And how! The Ninth Doctor didn’t burn long, but he burned bright, and in the early, shakier episodes of the rebooted series, when I might have said, “You know, I’m not so sure about this Doctor Who thing,” he was the reason I stayed long enough to fall head-over-heels for the amazing show. Nearly an entire wall of my bedroom is devoted to bookcases filled with classic and new Who DVDs, audiobooks, novels, comic books, and annuals, and it all began, for me, with the Ninth Doctor (a few spoilers.)
What to say about Nine? The trauma, grief, and guilt of the Time War is probably what first comes to mind. The Doctor we meet in series 1 has both Seen Things and Done Things, and he feels the stains of that war on his lovely spirit. He’s still raw from the war’s end and his part in that (be quiet, “The Day of the Doctor,”) as well as acutely aware that he is now the last of his species, that his home and people, imperfect as they were, are gone.
He doesn’t like to go to dark places, but he’s been there before and he’ll go there again if that’s what’s required; when he tells you that the Daleks call him the Oncoming Storm, you believe it, and you recognize the exact look in his eyes that made them give him that name. He knows how to deliver a threat, his alienness can occasionally make him feel remote (like with his dismissal of Mickey in “Rose,”) and he can identify so deceptively closely to the villains he fights that it unsettles him (not that the Doctor hurts others for selfish reasons – oh so far from it – but the things he’s had to do make him feel like he’s fallen closer to their side than the one he wants to be on.)
All that is what’s going on for Nine when he meets Rose. It’s not good for a Time Lord to be alone, and that’s rarely been truer than with Nine, which is probably part of the reason they get so deeply entwined so quickly. He’s a raw nerve running to distract himself from his suffering; he feels that Time War has made him darker, harder, and he looks at Rose and sees lightness. Theirs is an intense soul connection, and while I love Rose with Ten, she and Nine are simply wondrous.
So yes – there’s a lot of darkness here, and sadness, both of which are hugely important to Nine’s character, but it’s not all there is. I love that he is also so much about joy. Sometimes he uses it, that mad grin and the chipper demeanor, to mask the hurt he feels. But often – maybe even surprisingly often, given all he’s been through – he genuinely gives himself over to delight and relish. The Doctor has been having a 2,000+-year love affair with the Universe, and during his time as Nine, he’s certainly a devoted partner. Whether he’s going all fanboy over Charles Dickens, regaling Rose with his descriptions of the beauty of a celestial phenomenon, or just reveling in the everyday ecstasy of a young couple in love, he takes so much delight in all the Universe has to offer, and sharing that with Rose is one of the sincerest pleasures of his life.
In some ways, he’s able to find such joy in things, both large and small, because he’s experienced so much pain. He’s seen firsthand how much everything can go wrong, and so he appreciates beauty, adventure, and connection wherever he finds it. Forged in fire, but still able to see the wonder in things. And that’s – all together now – fantastic.
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