Doctor Who: Remembering John Hurt and his brief but brilliant time as the War Doctor
By James Aggas
On what would have been his eightieth birthday, we look back on John Hurt’s time in Doctor Who. Both in the fiftieth anniversary special and beyond…
We all remember that amazing cliffhanger at the end of The Name of the Doctor. Finding out about a previously unknown Doctor was a huge shock, especially when we saw the words Introducing John Hurt as the Doctor pop up. In big letters.
It was a huge piece of casting. John Hurt’s career had been incredibly extensive, to say the least. The Naked Civil Servant; Midnight Express; Alien; I, Claudius – the list goes on. Even in his seventies, he was constantly working as an actor, appearing in films such as Brighton Rock and Snowpiercer in the last decade. The man had long been an acting legend.
So to have him play the Doctor, even briefly, was incredible. It was a bold choice to introduce him during Doctor Who‘s fiftieth anniversary year. Steven Moffat has said that this was mainly done due to the lack of Christopher Eccleston’s involvement, although it could be argued that he could have brought in Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor for the special itself. (He did at least give the latter a long overdue regeneration story in the form of the minisode The Night of the Doctor, which revealed the origins of John Hurt’s “War Doctor”.)
Even with such fantastic casting, revealing a previously unknown incarnation of our favorite Time Lord and have them appear alongside Doctors as established as both David Tennant and Matt Smith was a huge risk. But it was a risk that paid off.
A distinctive performance
Whatever your thoughts are on the idea of the War Doctor, there is no doubt that Hurt was, unsurprisingly, absolutely brilliant in The Day of the Doctor. In just one episode, it was not only easy to believe that he was the Doctor (albeit one that was denying who he was). But it was also easy to believe that he was a Doctor who had lived for a very long time, despite the fact that we were only seeing the end of his story.
What helped was how Steven Moffat chose to write the War Doctor. Moffat decided to make him a little more old-school compared to both Tennant’s and Smith’s Doctors – one who didn’t suffer fools gladly, and in fact hated the idea of his future selves saying things like “timey-wimey”.
Interestingly, while it’s easy to picture Eccleston’s or even McGann’s Doctors’ styles matching those of Tennant’s and Smith’s better, there’s definitely a bigger clash with Hurt’s. As a result, we were given plenty of fantastic banter, which had echoes of the First Doctor looking down on his two “replacements” in The Three Doctors.
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Big Finish and The War Doctor
Of course, we never got to see Hurt play the War Doctor in his own adventures. But we did get to hear them. Thanks to Big Finish Productions, John Hurt was given his own series of full-cast audio stories called Doctor Who: The War Doctor.
Again, this was something that many of us never expected to happen. It was big enough to get John Hurt to play the role for one single episode. But for Big Finish to give him his own series of twelve episodes was amazing.
The War Doctor lasted from December 2015 to February 2017. The series was one of the first deep explorations we had of the Time War by Big Finish, and gave us a fascinating look at a Doctor who tried so hard to deny who he really was. Naturally, John Hurt continued to play the role with as much depth and charm as he had played it on television.
When the final box set Casualties of War came out in Feb 2017, fans had to listen to it with sadness. It came out less than a month after Hurt’s death on Jan 25 2017, and so featured his last performance in the role.
While his time on Doctor Who was brief, John Hurt will always be remembered by fans as a brilliant and unique interpretation of the Doctor. An acting legend that will always be missed by many.
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Were you a fan of John Hurt’s Doctor? Do you think he was a great fit for the fiftieth anniversary special? Outside of Doctor Who, what’s your favorite role of his? Let us know in the comments below.