11 OMG moments from Doctor Who
Here’s a gobsmacker for each year of New Who’s life
2011
“I always took you where you needed to go”
(The Doctor’s Wife, 14 May)
Companions come, companions go, but the one constant of the Doctor’s life is his TARDIS.
In Neil Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife, the Time Lord’s Significant Other is transformed from a police box into the infinitely more appealing form of Suranne Jones. (“She’s a woman and she’s the TARDIS,” observes Amy. “Did you wish REALLY hard?”)
Smouldering sexual tension between a man and his time-space machine is fascinating enough in itself, but the real jaw-dropper comes when the Doctor admonishes the TARDIS for not always getting him where he wanted to go. “No,” she responds. “But I always took you where you needed to go.”
And with that deft flick of the pen, all those years of stories where the Doctor just happens to arrive moments before everything kicks off suddenly make perfect sense.
Bravo.
2012
“Here we are, you and me, on the last page…”
(The Angels Take Manhattan, 29 September)
Amy and Rory are gone – trapped in the past by the Weeping Angels. But Amelia Pond has one final message for the Doctor – and it’s written on the last page of a book.
“Hello, old friend,” she writes. “By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well, and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always.
“And do one more thing for me,” she adds. “There's a little girl waiting in a garden. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she’s patient, the days are coming that she’ll never forget. Tell her she’ll go to sea and fight pirates. She’ll fall in love with a man who’ll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she’ll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, and save a whale in outer space.”
It’s Doctor Who’s most hankie-wringing moment since that goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay. And, with typically brilliant timey-wimey tricksiness, the final shot, of young Amelia looking up and smiling, had first appeared in Matt Smith and Karen Gillan’s very first episode – it just took two-and-a-half years to get round to explaining it.
2013
“I never forget a face…”
(The Day of the Doctor, November 23)
Everything about 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor was a triumph, from the return of David Tennant to John Hurt’s ‘War Doctor’ and even a fleeting appearance by Peter Capaldi’s eyebrows. The fact it was watched in a record-breaking 94 countries around the world at the same time, and was a box office smash in cinemas across the globe, was also pretty awesome.
But the best was saved for last, as Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor was greeted by THAT voice – the velvety baritone that had boomed out of every self-respecting TV set in the land during 1970s teatimes.
And, then, suddenly, there he was: older, whiter, frailer, but with a twinkle undimmed by the passing decades: Tom Baker.
“I never forget a face,” says the Doctor. “In the years to come you might find yourself revisiting a few,” teases the ‘curator’. “But just the old favourites, eh?”
Cue fans breaking into a grin as big as the Fourth Doctor’s himself.
2014
“Peter…. Capaldi!” (12 August)
In 2014, Doctor Who’s status as a global suberbrand was confirmed when, to publicise the upcoming eighth season, Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Steven Moffat embarked on the Doctor Who World Tour – a promotional juggernaut that took in seven cities across five continents over 12 days.
Highlights of the tour included the stars being mobbed in a South Korean airport, fans sleeping on the sidewalk in New York to get a ticket to a screening, girls revealing intimate tattoos in Gallifreyan script and a Mariachi band in Mexico City singing a heartfelt tribute to ‘Doctor Misterio’.
But nothing sums up the world’s love for Doctor Who better than Peter Capaldi receiving this rock star reception on stage in Sydney.
As Capaldi himself pointed out, he hadn’t even been seen as Doctor Who yet – and the fans already loved him.
Get a room, you lot.
2015
“I’m coming to find you – and I will never, ever stop” (Heaven Sent, 28 November)
Peter Capaldi was already having a pretty terrific 2015. Remember his amazing anti-war speech at the end of The Zygon Inversion? Or his thrilling confrontation with Davros in The Witch’s Familiar?
Then along came Heaven Sent: a virtuoso exercise in writing from Steven Moffat and direction from Rachel Talalay, set to a magical score by Murray Gold. And at the heart of it is Peter Capaldi, carrying the entire episode single-handedly (or as good as) as a grieving, enraged, terrified Time Lord trapped in a prison constructed from his own nightmares.
It showed that, after 52 years, Doctor Who is still taking risks, still breaking new ground, still surprising us – and still the greatest show in the galaxy.
