*Spoilers.*
He might only be in three episodes, but I love the Fourteenth Doctor. And although his short run has a smaller proportion of big flashy moments compared to his predecessors, he shows his Big Damn Heroism in less showy ways that still have an important impact. Maybe more than any other Doctor, Fourteen expresses his heroic nature in an emotional way, and I kind of love that for him.
Stopping the Meep’s Ship (60th Anniversary, Special 1 – “The Star Beast”)
The Meep is about to activate the dagger drive of the Meep’s ship, which will destroy London. The Doctor is bound and determined that he will stop it no matter what, climbing and racing about the control room to sonic every little thing that needs to be reversed. When the Meep deadlocks the controls, taking the sonic off the table, the Doctor resolutely announces, “I can do it by hand!” Even when the Meep lowers a barrier to bisect the control room, he goes into double time, ducking and sliding between the descending barrier to press every button and switch. And when he’s cut off, stuck on one side of the control room, he does the one thing he has left: at Donna’s insistence, he reawakens her metacrisis memories so she can cover the other side, even though they both believe it will be at the cost of her life. This wrecks the Doctor down to his core, but he does it, and then he finishes deactivating his side of the control room, able to stay focused on the task at hand while he fears his best friend on the other side is about to die. Here, we see the Doctor’s brilliance, his determination, and the enormous psychological toll it takes on him to protect humanity.
Holding Back the Not-Things (60th Anniversary, Special 2 – “Wild Blue Yonder”)
As the Not-Things adapt and get better at copying, the Doctor has to be shrewder to stay one step ahead of them. When he’s alone with a Donna, it can be difficult for him to tell if she’s the real one, but when all four of them run into each other, he’s able to contrast the two Donnas and realize a vital clue: the Not-Things think in black and white, while humans like Donna can hold two contradictory thoughts in their head simultaneously. And once he has the real Donna at his side, he tricks the Not-Things by invoking a superstition about not crossing a line of salt. They’re unable to tell if he’s lying, so while the Not-Donna furiously counts the grains, he’s able to probe the Not-Doctor for information. Finds his friend, stalls a threat, and gets the baddies to do a little villainsplaining, all in a single scene? Not too shabby, Doctor!
Trusting the TARDIS (60th Anniversary, Special 2 – “Wild Blue Yonder”)
Maybe a small moment in terms of the Doctor’s own actions, but I still love it. The Not-Doctor is racing to stop the robot from blowing up the ship, giving it a chance to enter the universe and wage destruction. The Doctor is chasing it but can’t catch up. He staggers to a stop in the middle of the corridor, hopeless for a moment. Then inspiration strikes, he says, “But if he runs out of time, the hostile action ends. And a time machine would know!” In the next instant, we hear the TARDIS, previously removed due to the Hostile Action Displacement System, rematerializing behind him. The Doctor turns, grinning with joy and relief as his time machine returns to him.
Confronting the Toymaker (60th Anniversary, Special 3 – “The Giggle”)
When the Toymaker seizes UNIT’s galvanic beam, he’s in control of some serious firepower. The Doctor physically places himself between the humans and the danger. He at first urges them to get inside, away from the threat, but the Toymaker insists on having “an audience.” So instead, the Doctor does everything he can to keep the Toymaker’s focus on him instead of them, even offering himself up as an eternal playmate. When UNIT troops move in to try and shoot the Toymaker, he retaliates, making a game out of terrorizing them with the beam. The Doctor’s voice is so desperate as he again places himself in the way, shouting, “Your fight is with me!” There’s something so beautiful about that—a person with no weapons drawing the attention of a bored god to keep others safe.
Going “Home” (60th Anniversary, Special 3 – “The Giggle”)
After the bigeneration, Fourteen asks his successor, “How’s it going to work?” with two of them in the TARDIS, and when both Fifteen and Donna intimate that he needs to stop and rest, he is not ready to hear it. He argues that he’d go stir-crazy staying in one place and that giving up the TARDIS would physically hurt (fortunately, Fifteen is able to finagle it so he doesn’t have to do that last one.) But softly, his best friend explains, “I’ve worked out what happened. You changed your face, and then you found me. Do you know why? […] To come home.”
This might seem like an odd thing to call out as a Big Damn Hero moment, but it is so brave to change your life, to do something you’ve never done before, to take care of yourself when you need to. It’s written all over Fourteen’s face how difficult this is for him, and while he comes to understand the points that Fifteen and Donna are making, that doesn’t make it easy. But he does. After Fifteen has flown off in his TARDIS, I love that Fourteen is able to get to a place where he can tell Donna, “The funny thing is, I fought all those battles for all those years, and now I know what for: this.” The Doctor is out here being a Big Damn Hero to himself!
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