I’ll say
this for Six: he improves over time, and
he’s more palatable on rewatch. Still,
not exactly high praise for an incarnation of a character who’s otherwise been
nearly a dozen of my favorite TV characters.
How do you solve a problem like Six?
(Spoilers for “The Twin Dilemma.”)
Right
from the start, this incarnation of the Doctor feels designed to turn people
off. He’s dismissive of and insulting
toward his companion (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – poor Peri,)
his self-assurance comes off way more smug than confident, he gets accusatory
and high-handed at the drop of a hat, and he has a habit pretending none of his
mistakes actually happen and/or fobbing them off on Peri instead. Even his outfit; while plenty of other
Doctors have carried off odd looks with eccentric charm, Six’s Technicolor
dreamcoat and cat broach feels intentionally garish. And of course, the major blow comes when, in
the midst of a regeneration-crisis psychotic break, he tries to choke Peri to
death in “The Twin Dilemma.” I get that
he’s not in full command of his faculties at the time, but that is not the kind of first impression you
generally want your Doctor to make with the audience, and it’s a very hard
image to shake. (Note: during rewatch, if I watch series 23-24 and then circle back to “The Twin Dilemma,” he
feels better in 23 and 24.)
As I
said, it’s not all bad. He grows less
harsh with Peri as time goes by, and by the time Mel comes along, he’s almost
civil. I like his enthusiasm for
machines, a la his excitement about meeting George Stephenson in “The Mark of
the Rani” and the time ruse device he makes in “Timelash.” Over time, he’s ever so slightly less full of
himself and eventually is able to take the occasional joke.
But
overall, Six is still a miss of a Doctor for me, and that makes me sad. As I said repeatedly during some of the
unpleasantness of new Who’s eighth
season, all I really want to do is love Who
to pieces, and I hate it when the show gives me something that resists my very
eage desire to love it. “It’s not all
bad” should never be the best thing I have to say about a Doctor.
No comments:
Post a Comment