I tend to remember the Seventh Doctor most for his slyness and at-times Machiavellian machinations. I don’t like it when he directs that sort of energy at Ace, but it serves him well when fighting the baddies. Here are my favorite moments of Seven being clever, shrewd, and brave (spoilers.)
Catching the Rani’s Lie (Series 24, Episode 2 – “Time and the Rani: Episode 2”)
Not even post-regeneration amnesia can keep the Doctor down for long! The Rani has taken advantage of his confused state to trick him into doing her bidding, impersonating Mel in the process. However, she makes small mistakes, and as the saying goes, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up: when the Doctor points out her contradictions, she shrugs them off as simple mental blunders, but Mel has total recall and wouldn’t simply forget something. It’s these minor slip-ups that allow him to realize he’s not dealing with the real Mel.
Tricking the Caretakers (Series 24, Episode 6 – “Paradise Towers: Episode 2”)
The Doctor needs several goes to successfully escape the Caretakers who are guarding him. First he tries appealing to their sense of logic, but they’re impervious to it, and his efforts to appeal to their sense of independent thought falls flat when he realizes they don’t have any: they follow the rulebook to the absolute letter and never think for themselves. Naturally, this is his in. Asking to look at the rulebook as a “last request,” he pretends to read aloud from it, inventing an absurd condition by which he can escape. Is it ridiculous? Sure, but it appeals to my enjoyment of trickster Doctors, and I love that he explicitly tells the Caretakers what he’s doing moments before he makes his exit. Toodle-oo!
Booby-Trapping the Hand (Series 25, Episode 4 – “Remembrance of the Daleks: Episode 4”)
This is a gangster move. The Hand of Omega has the ability to draw infinite power from a star, and Davros intends to use it on Skaro’s sun to allow the Daleks to destroy Gallifrey and conquer the universe. Unbeknownst to him, by the time the Daleks acquire the Hand, the Doctor has already booby-trapped it. Instead of turning Skaro’s sun into a power source, the Hand makes the sun go supernova, destroying Skaro in the process. As Davros pleads for the Doctor to have pity on him, the Doctor replies, “I have pity for you.” Ice cold.
Tricking the Kandy Man (Series 25, Episode 6 – “The Happiness Patrol: Episode 2”)
Gotta love a good “turning the tables in captivity” moment. Seven is excellent at discerning what makes people (and candy robots) tick, and when he’s captured and taken to the Kandy Man, he uses that skill on the confectionery menace. First, he gets the Kandy Man to inadvertently reveal how he carries out Helen A.’s executions and whether there’s any way of stopping them. Then, he takes what meager resources he has at his disposal and uses them against his opponent – noticing a bottle of lemonade on the table at the Kandy Man’s elbow, the Doctor fools the Kandy Man into knocking it over, and its candy feet get stuck to the lemonade floor, allowing the Doctor to escape.
Holding Back the Haemovores (Series 26, Episode 10 – “The Curse of Fenric: Episode 3”)
I didn’t recognize the full coolness of this moment at first, but learning an Easter egg about it greatly increased my appreciation for it. As the haemovores descend on the church and try to break in, bringing real zombie-horde energy to the proceedings, the Doctor urges the reverend to help hold them back, encouraging the man to have faith that they can do it. That’s when he realizes that faith acts as a psychic barrier against the haemovores – calmly, he steps forward, deep in concentration as the haemovores bear down on him. The moment builds, and they’re driven back. A neat bit of mind mojo, sure, but what makes this especially great is the fact that, while the Doctor is forcing the haemovores back with his faith, he’s quietly chanting the names of past companions. For literal lifetimes, I think the Doctor has considered their friends to be one of the best parts of them, and it only makes sense that he’d turn to his thoughts of them when he had to dig deep and believe in something.
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