Doctor Who and the Myth of Time

Various writers and artists, Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension (two volumes)

Time itself is coming apart; but when isn’t it, when the Doctor is around? A massive, terrifying vortex of pure white light is traveling the universe, eating everything it encounters. We first witness it swallowing Captain Jack Harkness off a distant planet. But this monster isn’t satisfied with one planet, or even one timestream; it’s consuming the universe in reverse order. And it’s apparently started consuming the Doctor’s past selves.

Why can’t fans let prior iterations of the Doctor end? This two-volume collection from Titan Comics includes appearances by every canonical version of the character through 2018. They appear unchanged, unaged, from their onscreen appearance—a pointed fact with the Fourth and Eighth Doctors, who changed markedly between their first and last appearances. Franchise fans, and content creators who appeal to them, won’t let old forms of the character go.

In his 1972 article “The Myth of Superman,” Umberto Eco claims the archetypal hero is everyman, is universal. But in being universal, the hero is finite. Every time Superman punches villains, his mythic justice is extended, but he himself is consumed. Which sounds great when talking about past mythic heroes, like Odysseus or Charlemagne. The problem is, Superman isn’t used up; he’s continually recreated, and therefore, on paper, continually young.

Comic book characters don’t have to age. Superman, with his broad shoulders and iconic spit-curl, remains largely unchanged since 1938. The problem, as I’ve noted previously, happens when characters are depicted onscreen. Superman remains constant, outlasting George Reeves’ suicide, Christover Reeve’s quadriplegia, and the all-around disappointment of Brandon Routh. Artists continually recreate Superman, but human actors inevitably get old and die.

Something similar happens with the Doctor. The BBC writers’ room invented the narrative contrivance of Regeneration in 1966 when William Hartnell, “The First Doctor,” became too stricken with atherosclerosis to continue acting. Writers and fans continued recreating the mythological character, leaving Hartnell, a mortal, behind. The Doctor’s human aspect is transitory; his character remains present and part of audiences’ lives.

Where possible, official productions keep original actors involved: Big Finish Productions, for instance, put the Fourth and Tenth Doctors together in 2020. Tom Baker hasn’t played the Fourth Doctor onscreen since 1981 (not directly anyway) and is pushing ninety, yet he remains altogether synonymous with the role, and able to continue playing it. If original actors aren’t available, alternatives suffice: voice actors Frazier Hines and Tim Treolar currently play the Second and Third Doctors, respectively.

This recreation isn’t dependent on official BBC imprimatur, either. Fan culture, including fanfiction writers, cosplayers, and others, participate in recreating the Doctor. The BBC nominally “owns” the Doctor, yet the character is most alive and fertile in fans’ imaginations. Like all copyrighted productions, the Doctor will eventually pass into public domain, but morally, he already lives there. Every “official” franchise relies upon backstory existing in fans’ imaginations.

Titan Comics, however, tacitly acknowledges something fans already know: because the Doctor remains living, the character needs new adventures. As Umberto Eco writes, Hercules, King Arthur, and other mythic heroes are dead; writers may rewrite existing stories and apply new psychological insights, but seldom add actual new events to the mythology. Superman or the Doctor, however, always require new adventures. The narrative canon is always expanding.

Therefore Titan invents stories like this, which transcend time and bring the Doctor’s multiple incarnations together. Though this story highlights the four (male) iterations from the revived TV show, it incorporates every onscreen version to date, always looking exactly like they appeared back then. Human actors age and die, but on paper, the Second Doctor is always fortyish, the Fourth Doctor is always dark-haired and energetic.

Always the same, yet different.

Audiences yearn for new adventures starring the Doctor, but only as he/they appeared onscreen. Casting David Bradley as the First Doctor is a satisfactory workaround, one time. But audiences probably wouldn’t accept that substitution permanently. Just as Timothy Dalton’s James Bond isn’t Sean Connery’s, each regeneration of the Doctor becomes a new being, but also doesn’t. Because the Doctor moves on, but we, the audience, carry the old mythology with us.

Fundamentally, the BBC “owns” Doctor Who on paper, and licenses companies like Titan Comics or Big Finish Audio to invent new adventures, but that’s a legal fiction. The mythology has taken root in audiences’ imaginations in ways that, say, Quatermass just hasn’t. New adventures rely upon, not licensed canon, but the audiences’ living imagination. Old versions of the Doctor remain because they live and have new adventures inside us.