Doctor Who: Why the Eleven needs to be brought to television
By James Aggas
The Eleven is one of the greatest Doctor Who villains ever, but they’ve also been exclusive to audio so far. Is it time that the character was brought on-screen?
I’ve written before about just how brilliant the Eleven is as a villain. He’s just one of the most original ideas we’ve had for a Time Lord enemy in Doctor Who. To summarize: the Eleven is a psychopathic Time Lord in his eleventh body, who retains the minds and personalities of all his previous incarnations.
It’s such a fantastic idea, particularly in just how simple it is. But shockingly, we’ve only seen it used in the audios. And even then, the Eleven has only been around for the past few years. So why hasn’t a character like this appeared on television?
If there’s one completely original character that could not only make the transition from audio to television very easily, but also should make the transition, it’s got to be the Eleven. Or, at least, one of the character’s many incarnations.
Because when I say “the Eleven”, I’m mainly using that name because that was the first incarnation that the audience was introduced to. We’ve encountered other incarnations, such as the Nine or the Twelve. (And for some reason, we haven’t been given a name that can be used to describe the character across all their incarnations. What would be a good name? The Many? The Divided? This is going to start a whole new debate!)
But this is the wonderful thing about the character: like the Doctor and the Master, you can allow for more interpretations to be introduced. Of course, with every subsequent incarnation, that only means more personalities for the actor in the role to portray. Still, it would be an interesting challenge for anyone playing the Thirteen, which is most likely the only incarnation that we could explore on television.
Mark Bonnar
Having said that, I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch for Mark Bonnar to appear in the TV series as the Eleven himself. He has admittedly already appeared on television before in a different role – specifically, as Jimmy in the episodes The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People.
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But then again, this wouldn’t be the first time that an actor had been recast in an on-screen role. (Not only was this common in the Classic Series, but even in the New Series, we’ve had Joseph Long play both Rocco in Turn Left and the Pope in Extremis.)
More than that however is the fact that the Eleven is so completely different to Jimmy. Unsurprising, considering the nature of both characters, but I suspect that if Mark Bonnar is as amazing visually as he is on audio as the Eleven, then everyone would forget he had been in the series before, even if they had just watched his Series Six episodes.
On top of that, the Eleven is just such a cool idea, and we need to see something like that realized on screen. So whether it’s with the Eleven, the Twelve or a brand new incarnation altogether, it would be fantastic for a large part of the audience to be introduced to one of the greatest Doctor Who villains ever.
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What do you think? If you’ve unfamiliar with the Eleven, would you like to see a version of the character on-screen? If you’re a fan of the character, do you think that they could translate well away from the audio medium? Let us know in the comments below.