The Nardole Problem

So we're getting Nardole story after Nardole story in 2017, he's signed on to appear in every episode.

Now I like Matt Lucas. He's great at comedy sketches and ad-libbing at a drum kit while dressed as a baby. However the character of Nardole seems to me to be a dog's dinner of reformed ideas.

He started off as the comic relief in The Husbands of River Song and came back in The Return of Doctor Mysterio as a sort-of companion. He doesn't have a clearly defined background, so we don't know why he behaves the way he does or anything substantial about him. It's as though they wanted someone to gurn a lot and crack some jokes, which is great for a one-off or even a returning character, but I can't see it working full-time. I wasn't quite convinced by his speech about the Doctor either, it seemed to me it was crowbarred in to show that "this character has hidden depths that you didn't realise!" and the speech seemed to be more directed at the audience than the two people he was speaking to.

What I really don't get is why he's travelling with the Doctor, or more precisely why the Doctor is travelling with Nardole. I thought the Doctor went in for pretty girls?

Anyway, I'm hoping to be proved wrong. But if we get to the end of the season and we still don't know anything about Nardole beyond that he's quite funny, I'm going to be very annoyed.

Well Moffat usually has a reason behind most things so I imagine the mystery of why the Doctor chose to rescue Nardole from being trapped inside Hydroflax will be teased out eventually. I think Capaldi's Doctor will work well with having 2 companions on the go so it should create an interesting dynamic once Bill arrives as they're all quite different characters unlike the Eleven, Amy and Rory team which was a bit of a throwback to the days of Davison and time travelling youth hostel.

So far, he does feel less the companion, more the resident hanger-on. And unless there is something planned for him, he may just end up getting pushed to the background once Bill turns up, and we're all going to look at Matt Lucas and say "Well there was a wasted opportunity!"

I'm already seeing some fangirls on Dreamwidth and Tumblr demand that Nardole be sidelined so Bill can be focused on full time.

He already has been hasn't he? He was hardly the centre of attention.

Some interesting hints in this weeks episode about Nardole ... this is shaping up to more intriguing than the who is in the vault mystery...