With Jodie Whittaker’s time as the Doctor drawing to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on her tenure, and Ben Bailey Smith, who starred in the Series 11 episode, The Tsuranga Conundrum, has called Whittaker “the perfect Doctor.”

He explained:

“[T]he way I see that character is it’s someone who’s this really interesting, 50/50 of really cool and really not cool, you know what I mean? Like, [the Doctor is] really able, an alpha kind of hero, and like really geeky… I’ll tell you what, Jodie absolutely smashed it but when you look at the Doctors, they’ve all got a bit of that. You know, David Tennant, there’s something really cool about him and there’s something really geeky about him; Jodie’s the same. You can trace the Doctors back – apart from [Ninth Doctor, Christopher] Eccleston, I think they all had a bit of that — like he’s just too cool, too brooding. What’s the geeky side of him? He’s like hardcore.”

Smith, who played Durkas Cicero in The Tsuranga Conundrum opposite Whittaker, concluded:

“The thing that I think is important is that they should have that half and half: half kind of cool problem-solver, half weirdo, geek kind of nerdy thing. That, for me, is the Doctor.”

That sounds pretty right to me.

Though The Tsuranga Conundrum isn’t exactly remembered as peak Doctor Who, we’re sure it has its fans (every episode does). It feels odd reflecting on stories from Jodie’s first season, given that her final story is set to ait on Sunday (23rd October 2022).

That final episode, The Power of the Doctor, will be shown on BBC1 and BBC America.