I don’t understand other people’s brains.
For the most part, I think I do pretty well; after all, as a fiction writer I regularly practice putting myself in different characters’ headspaces, actively working to expand my empathy. But I’ll admit that I still fall prey to the human tendency to believe everyone else basically thinks like I do at the core, just with different likes, dislikes and preferences. Then every once in a while, I get a sharp reminder that it’s not true.
Take the case of the social media comment called to my attention this week. I won’t go into great detail, but the thrust of the point (aside from some juvenile name-calling and derailment) was that in this fan’s opinion, Capaldi wasn’t worthy of the mantle of Doctor, and therefore didn’t “count” in their mind.
Usually I’m glad to agree that there’s no such thing as canon in the Whoniverse. Even within the thirty-four televised seasons, there are so many self-contradictory ideas that each fan pretty much has to decide for themselves what they want to believe when an inconsistency crops up.
Then there are the media that spanned The Wilderness Years: novels and audios and comics, each with their own cast of regular characters, key in-universe events, and die-hard fans. When no one thought the show would ever return to television, the franchise understandably took a new direction, and a great many fans went along for the ride. Who is to say the stories they hold near and dear can’t be canon?
One could even argue a case for the Peter Cushing movies of the ’60s being part of canon (though I think that one’s an uphill battle). If you really want it, and you try really hard, you can make pretty much anything fit into your own personal headcanon.
But the one thing you cannot do is deny the existence of a new Doctor.
Again, I recognize that everyone is different; each of us have our favorites and characteristics we do and don’t like in our heroes. But saying a given Doctor isn’t the Doctor simply because you don’t happen to like him is like saying the current PM or President isn’t “your” PM/President because you disagree with their politics: it’s simply untrue.
Oh, you can rail against the unfairness of the universe that led to this turn of events—woe to we who live in the age of such a terrible leader!—but you’re still subject to the legislation the President signs into law, just like everyone else in the country, no matter what you think of the officeholder (or the law).
In the same way, you can say you don’t like the current Doctor and can’t wait to see him regenerate, but no matter what words you choose to delegitimize him, you cannot change the fact that he has the part. And for a great many fans (who may or may not be you, just like some folks didn’t like your favorite), he’s pretty fucking awesome.
So in the end, I guess I do believe in canon, at least to a certain extent. There are some things you simply cannot erase. And one of them, to paraphrase Ol’ Sixie, is this: Peter Capaldi IS the Doctor—whether you like it or not!
Earth History
When it comes to Earth’s future history in Doctor Who I have a simple response. The future is fluid. If stories that talk about the future disagree or contradict eachother or are mutually exclusive, there’s a good reason. The Doctor makes changes. That’s his whole raison d’etra, to change things and make them better. Other Time Lords make changes. Daleks and time agents and other people and species who travel in time make changes. And the changes they make cause the course of future events to shift and change.
In a way that makes what The Doctor does futile some times. In one adventure he risks his life to save the human colony on Altair 3 from being destroyed by Cybermen. Then he goes back in time and saves the President of Calcitrax 2 from an assasin. That action results in the colony on Altair 3 never existing in the first place. So what did he risk his life for when he battled the Cybermen? For people who were never going to exist anyway? Kinda confusing.
As for refusing to admit that Capaldi is The Doctor, that’s just stupid. Tell that person to go close his eyes and stick his fingers in his ears and chant Lalalalalalala to keep from seeing or hearing anything that offends him. My own feelings about Capaldi are mixed but he IS The Doctor. That fan can just stop watching the show until they get a new actor if he likes but that won’t change what is.
Inconsistencies
Sure, history is malleable, and that can explain a lot of timeline inconsistencies. But I was thinking more about things like the Doctor’s stated age or how many regenerations Time Lords get (which is pretty well set now, but was fuzzy for a long time) or any number of plot holes that arise out of writers not paying attention to what had been said on the show before.
And yeah—pretending someone isn’t the Doctor just because you happen not to like them strikes me as idiotic at best.
New Doctors and canon
“But the one thing you cannot do is deny the existence of a new Doctor.”
Not true. What about Richard E. Grant?
Interesting edge case
You bring up an interesting point. Personally, I love the Shalka Doctor, and would love to see him get more cred, but you’re right that he didn’t even show up on my mental radar.
I think that the canonicity of non-television media is always in question, and I would say on those grounds that—much as I like him—the Shalka Doctor isn’t any more a part of canon than Peter Cushing’s version is.
The point I was making was that anyone who claims that an actor who has portrayed the Doctor for a full series with his name in the opening credits “isn’t” the Doctor is severely misguided.