Bernard Cribbins helped remind the world Doctor Who should always be about kindness
polygon.comFor most Americans, myself included, Bernard Cribbins — the British actor and singer with over 70 years of experience on stage and screen who died this week at the age of 93 — will be best remembered as Wilfred Mott. As Wilfred, Cribbins was a regular supporting character in the fourth season of the then-recently rebooted Doctor Who (which just wrapped its 13th season in 2021), at the exact moment when the long-running British import was finally gaining a real foothold on this side of the pond.
This was a pretty remarkable thing in and of itself — even rebooted Doctor Who was a bit odd and hokey for mid-’00s U.S. airwaves, operating with different sensibilities and rhythms than American science fiction. But characters like Wilfred Mott quickly made the case for why there was nothing quite like it, making it immediately clear why the show has endured for nearly 60 years.
For the uninitiated, Doctor Who is a time travel show where an humanoid alien called The Doctor travels through time having adventures with pals called companions with the help of a time machine in the shape of a 1950s police call box that is much bigger on the inside. A central conceit of the show is that the Doctor does not die, but instead “regenerates” into a new form, so a new actor can assume the role. (The 13th and most recent Doctor is Jodie Whitaker, the first woman in the role. The next will be played by Ncuti Gatwa, the first Black actor in the role.)
In season 4, The Doctor was played by fan-favorite actor David Tennant, who would end his tenure as the Tenth Doctor shortly afterward after the season in a series of special episodes. In this season, The Doctor was accompanied by Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), a brassy and opinionated Londoner
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