Posted in: BBC, Disney+, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, disney, doctor who, Milie Gibson, Ncuti Gatwa, russell t davies, steven moffat

Doctor Who: "Doctor-Lite" Episodes Are Important, Need to Feel Special

"Doctor-Lite" Doctor Who episodes have become a staple of the series and "sandboxes" for some truly creative and experimental storytelling.

We've just had two "Doctor-Lite" episodes of Doctor Who this season, and that's a lot for a season in the streaming-era format. With only eight episodes, that's a whole 25% of the season where the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) hardly appeared in the story. The BBC has certainly noticed since they released a compilation video of "Doctor-Lite" episodes on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel.

They don't make "Doctor-Lite" episodes to torture you and deny you the show's headline star. There's always a practical reason, usually due to scheduling. The first "Doctor-Lite" episode was actually a Doctor-less episode in 1965 called "Mission to the Unknown". It was the only episode where neither the Doctor nor the companions showed up as it followed a group of stranded space rangers who discover the Daleks' master plan to invade Earth. The Daleks end up killing all of them, and the episode is a prelude to the 12-part serial "The Daleks Master Plan." It was shot in three days to fill a schedule.

In the revived series, "Doctor-Lite" episodes were due to the long seasons and complex production blocks, so they were written to give the actors playing the Doctor a break or they're filming another episode with another unit. However, Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat wrote some of the most experimental episodes and even gave us some classic episodes like "Blink." "Doctor-Lite" episodes were characters either of the companion or a guest character, and a way to tell a story with a different theme.

With this new season one, Ncuti Gatwa wasn't available because he was contractually obligated to film his seasons for the final season of Sex Education for Netflix. "73 Yards" was the first episode shot ,with only Millie Gibson carrying it before Gatwa shot his framing scenes in one day, months later. Gatwa and Gibson shot their zoom-style scenes in "Dot and Bubble" also months after it the rest of the story was filmed. This is the episode that delivers something truly subversive and unexpected in Doctor Who just when you think there are no more surprises to be had in sixty-one years of Doctor Who – the guest character we follow does not have a redemption arc when we've been led to expect one after decades of those stories. Lindy (Callie Cooke) is a selfish, unlikable, irredeemable, racist rich girl and the real monster of the story all along. She and her friends all head off to their deaths because of their racism, which leads to the extinction of their people. It is the darkest and most pessimistic ending of a Doctor Who story ever. But if you hate racists, you might not feel it's a great loss. The Doctor's anguished reaction at the end of the episode was the first scene Gatwa shot for this season since he was cast after completing his work on Sex Education. 

Russell T. Davies has stepped up the game with two "Doctor-Lite" episodes this season and made them even more experimental than ever. And more memorable.

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