When you’ve been doing a TV show for more than 50 years, it can be hard to come up with new ideas. Okay, maybe hard is an understatement. Can we try “close to impossible”?
Yet here we are with Peter Capaldi as the 13th doctor trying to keep this half-century series alive. At least for one year.
Oh, hadn’t you heard? Rumor has it that this is a one-and-done for Capaldi; that he’s just a transition to the next Doctor and there will be a radical shift in the direction the series takes. But you know how rumors are. You need to take them with a grain of salt.
A long and colorful history
A year or two ago, Doctor Who seemed as if it were on its last legs. There were only supposed to be 13 regeneration sequences, after all. So what did they do, these clever producers?
In the final episode with Matt Smith — the Doctor who made the fez popular again — the Time Lords somehow returned and their combined power gave the Doctor more lives. How many more? Who knows.
But solving one problem doesn’t solve all the others, if you grant there are any. Even at its worst, Doctor Who has always been among the best there is on television.
The acting is always top-notch, although the scripts aren’t always up to par. But it still comes down to the story … and the inevitable question: What’s left to tell?
The new Doctor
The current season has looked very promising, though. Clara Osborne seems to be involved with the Doctor going all the way back to … well, quite a ways. If you haven’t seen the latest episode, it’s a must.
We found out something extremely fascinating about Clara’s history with the Doctor that we never knew before — or would have ever suspected. It was quite riveting.
Still, the show hasn’t answered the question. How long? If you haven’t followed Doctor Who since the beginning (and you’d have to be pretty old for that), there have been periods when there was no Doctor Who on television.
After Paul McGann appeared as the eighth Doctor in 1996, another did not appear until Christopher Eccleston put on the mantle in 2005. That was a nine-year gap.
So even if this current series, which started in 2005, eventually DID go off the air, you can almost bet that sometime in the future SOMEBODY is going to carry on the tradition and might possibly do a better job than all the ones that came before.
Where to go from here?
Maybe the Doctor needs to relax from time travel: take up a musical instrument or something like that. He could take up the violin and follow in the footsteps of Holmes.
If he needs sheet music, that’s not a problem. On the Virtual Sheet Music site, he could pick up the music for the “Doomsday” theme from the Doctor Who that had David Tennant in the role.
You too might want to check that out. You can download high-quality, pure digital sheet music and print, plus audio music files instantly. No muss, no fuss.
Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Doctor Who will live forever?
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