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From Companion to Doctor

The Laughing Vulcan

The Laughing Vulcan

Admiral
Admiral
So the precedent has been set, apparently, with Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor regenerating into Billie Piper's Doctor.

Billie Piper certainly has the screen credits and presence to carry off the role, so now I wonder what other actors who've been companions in the past could carry off the role of the Doctor.

Personally, I think Caroline John (Liz Shaw) could have made a splendid Doctor with gravitas, while Louise Jameson (Leela) could bring a strength to the role. Alex Kingston (River Song) is pretty much a Doctor surrogate anyway, while Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott) could have made a quirky classic era Doctor.

Thoughts?
 
Aside from the "obvious" (Jenna Coleman), a Doctor with the face of Leela would be fun just because of how diametrically opposed in attitude and behavior she (Leela) and they (The Doctor) were during their time together.

A Doctor who looked like Ace would also be fun for the same reasons.
 
I suppose it's really the better actors you'd consider first.

Jackie Hill, William Russell, Cary John, Louise Jameson would be the most likely from the classic series.

Lalla Ward basically got to play the doctor in some serials when Tom Baker couldn't be bothered.
 
Seriously, if they were going to do a rerun with this regeneration, why not make things right and give it to Paul McGann? THAT would get me to resubscribe to the channel the show is on here, and I would watch the hell out of it.

And don't tell me about the audio adventures. They were never available here, other than a couple I saw in a bookstore once. Since audio books literally put me to sleep, I've never heard them and for me they do not exist (it's not because the story is boring; I fell asleep during an audio version of DS9's Fallen Heroes, which I regard as one of the very best Star Trek: DS9 novels, but because the human voice reading something puts me to sleep).
 
Caroline John died 10 years ago. With Prentis Hancock having recently passed, Spearhead may be the first story with no surviving cast.
 
Timewalker said:
Seriously, if they were going to do a rerun with this regeneration, why not make things right and give it to Paul McGann? THAT would get me to resubscribe to the channel the show is on here, and I would watch the hell out of it.
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I could go for that.

Timewalker said:
And don't tell me about the audio adventures. They were never available here, other than a couple I saw in a bookstore once.
Click to expand...

I don't know if I've ever seen any in a store, but I have a lot of them anyway, thanks to mail order and then download sales.

Timewalker said:
Since audio books literally put me to sleep, I've never heard them and for me they do not exist (it's not because the story is boring; I fell asleep during an audio version of DS9's Fallen Heroes, which I regard as one of the very best Star Trek: DS9 novels, but because the human voice reading something puts me to sleep).
Click to expand...

I drift off during audio books, either into sleep or distraction, but Big Finish audio dramas aren't audio books. They're full cast productions with actors, sound effects, music, and usually no narration, just dialogue. Like old time radio shows. For me, at least, it's a very different experience from having someone read a book to me when I could get through the book more quickly and attentively by reading it myself.
 
I think the 'still cooking' line and a few other points in Who's history allow for the possibility that we may not even get a single Billie episode as the Doctor.

In the 11th Hour he said he was still cooking, and in The Time of the Doctor we get 11 resetting to his young self 'this is just the reset'.

In The Christmas Invasion he loses a hand and regrows it because he's still within the first 15 hours of his regeneration cycle.

Throw in Ten channeling his regeneration energy into his severed arm, River using her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor, River also suggesting she could control her regeneration ("I'm focusing on a dress size" and dialling down her age to freak people out) and of course going all the way back to 1979 we have Romana trying on new bodies like they were outfits* and you can see where this could go.

The Doctor staggers back into the Tardis, she finds a mirror, looks at her reflection, see's it's Rose and goes "No! No, no, no, no...NO!" scrunches her eyes really tight and regenerates again into Dan Stevens or Olivia Colman, or Riz Ahmed.

Might be a bit disappointing so assuming Billie is the Doctor it'd be fun if she got at least one adventure within the first 15 hours before deciding that looking like Rose would just be way too distracting.

*And of course Destiny of the Daleks also establishes a timelord consciously or unconsciously choosing to look like someone they've met before, long before Five or Eleven regenerated into familiar faces.
 
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