The comical Doctor Who

The Comic Relief spoof, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, presented us with a "ninth" Doctor Who, portrayed by Rowan Atkinson. Or did it? Wasn't it just a parody of the original series? And not even the first time a Doctor Who spoof had been seen on British television. (Although on those previous occasions, the series had still been in production.) Interestingly, the story's promotion in the Radio Times went all-out to paint the adventure as the revival of Doctor Who, and Atkinson as the genuine ninth Doctor. This sent a wave of excitement through fandom unmatched since the Paul McGann movie. It really did seem as if Doctor Who was coming back. Inevitably, the finished product may have come as something as a disappointment.

To my mind, there's no reason why we shouldn't regard ...The Curse of Fatal Death as a proper Doctor Who story - albeit apocryphal. The story's writer, Steven Moffat, had previously penned a seventh Doctor short story, Continuity Errors, which postulated the idea of the Doctor inspiring legends and folk tales wherever he went in the universe. In this context, the existence of the Doctor Who television series becomes part its own fiction - simply the latest expression of the folk legend that has grown up around the Doctor's exploits.

Taking this extremely powerful idea to its logical extreme, we can see Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death as a new re-telling of the Doctor's story, presented in a comedic form. The idea of the Master and the Daleks renouncing evil because of the Doctor's example may seem far fetched, but who's to say that it couldn't happen at some point in the future? A race of people who communicate only by farting isn't so far removed from a race who communicate by waggling their eyebrows. And as for the Doctor regenerating four times in quick succesion, that could just be the storyteller becoming confused about the number and nature of the Doctor's transformations. (It's perhaps significant that one of them resembles the future Doctor seen in Scream of the Shalka.)

So, are we to consider the following actors as genuine incarnations of the Doctor? I don't see why we shouldn't. A more cynical person might point out that with the BBC giving us all thirteen Doctors - the maximum number of bodies a Time Lord can have according to established continuity - they had no need to bother making any more Doctor Who. Well, according to this story, the Doctor has many, many more bodies waiting for him. It even implies that he's too important for the universe ever to allow him to die... (And anyway, with the arrival of the "real" ninth Doctor on our screens in 2005, that argument's now dead in the water...)

Peter Cushing, the cinematic Doctor Who

Apocryphal Adventures

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Doctor Who, the television series

	Rowan Atkinson as the "ninth" Doctor Who		Richard E. Grant as the "tenth" Doctor Who		Jim Broadbent as the "eleventh" Doctor Who

	Hugh Grant as the "twelfth" Doctor Who		Joanna Lumley as the "thirteenth" Doctor Who

		Apocryphal Doctor Who stories Once we take on board the notion of the Doctor Who series actually existing within the Doctor's universe, we can explain away most of its inconsistencies. We're not seeing a documentary following the Doctor about his everyday life, we're seeing a series of subjective interpretations, inspired by things the Doctor has done but not necessarily recounting them accurately. It's not even a new idea. In Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes was aware of the episodes that Watson was publishing in the Strand magazine, and even commented unfavourably on their sensationalist style and exaggerated depiction of his talents! Any inconsistencies in the stories could be put down to Watson misremembering details, or embellishing them for dramatic effect.

Peter Cushing, the cinematic Doctor Who Apocryphal Adventures Return to Doctor Who spin-offs Doctor Who, the television series		It's also not unusual for us to see new versions of old legends - King Arthur and Robin Hood are constantly being re-invented. Do we worry about consistency and continuity there? Of course not. We don't even care when James Bond regenerates into a younger actor. It's just Doctor Who that gets bogged down in obsessive continuity - or more accurately, Doctor Who fans who can't lighten up and stop being so precious about it all. The X Files has played around with its own mythology and audience expectations - they've done subjective and apocryphal stories, which are among the best episodes they've ever produced. Doctor Who fans really do seem stuck in the past sometimes.

		Applying this idea of subjectivity to Doctor Who means we can safely ignore any inconsistencies, continuity errors and radical changes of style. And not just within the TV series. Now, the comic strips, the Annual stories, the Peter Cushing movies, even the Comic Relief spoof represent different re-tellings of the legend of Doctor Who, inspired by the true story. It means that Doctor Who becomes absolutely limitless in its scope. You can do anything because you don't have to worry about adhering to the past. Just tell your own story and damn the consequences.

		So perhaps I'm saying that all Doctor Who stories are apocryphal really. Those outrageous comic strips and surreal Annual stories are just particularly unusual interpretations of the legend. In saying this, it could be that I'm undoing my own work in trying to fit all the Doctor's adventures into a (vaguely) continuous whole. But who said that I had to be self-consistent? If I seem to contradict myself, then you're probably just experiencing an apocryphal representation of Andrew Kearley...

The comical Doctor Who

Apocryphal Doctor Who stories