“The Haunting of Villa Diodati” saw me being annoyed at the Doctor in a way I’ve never been annoyed before. And look, I get it. She’s the last of her kind. Lone wolf and all that jazz who can not truly connect to someone unless they are a Time Lord like her. And considering the only one out there is a madman, I’ll be a bit wary as well of company.
But here’s the thing, the undeniable truth that has followed the Doctor since day one: she/he is not alone. She has companions who have turned into friends, family, and lovers. (Counting Rose Tyler and the Metacrisis Doctor because that is an epic ship.) She has never truly been alone and I’m kind of sick and tired of this narrative where she continues acting like she’s alone.
Yes, the show is about the Doctor and yes, the show is named Doctor Who. But that doesn’t mean that this isn’t a democracy and that she gets to make all the decisions for everybody. She has family and it’s not true that she’s out here on her own fixing things. The Doctor is with family and she needs to stop treating them as lower than her because they’re not.
Maybe I’m reading too much into or maybe my eyes have been opened for the first time in my viewing life, but I didn’t like/love the Doctor in “The Haunting of Villa Diodati” or anytime she acts like this in general aka acting like a self sacrificing hero that thinks they can do it all alone because smarts and stuff.
Well, guess what? Yas, Ryan, and Graham have those smarts too. They might be a little different in comparison to a Time Lord brain but they aren’t a useless lot just sitting back and watching the world turn around them. They are helpers, problem solvers, and the badasses of Doctor Who. And they deserve some respect even if the Doctor has lost those she cared for because of the Cybermen.
No, you aren’t on the top of this whole shebang. It’s not a triangle and you’re the one at the top all alone because no one else can even fathom the things you go through. And how dare you talk to your crew like that in the first place. The disrespect was real in “The Haunting of Villa Diodati” and I’m not here for it.
On a side note, if it comes down to it, if I know that killing one person will save millions…I’d kill that one person. Harsh? Yes. Realistic? Absolutely. It’s one person against millions. Come on. And in a way, the Doctor killed him anyway by showing the dude his death, so congrats on the small loophole you managed to find at the last second.
Now we have a Doctor who knows that millions of lives are at stake or have died because of the Cyberman. And she’ll fix it, we know she will because she’s the Doctor. But it won’t happen until countless lives are destroyed and the almost deaths of her companions because that’s how the cookie crumbles EVERY. DAMN. TIME.
Bitter, disapointed, and still waiting anxiously for the next episode of Doctor Who, table for one.
Doctor Who airs Sundays at 8/7c on BBC America.
