Doctor Who Face Swap: The Thing that Should Not Be

By this point, we have all seen those pictures where people swap faces. Naturally, this idea has come to Doctor Who with the expectedly strange results.

Oh, the face swap. A concept that may trace its roots back to the Nic Cage and John Travola film from 1997, this idea has been rather pervasive over the past few months. It is seemingly impossible to go to any social media without seeing some infant’s face photoshopped onto the body of the father and vice versa. These face swaps can lead to quite a few disturbing images.

Naturally, it was a matter of time until this concept was brought to Doctor Who with the same predictably creepy results. We can now, with a few clicks of the mouse, get to see what Rory’s face would look like on Amy’s body, or if we were to swap the faces of the Doctor and his companions. Because who wouldn’t want to imagine such things?

That is not to say that some of these ideas would not be amusing. For instance, the image where Winston Churchill’s face was swapped with Amy, is quite entertaining in some disturbing way. But the humor of these images has gone past its expiration date.

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Perhaps the oversaturation of such images from people in their day to day has ruined this concept. Or, perhaps it is just that the images are somewhat disturbing and unsettling in various ways. Is there the potential for entertainment value? Yes, but one still has to wonder why someone would want to picture things like Christopher Eccleston’s face on Billie Piper. It’s enough to cause nightmares.

Maybe this fad is just one of the plethora of things that I do not understand. After all, there are quite a few of those, and the vast majority of them seem to involve things that other people find entertaining. However, on this, I’m pretty sure that, in the vast majority of the time, these face swaps are just creepy and can go away.

Next: Actors who should not play the Doctor

Hopefully, the face swap trend will end soon. And maybe, just maybe, we will not need to see the horrors of John Hurt’s face on Billie Piper’s body.