A recent BuzzFeed piece penned by Jamie Hooper (Smug Mode), which you can read here, asked the question “What if Doctor Who Was American?” He suggests American replacements for each incarnation of the 900+ year old time lord, some of them fantastic, some of them, well…
We’ll take them one by one starting with Burgess Meredith: 1963 – 1966. He’s known primarily as trainer Mickey Goldmill from the Rocky franchise. Meredith also did several episodes of the classic Batman series as the Penguin, and most importantly in my mind, several episodes of The Twilight Zone, perhaps his most famous episode being “Time Enough at Last” wherein a book lover finally finds himself alone in the world with enough peace and quiet to read as much as he desires, only to quickly break his glasses, presumably spending eternity holding books very close to his face. If only he’d learned braille. Meredith was a talented actor and proved his sci-fi chops. He’d be a good start to this other-world version of the Doctor. He would have been 56 at the time of this role bringing wisdom and experience to the role that would establish the age and wisdom of the character well. Meredith once said “I disappear from the public eye and get rediscovered quite often.” I can think of few statements that better describe The Doctor.
Hooper suggests Dick Van Dyke for the second incarnation: 1966 – 1970. Van Dyke soared into the public eye after a performance in “Bye Bye Birdie” (1963), “Mary Poppins” (1964), and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968). Taking on the role of the doctor would probably have precluded him from taking the last role, which is fine by me, I don’t care for that movie (please leave your hate mail in the comment section below). “The Dick Van Dyke Show” ended in 66, leaving him open to take this role. I personally think he is a little too high profile to have played this character at this time. I’m not a huge fan of this casting but luckily for me it didn’t really happen, so I’m not losing too much sleep. I probably would have fallen away from the show during this time if it had actually happened, and if I had been alive. You better believe I would have been back for Doctor number three…
Vincent Price: 1970 – 1974. I won’t get too long winded on this one so suffice it to say “Hell yes!” I’m already sad this isn’t real. Price can do no wrong, he’s an icon, and energy from the Tardis might explain his ability to create life from robot parts and heart shaped cookies.
Suggested as Doctor number four, Gene Wilder: 1974 – 1981. I can’t stand Gene Wilder. His performance as Willy Wonka put a bad taste in my mouth as a child and a movie about candy just isn’t supposed to do that. I’ve never been able to forgive him. Go ahead and join the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” fans below in electronically lynching me. I find myself hoping Uma Thurman will show up and use the five point palm exploding heart technique… twice!
Doctor number five, Kyle MacLachlan: 1981 – 1984. You’ll know him as Special Agent Dale Cooper from “Twin Peaks” and more recently The Captain on “How I Met Your Mother.” He has the class and charm we’ve come to expect from The Doctor. His ability, so notably illustrated by Jason Segel to hold two emotions in his face at once both happy and violent makes him a good fit for the complex character. My only concern about this choice is that he may not have the quirk needed to give the character the dimension he deserves, though I could be wrong.
Doctor number six is Christopher Walken, 1984 – 1986. I like Christopher Walken just fine, I think he’s a good actor and he can be both brooding and funny which would lend itself well to this role. However, I’m just not digging this. Perhaps it’s the knowledge of who he is thirty years in the future but I worry having him in the role would take me out of the illusion and ruin the experience. It’s not a matter of his ability but rather, one of taste. Though his broken vocal rhythm up against the Daleks Ex-ter-min-ate would make for some hilarious exchanges. Imagine it in your mind, when you stop laughing, move on to…
Number seven, Tony Shalhoub, 1987 – 1989. Shalhoub’s acting career began in 86 meaning he would have been relatively unknown at the time. I personally think this makes him a good choice. In my mind, the doctor should be relatively unknown; it allows the chosen actor to fully become the character. I also think he has the chops and the needed quirk. His performance in “Galaxy Quest” had him presented with absurd situations involving alien life and space travel all taken in stride and with a sense of humor. He would work well here. After his run in the Tardis the show would have been cancelled for some time. At this point the series gets cancelled until 1996 when it returns with…
Doctor number eight, Jeff Goldblum. Sadly, Goldblum would only have the role for the televised “Doctor Who” movie. I absolutely adore Jeff Goldblum, enough so that his notoriety wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest. I know this is in contradiction to things I’ve said before but damn it, it’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Jeff Goldblum rocks, ’nuff said.
The show goes into hibernation at this point until the reboot in 2005. The series comes back shinier and with more force, the author of the BuzzFeed piece suggests it would have been written by Joss Whedon, no complaints there. He’s a great writer and I have no doubts about his ability to take the universe and make it exciting and fresh, though every companion would die horrible and depressing deaths. Whedon would be able to easily balance the fun and sometimes silly antics of The Doctor’s adventures with the emotion that makes the new series so great. But…
Hooper casts Nicolas Cage as Doctor number nine. I’m not a Cage hater, there are some things he’s done that I’ve quite liked but… no, just no. I don’t like thinking of him as The Doctor it makes me angry in an irrational way. Luckily he would only last for one season ending with the famous words “Rose… before I go, I just wanna tell you, you were mediocre. Absolutely mediocre. And do you know what? So was I!” Cage would hand over the keys to the Tardis to…
Sam Rockwell, 2005 – 2010. Again, I’ll break my own rule of The Doctor being unknown. Sam Rockwell is underrated and underused. His performance in Moon (maybe my favorite sci-fi movie of all time) showcases the crushing loneliness and psychological cracking from which The Doctor undoubtedly suffers and god damn it if he’s not just incredible, he’s also shown the ability to be a mad man with a fantastical spaceship as Zaphod Beeblebrox in “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” I’m pretty certain he would have been my favorite incarnation.
Doctor number 11, Donald Glover, 2010 – 2013. I know next to nothing about Glover except clips of Community the internet has shown me, mostly in the form of subtitled images/gifs. This feels like an odd choice to me, but there it is.
Doctor number 12, Bryan Cranston, 2013 – Present. I know everyone is humping Bryan Cranston’s leg right now and deservedly so. “Breaking Bad” had people talking excitedly about television in a way you don’t see very often. The final episode seemed a collective national event, all hail Walter White. The problem is that he’s too big right now. It feels too much like fan boy casting, which is fun to daydream about but perhaps not so good in practice. However, if, in this fictional world, Cranston took this role instead of “Breaking Bad” he might actually be a great choice, I have no doubt he could handle the character and bring some new dimension to it.
There is a bonus casting of Harrison Ford as The War Doctor. Again, this feels like fan boy casting (which is admittedly exactly what it is). I’m sure the internet would have exploded with writhing spasms tuned to the Vwhoosh, Vwhoosh of the Tardis, but it would break the illusion too much for my taste.
Some of these suggestions were fun to think about, but ultimately I’m glad the show played out the way it did. There’s a certain flavor to British story telling that would have been lost, to the detriment of the universe they’ve built. In addition, there is a certain cultural aspect that would be lost, at least for American viewers. For some reason something said in a British accent has a certain flair, a certain class immediately attached to it that the same sentence with an American accent just doesn’t have. It adds a distinction to the characters that is important, at least to me. It’s the reason that, as a recent Jaguar commercial pointed out, we cast many British actors as villains, it gives a spark to what they say and what they do, a bit of cultural bias that may or may not be due, but is nonetheless true. In short, this was a neat mental exercise but I’m happy with the show as it is, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Cover image credit: Lid-the-squid at DeviantART.
Interior images credit: Smug Mode at Tumblr.