With Doctor Who in a holding pattern in the wake of the show's divisive Disney era, I'm left wondering what the best way forward would be for the inevitable comeback. I've read a lot about people demanding a hard reboot, dispensing with six decades of canon and starting from scratch. I must say, I despise that idea. One of Doctor Who's biggest strengths is its immense amount of lore, and that it can always bounce back from even the most lackluster of periods. It's time for the show to do exactly that.
The tricky part is deciding exactly how heavily to lean on existing Doctor Who characters, settings, and villains. Including the Doctor and his TARDIS is, of course, a given. After that, it becomes a matter of carefully cherry-picking what would translate well to the small screen in the 2020s. Some returning storylines in recent years have worked well, but others have felt a little forced. However, there is still one twist from Colin Baker's time as the Sixth Doctor that was so compelling, I'm wondering why it's never been returned to. Now might be the perfect time to do so.
Doctor Who's return should be built around the Valeyard
The Valeyard is a mysterious Time Lord who made his debut in late 1986. Played by Michael Jayston, the Valeyard was introduced as part of the "Trial of a Time Lord" serial. He was revealed as a villainous regeneration of the Doctor from somewhere beyond his twelfth regeneration. Accounting for the War Doctor (John Hurt), who disrupts the numbering sequence, anyone after Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor could have become the Valeyard. The writers haven't dared make this happen yet, though.
The Chris Chibnall era massively expanded the Doctor's timeline with the Timeless Child twist, but in the other direction. This created many plot holes. What Doctor Who has never done in any kind of substantial way is give the Doctor or the audience a look at what's to come for the franchise's main character. The Valeyard is one of the biggest examples of this happening.
With the Doctor already questioning who he is in recent years, after discovering he comes from another dimension entirely, now would be a great time to double down on his identity crisis. Having the Doctor cross paths with the Valeyard, and see what kind of person he's going to become, would add a brilliant layer of darkness to proceedings. After the Disney era, I think that's the kind of thing we need.
Bringing back the Valeyard provides Doctor Who with a potential exit strategy
Doctor Who's very premise means it could technically run forever. That's both a huge strength and a very notable weakness. Everything must come to an end eventually, or it loses its value. But is the Doctor's death the way to pull that off? Potentially, yeah. Let's say the Valeyard is canonically a future Doctor (some theories argue against it), then what if we take things one step further and assume the Valeyard is the FINAL regeneration of the Doctor?
The very nature of how multi-Doctor stories work, especially in the modern era, is that the past Doctors never remember their future selves after their collaboration ends. The opposite is not true. So, if the Doctor meets the Valeyard, and it's discovered that the Valeyard would be the Doctor's final form, that wouldn't be something the Doctor would know once the adventure ended. The audience would have more information about the Doctor's future than the Doctor himself. I love the thought of that.
Plus, every following regeneration would have the same lingering question: Will it be the Valeyard this time? When it is, we know we're entering the endgame, and Doctor Who is drawing to a close after a historic run. The Valeyard, with all those memories of being a hero, could spend the end of his life as the villain we first met in 1986, but undertakes one final act of redemption to once more die the good guy. The Valeyard, after all, seems very concerned with being "contaminated" by the Doctor's morality.
It would be ambitious and very difficult to write convincingly, but I think it could be done. It's one of the only ways Doctor Who could realistically end.
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