construct by The Master, a 'Manchurian Candidate' designed to venture throughout and establish herself as The Doctor so that none will suspect the Master's plan to destroy the histories and legacies of not only The Doctor, but of the entirety of Gallifrey - to ensure the enmity and enduring distrust of all against The Doctor.

 

03. To ensure success, the Master's (Chibnall's) Doctor does not know her counterfeit role. When she discovers the truth, she suffers vulnerable nihilism and betrayal; yet by understanding she is not The Doctor, she has been liberated to become herself: determined and resilient. She is no longer the Master's comedic puppet (she also becomes changed by divesting the ridiculous suspenders).

 

04. She is transformed into an heroic force and helps find, secures the release of The Doctor (Capaldi reprises his role).

 

05. For years the captive Doctor has been tormented and injured by the Master, tortured continuously to the moment of, but not into, regeneration. For years, the captive Doctor has been subjected to psychological abuses until he believed in his own failure and toxicity, falling asleep again and again wishing for his life's end.

 

06. The Master realizes the treason of his own creation and mortally injures her. In an emotional and valorous scene, she must accept the cruelty of The Master: he considered her a disposable tool, she will not regenerate.

 

07. The Capaldi Doctor witnesses this and comforts her until her unjustly brief life fades; after which, the Capaldi Doctor assaults The Master with a severity never seen in the series until that moment. The Capaldi doctor beats The Master into regeneration.

 

08. The Capaldi wants to kill The Master; however in a moment of hesitation, The Master leaps from the building. The audience witnesses a series-first: a mid-fall regeneration.

 

09. Yet The Master knows the fall will injure him into another immediate regeneration - too soon! Few survive the painful and unpredictable process of immediate successive regenerations. The audience watches The Master writhe and scream as the second regeneration tears him apart.

 

10. Return to the Capaldi Doctor as he is helped back to the TARDIS. The audience is presented with an emotive scene as The Doctor is reunited with a TARDIS he has not seen in years, as past memories rise and pass, he is overwhelmed by the years of torment and injury, by witnessing the death of his innocent rescuer, and he falls onto his hands and knees.

 

11. The Capaldi Doctor heaves in sadness and repeats, "I want this... I want this... please, I want this..." as regeneration - for a series-first, a regeneration through the will, by the very depths of his pain - gradually consumes him. Scene fades.

 

12. The TARDIS door opens, and the regenerated Doctor looks to all. After a pause, he says, "I'm back... and have changed... more than you know."

 

My concept. The irrelevant ideas of an irrelevant author.

Next, whom would I choose as this Doctor Who.

 

(update 2022-04-22: submitted to the Internet Archive)

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categories: idleness | personal | writing

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