Doctor Who has been many things through the years: a mystery show, a show about white privilege, a brilliant show of LGBTQ+ inclusion, an educational resource and a franchise-starter to name a few. What it has never been, however, is subtle. Its newest casting choice is just the latest in the trend that keeps the Doctor true to his roots, as Ncuti Gatwa, a Black man, has been cast to go up against two separate kinds of unsubtle Nazi allegories.

The Cybermen and the Daleks are both a consistent presence in Doctor Who, and both of these techno-races are clear allegories for Nazism. As evidenced by previous episodes, the Daleks are representative of "racially pure" nationalistic fervor, where the Cybermen are forced assimilationists taken to a sci-fi extreme. In pitting these malevolent, racially motivated entities against a person of color, Doctor Who promises to be a brilliant, if unsubtle, allegory for racial violence and the triumph of more progressive ideas.

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Ncuti Gatwa Is More Than Just a "Black Man"

Ncuti Gatwa

Before getting into the subtleties of the races of Doctor Who, Gatwa's own history is worth examining for the meta-effect it may have on the show. Gatwa is Scottish by nationality, but was born in Rwanda a few years before his family left the country. Their flight was due to the Rwandan Genocide, a racially motivated horror that took place in Rwanda two years after Gatwa's birth. The Sex Education star endured racism in his family's adopted country, and his most famous role at present is as a gay man.

This is all to say that, when it comes to prejudice and racial "superiority," Gatwa has a unique CV informed by both personal and professional experiences. As such, his playing a character who is intended to destroy allegories for Nazism and prejudice will doubtless be masterful. Regardless, though, it is important to recall that Gatwa wasn't cast because Doctor Who "needed a Black guy," though the franchise undoubtedly did. He was cast because he was uniquely well-suited for the complexities of the role.

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The Doctor's Greatest Foes Are Clear Nazi Allegories

Doctor Who Daleks

The Doctor's participation in the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks is a defining point for the character and marks the delineation between the "classic series" and the more recent continuation/soft reboot. The Daleks are clearly motivated by racial attitudes, and that is very intentional. First releasing in the early 1960s, Doctor Who dealt heavily with fallout from WWII, including the remaining Nazi attitudes of the general populace. As sci-fi has always been a way of approaching the human experience through semi-satirical entertainment, this characterization of Nazis as one-dimensional killing machines is hardly surprising.

In both the classic and new series, Daleks and Davros, their creator, appear disgusting and rotten. In the revived series' Season 9, Episode 2, "The Witch's Familiar," Davros states that the Daleks are his "people." Essentially, Davros believes that the Dalek people are a pure race and thereby superior to all others. Even the phrase "you are different from me" is established to mean "exterminate" in Dalek.

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Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor faces the Mondasian Cybermen.

Cybermen, though not necessarily as clear of a Nazi allegory as Daleks, nonetheless operate from a genocidal, racially motivated point of view. The silver legions are generally introduced as being the solution to some societal issue. Whenever they emerge, the cyborgs identify all others as either a group to be assimilated or deleted. Those who should be assimilated are "upgraded" to the perfect state of being a member of the Cybermen hive mind. Taking the Nazi allegory even further, radically different versions and upgraded varieties of the Cybermen exist in the canon of the series, meaning that this "superior race" is in need of being made better, a direct contradiction to their own beliefs.

Essentially, Nazis in Doctor Who are not just racist; they are too dumb to realize their own cognitive dissonance. This is a reality that those receiving hatred from racists have endured for millennia. With Ncuti Gatwa set to play opposite these two different "brands" of Nazism, no longer will the allegory be so easily lost. Racists are disgusting, dumb and dead on the inside. Doctor Who, in casting Gatwa, is clearly espousing this perspective.