Thursday 5 December 2013

The (insert word here) Of The Doctor...


Christmas Day sees the third consecutive story to have "Doctor" in its title - specifically Something of the Doctor. (We also had the minisode Night of the Doctor between The Name... and The Day...).
Having "Doctor" in the story title is a relatively new thing - and Steven Moffat uses it most. Back in the earliest days of the classic series, no story featured the Doctor in the title, though a couple of individual Hartnell episodes used it - The Death of Doctor Who (The Chase) and A Holiday for the Doctor (The Gunfighters).
There was a slight aberration early in the Pertwee period, when The Silurians had the full on screen title of Doctor Who And The Silurians. This was a production error and never intended.
From The Three Doctors onwards, all multi-Doctor stories use the same title structure - Three, Five and Two.
During the RTD era, the Doctor gets his first title mention with The Doctor Dances - penned, of course, by Moffat. Not an overall story title, but the new two parters don't have one.
The first time the Doctor features in a full story title of the new series is 2008's The Doctor's Daughter. After that, there is only The Next Doctor.
Once Moffat takes over we get Vincent and the Doctor, The Doctor's Wife and The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe - followed by this current run of stories.
Of course, that run might not end at Christmas. The Doctor might get mentioned in the title of Peter Capaldi's first story ( I have heard that this is going to be a two parter, however) - though I suspect some play on the number twelve is more likely.

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