So, the Ninth Doctor was a very short era on TV with a single season. Granted, it was a very good season, but it was a single season. At the time, the Ninth Doctor got six novels (in two batches of three) and a short DWM comic run. Since then, we’ve gotten a short Titan Comics series and finishing up this month a 36-story run of Big Finish audios starring Eccleston, plus a scattering of other Big Finish Ninth Doctor stories.
What are your thoughts on the Ninth Doctor? What are your favorite stories? What don’t you like about this era? We’re also currently discussing the Ninth Doctor novels in the Book Club with the last one dropping in July. So, feel free to sumbit your thoughts for the individual novels there. This is for the era as a whole and for discussing the novels, comics, audios as they pertain to the bigger arc/era of the Ninth Doctor.
I was just thinking of making a thread like this! Just started on The Deviant Strain and am enjoying the novels, even if they are mich lighter and less interesting than the wilderness novels. Heard the first two series of Ninth Doctor Adventures and just bought the third, mainly for the Benny story and the upcoming River box set. Honestly most of them have been a bit forgettable but I very much enjoy Eccleston as the Doctor, I have a lot of nostalgia for him and he is such a unique incarnation. The short DWM run was good and the Titan comics were okay.
Honestly I’m hoping that sometime soon Big Finish could make some adventures of him and Rose, definitely one of the things I want to hear most.
I like the TV season, even if it’s a little dated now, and I’ve enjoyed the BF releases I’ve heard. While not groundbreaking, it is fun to hear more Eccleston as The Doctor, when it looked like those bridges were burned.
They have both stated that the money would have to be good for them to be featured together. I don’t blame them, but sometimes it rubs me wrong when they say the quiet bit out loud. Strikes me as money grabbing.
Even with just the one season, 9 is strongly an A-tier Doctor for me, and will always hold a special place as my first Doctor. My bestie started watching recently and she’s in the middle of 10’s era and really loves 10 but still really misses 9, and she’s actually inspired me to finally start listening to 9DA and I’m enjoying them so far.
I mean, it very literally is a job for them–they get to decide what their prices are.
I’ve read a couple nine novels. I did like them, although I felt that the horror of what happens to Rose in Winner Takes All could’ve used more narrative weight.
The Ninth Doctor was my first Doctor, I was so young I don’t really remember watching the episodes as they first aired, but I have some very strong memories of relating series 2 and onwards episodes back to series 1 and the Ninth Doctor. One of my earliest clear memories was waiting for Doomsday to air and arguing with my parents that the Daleks can fly, because I saw one fly up the stairs in that other episode!
So even without remembering the experience I still feel he was my Doctor, when I finally got to revisit series 1 properly that was reasserted. It’s such a good run of episodes and I really don’t think Russell ever wrote a finale as strong as Parting of the Ways again, I wonder if he can finally outdo himself in the new era. I kinda wish he hadn’t come back to the show, because then we could get a target novelisation of that story, and it’d be just about the best thing ever. Hopefully when he’s gone again he’s up for it and not too busy for it.
Personally, I’ve always found it refreshing how Eccleston in particularly is open about how this is a job to him. It’s such a down to earth thing, and I take his word for it a bit more when he does say that loving the character is still a part of it.
I remember my excitement when it was announced he’d be doing Big Finish like it was yesterday, it was the first time I had actually bitten on the physical releases and I’ve kept up with all of the Ninth Doctor Adventures because it’s my Doctor and he’s back! Only recently has the novelty of that started to feel real, and while I’m still a defender of the range I am disappointed in how often middling it is.
A lot of people have said they think it’d be better if they introduced Rose and I’d doubtlessly enjoy it too but I’m really liking the Ninth Doctor going solo, I think what the range really needs is some kind of story arc, or something more serialised. It’d be a fun experiment and maybe it’d get new things out of that Doctor. I think I’d definitely bite if they announced more of the same, but for the first time I think I’d hesitate. It’s a bit expensive to be so middling.
Honestly, when I hear “the money would have to be good for them to be featured together”, it doesn’t strike me so much as money grubbing as maybe they don’t want to work together?
I think from the convention footage I have seen they very much enjoyed working together. Christopher is particularly positive in his reflections on their time together & how good Billie was in the role.
I can’t find the quote now but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him say something about not wanting to do one with her because of him feeling like nine’s and Rose’s story is complete on TV or something like that? But take that with a grain of salt, I can’t source it.
Yeah, I’ve heard that (probably secondhand) too. Something about not wanting to take away from that arc. In my opinion, adding too many stories before Rose can also take away from that arc.
yeah, i agree with you. although i think EU stuff runs a pretty high risk of ruining an arc regardless, just because they tend to be trying to squeeze in a story wherever they can–i don’t say this as a criticism, i really enjoy it sometimes, but other times it’s more of a miss. (i also don’t think it matters that much because people who don’t like it will happily ignore it.)
Yup. Personally, I think more Doctor and Rose (and Jack) would work better than tons of stories before Rose. The reason being that the Ninth Doctor is protrayed in Rose especially as seemingly fresh off the Time War and it’s Rose who helps him heal from the trauma. Having more and more stories before Rose, especially where that spikiness seems to be softened and the Doctor seems to be having almost too much fun, I think that cheapens the arc more than having more adventures with Rose does. Especially because the Modern Series feels like it has more gaps in it than the Classic Series did. Even within the episodes, other non-televised adventures and travels are referenced. So I feel that adding Rose to future audio sets would be preferrable. I’d love to have Jack too, but that’ll never happen. But new Rose and Jackie adventures would be great. It would be weird not having Mickey too, but like Jack, that’ll never happen.
I think that problem could be solved if they did a story where something else causes the spikier behavior in series 1. Maybe he gets a companion who does the opposite of Rose, and they just make him worse and exacerbate his issues rather than help him heal. His line about having “picked another stupid ape” in Father’s Day could even be turned into a reference to that. Kinda like how the Evelyn Smythe stories bridged the gap between the 6th Doctor’s TV and audio characterisations.
I do feel like this far in, we aren’t seeing enough of the way the Time War affected him and while I don’t mind his rougher edges being sanded down a bit, it’s a bit like the Sixth Doctor where he can feel a little too “cuddly”.
Though I would also contest the idea that he’s having “too much fun” and that it’s ruining the arc. A lot of fans boil the Ninth Doctor down to the scenes where he’s angry, or talking about being the last survivor of the Time War, but I feel like that’s missing a whole other half to him, the joy. As much as he can use it as a mask for the hurt underneath, he can be a very joyous incarnation of the Doctor and it can be absolutely infectious.
My favourite example of this is the end of The Doctor Dances, watching the nanogenes working it out and proudly yelling “Everybody lives”, he’s a Doctor I feel is defined by the fact he’s healing, moreso than the fact he was hurt. I think Rose’s role in that is being the person he can finally open up to, rather than the one guiding the entire process.
Would still love any future sets after Star-Crossed to put the Doctor more through his paces.
i still think this would soften the time war trauma, though, which is what (i feel) makes his character spiky. the time war trauma is part of what i find compelling.
True. Maybe it could tie in better if the events specifically confronted 9’s forced smile and attempts to run away from his guilt and trauma. Like, he ends up being forced to consider the possibility that the pain that he’s trying to avoid is just going to stick to him like glue, and he might never actually be free of it. And from that point on he’s struggling to do the performative happiness because he’s no longer able to fool himself.
This was the biggest issue with the new Benny and Nine story imo - I enjoyed it enough and I like the NDA range, but it’s beginning to feel like they’ve backed themselves into a corner. By not allowing him a companion or any kind of growth, it’s all becoming a bit samey, a bit ‘everyone lives!! there’s always hope!!’, which is nice, but, after what, eight (?) boxsets, it’s getting a little stale.
Hopefully having River across the three stories in the next one will help that, and perhaps they’ll give him some more less temporary travelling partners after.
The Ninth Doctor era on TV is a single season, but it doesn’t feel like it needs more than one season. And even the amount of expanded media featuring the Ninth Doctor seems minimal.
There’s six novels released at the time and the DWM run at the time. There’s a four volume Titan run, the 12 Big Finish boxsets, and then a scattering of other stuff from around the Whoniverse. Does anyone have a favorite corner of the Ninth Doctor era?
