We’ve seen the Fifteenth Doctor get emotional. Big, huge swaths of booming joy, wonder, and laughter. Hugs, hugs, and more hugs, babes. Almost every week, he’s devastated to tears. Lots of tears. He does not hold back. But we’ve never seen the other end of the spectrum — pure, out of control rage… until The Interstellar Song Contest!

An episode enjoyed by most; violently despised by some. Best ratings of the season (extenuating circumstances). But… the zapping scene seems to have triggered a bunch of folks. 

A Hellion named Kid saw his world destroyed by a corporation, all because of a product unique to his world. So Kid decides to use a TV show being filmed on a space station, sponsored by said corporation, to kill three trillion people who are watching said TV show, via a deadly Delta Wave signal beamed out to their homes. 

Baaad luck for Kid, though, because in advance of killing the three trillion viewers, he blows the protective dome on the space station, expelling about a thousand people from the audience into space, effectively killing them. They’re not dead yet, but frozen in a gravity bubble. 

The Doctor happened to be there, also getting thrown into space, but manages to survive. But he fears the crowd, he thinks including Belinda Chandra, are all dead. Worse, he meets Kidd, who sneers as he outlines his plan for revenge, giving the Doctor little time to save three trillion people. Of course he does, just in the nick of time, but uh oh, Kid doesn’t exactly know who he’s dealing with.

Turns out, this Doctor fella is an emotional sort, who’s thousands of years old. His home world has been destroyed at least twice (once by him, ahem). He’s also committed genocide. He’s got rage issues, PTSD, may be impossible to kill, and he’s an orphan who’s very likely been medically experimented on as a youth. He’s done more, seen more, and — sorry, Kid — destroyed more than you could imagine.

This is who he is.

And now you come along, threatening to kill trillions across the galaxy. You tried to kill him, and it appears you’ve killed his friend, Kid — you’ve killed his Emotional Support Human. 

And you sneered and boasted about it.

And now, he’s going to zap you several times just to make you suffer. The fans call out that that’s not right. Well, no, of course it’s not. It made you uncomfortable!

When the Doctor took out his anger on Kid, yes, it made you, the viewer, uncomfortable. The Doctor Who viewer might not like to be uncomfortable. No, when the Oncoming Storm does something you don’t like, makes you uncomfortable, we say “That is not the Doctor! That is not my Doctor.”

We like our Doctor to be silly, and funny and heroic, and most importantly, we like to ignore who and what the Doctor really is, even though the last 20 years of Nu-Who has shown us time and again exactly what he is. The Eleventh Doctor was lovable, until you try to hurt him through those he loves. We tended to forgive him when he lost control, because he didn’t really make us uncomfortable. Then in came the Twelfth Doctor, and he was blunt, and honest, and even that made some fans uncomfortable. 

Oh, in the end, he is a force for good, and he does desperately want to be a good man. He puts on a happy face, and he tries to do his best, tries to be good. Most of the time, he gets it right, but he’s certainly far from perfect, even if we want him to be. Need him to be. Insist he be.

He’s been around too long, seen too much. It’s a mistake to provoke this man, and if he thinks you’ve killed a friend of his… hoo boy.

All those things the Doctor’s done in the past, the present and the future, when he’s “gone too far”? Make no mistake, that is the Doctor — just not one we’re comfortable with. As we’ve seen over and over and over again, this is what happens when the Doctor has no companion, especially when he thinks they’re dead. I also think it’s important to note that Kid survived, seemingly unscathed. In fact, compared to many, he got off easy. But if Belinda didn’t show herself… Well, we’ll never know now. 

I think a big part of this is recognising who the Doctor is. Who he was before the Time War, as well as after. You can change the body as many times as you want, or split him in two, but he’s still the Doctor, for good or ill. All of his experiences and memories of the Time War are still there. 

The Doctor is wonderful. And the Doctor is terrible. And he’s especially terrible when he doesn’t have his Emotional Support Human with him for his mental health. 

So I personally find it difficult to make Kid’s punishment the point where I suddenly draw the line on what’s “acceptable” when the Doctor “goes too far”, or begin to judge him for his actions. Your personal head canon may vary.