Leslie McMurtry edits The Terrible Zodin, a Doctor Who fanzine, and works for the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine at King’s College London. She’s written us an account of mouths and monsters in Dr Who.

Daleks do not have mouths. Composed of two parts: a Mark III traveling machine outer shell, and a mutant inside, they inherit the imperious tone and vocabulary of their mad scientist creator, the disfigured Davros —“Exterminate! Seek! Annihilate! Destroy!”— but apparently do not need physical mouths to help them conquer the universe. Cybermen are another story. The voices of the Cybermen have changed greatly over the years, as has their outer design. What hasn’t changed is the shape of their mouths, a blank cut-out slit.

Generally in Doctor Who, the sound of the voice has always been occasioned more emphasis, particularly where evil characters or monsters are concerned, than the movements of the characters’ mouths (for example, the Master, the Black Guardian, Scaroth of the Jagaroth). The lack of emphasis on character’s mouths has generally been for practical reasons in terms of design and costume. The mobility of mouths is something that has definitely challenged Doctor Who designers, and perhaps that is one reason for the proliferation of android and robot characters who, like the Cybermen, have unmoving holes or slits for mouths.

The most prominent mouth in Doctor Who is probably that of Sil, the character played by Nabil Shaban in “Vengeance on Varos” (1985) and Trial of a Time Lord (1986). Sil is greedy, violent, and vain, his inner vices reflected in his obscenely wriggling, undulating tail and tongue; his lewd mouth serves to underline his repulsive self-obsession.

Immoveable but prominent mouths are often depicted in the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, first with his Weeping Angels, featured in “Blink” (2007), “Flesh and Stone/Time of the Angels” (2010), and “The Angels Take Manhattan,” (2012) among others. The Angels—quantum-locked and able to send people back in time while gobbling up their life-energy— appear as benign, androgynous stone statues. As they encircle their prey, their frozen poses become more menacing, their mouths open in excruciating, toothsome snarls. They never speak. Conversely, Moffat’s Silence creatures—Edvard Munch-esque heads stuffed into 7 foot-tall black-suited bodies—are not, in fact, silent. In a nod to the Ice Warriors, the Silence issue their taunts in flickering, death-rattle voices. However, their mouths are tiny black holes—a manifestation of the unnatural and horrible unknown.

The Doctor himself never used his mouth for much other than expressing his gift of the gab until Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor, kissed companion Dr Grace Holloway in the 1996 TV Movie. Many fans of the time hooted with derision; the Doctor didn’t do sex. But feelings changed by the time of the 2005 revival, which saw Christopher Eccleston, the Ninth Doctor, kissing companions Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness. By the time of the 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor,” the Doctor snogging companions (and indeed, most anyone) had become commonplace enough to deserve a metafictional in-joke. While watching their counterpart the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) kiss Queen Elizabeth I, the War Doctor (John Hurt) asks the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), “Is there a lot of this in the future?”

Illustrations by Leslie McMurtry

August 10, 2016

Mouths of Doctor Who