Will we see this dark side of the doctor return? Will the Valeyard come back to Doctor Who soon? I think we can say that no, we probably won’t and here are the reasons…
The Valeyard
Michael Jayston as the Valeyad
I remember when Peter Capaldi was first announced. Back before we knew that Matt Smith’s Doctor was technically the 13th Doctor and the last of his regeneration cycle. Back when we thought Capaldi would be the final Doctor, a desperate, dying Doctor searching for a way to keep on living. Going to any lengths, perhaps even to the lengths of creating a dark Doctor.
Of course, that never happened.
The Valeyard was, according to the Master, “an amalgamation of the darker side of the Doctor’s nature”, formed somewhere between his “twelfth and final incarnations”. He stood as the prosecutor when the Doctor was put on trial by the Time Lords and plotted to manipulate Gallifrey’s Matrix so as to produce false evidence that would convict the Doctor. The Valeyard hoped to gain the Doctor’s then seven remaining regeneration as reward for aiding the Time Lords in their coverup operation.
Once the Valeyard’s plans were revealed and he was defeated by the Doctor, he seemed to vanish, only to reappear somehow in the guise of the Keeper of the Matrix. This was never expanded on and the ultimate fate of the Valeyard never revealed.
Doesn’t this sound like an interesting concept to explore? The darker corners of the Doctor’s nature, the less moral, the less fun-loving side of him forged into a single entity. What would it be like to meet such a person and how would the new series deal with it?
Therein lies the problem – it already has. In Amy’s Choice we see the Dream Lord, a manifestation of the darker parts of the Doctor’s character, given life by psychic pollen. He created illusionary worlds for the Doctor, Amy and Rory and manipulated them into their own deaths.
Along with that, we have the fact that the Twelfth Doctor himself is a much darker Doctor. We are currently exploring those dark sides to his character without having to split them into a separate entity. So, unless the Twelfth Doctor decides that the only way he can escape his darker nature is to create the Valeyard himself, I don’t see him making a return any time soon.
Perhaps I am wrong.
You can see our other articles in this series below;
Romana (coming soon)
