They say it takes a village to raise a child but how many children does it take to raise a Time Lord? Here we will take a look at some of the many talented young actors and actresses and the characters they portrayed in Nu Who episodes of Doctor Who.
Season 1 Episode 9's "The Empty Child" scared the pants off quite a few Who fans, myself included. When the "Empty Child" points his finger and asks "Are you my Mummy?", my obvious answer is "Absolutely not". Every time he said it I thought of that book from my childhood with a similar name, and I feel very strongly that the baby bird's mother would say the same thing if he showed up with a tiny gas mask on.
Albert Valentine and Florence Hoath as the child and Nancy respectively are brilliant in this episode, and even though you get a happy ending, it's a chilly one. But hey! The Doctor, played by Chris Eccleston, dances!
Season 6 Episode 1's "The Impossible Astronaut" starts by breaking your heart, then it gets nostalgic, then it gets horrifying, then strange, and ultimately it breaks your heart again. Sydney Wade plays the girl in the astronaut suit (Spoiler Alert: she's Melody Pond), who shows up begging for help only to be shot at by her own mother. Makes the holidays awkward that does.
This episode also gives you The Silence and...What was I saying? Is someone there? Well no matter, the girl in the suit doesn't say much but Wade's face is so expressive it conveys entire galaxies even in silence...Silence....I feel like that means something.
In Season 6 Episode 9's "Night Terrors", the Eleventh Doctor played by Matt Smith meets George. George is all sorts of adorable but George has a cabinet, a cabinet of horrors, an anti-treasure chest if you will. Inside of it lies every nightmare poor adorable George can... well...dream up.
I love horror, I do, I don't mind being scared but those DOLLS? Thank you, next. Aside from the bogeymen, the ending twist is so sweet it takes a bit of the sting away. And did I mention adorable? That's Jamie Oran, the actor who played George.
And we can't talk about the kids without mentioning wee Amelia Pond. She shows up a few times during Smith's run as the Doctor, even acting as a somewhat comforting simulation for him while he lies dying. Played perfectly by Caitlin Blackwood, Amelia is and shall always be the girl who waited and the girl who loved the Raggedy Man. Now, for some reason, I'm craving fish fingers and custard.
Season 8 Episode 10's "In the Forest of the Night" introduces the Twelfth Doctor to not just one child but a gaggle. Mr. Pink and Miss Oswald are chaperoning a field trip when a forest pops into existence all over London.
Now Capaldi's Doctor is no stranger to children, in fact, he even met Mr. Danny Pink when he was still Rupert Pink, and he absolutely adored Rigsy's baby. So it makes sense that he was totally cool with a classroom full of borderline maniacal children inside the TARDIS, as long as they touched absolutely nothing.
The shining child star in this specific episode is Maebh played by Abigail Eames. Her spectrum of looking at things, her ability to hear beyond human understanding and to manifest her most cherished desires make her a spectacular character.
Curiously enough the child character in Jodie Whittaker's episode as the Thirteenth Doctor wasn't a child at all. It was an energy being, and it wasn't played by an actor but according to production was actually CGI. As Catherine Tate would say "Look at my face, do I look bothered?", because the imprisoned child/being was an intense and beautiful plot point that emphasized how wicked the Master had become.
"The Power of the Doctor" was the third installment in a three-part story arc that eventually ended with her regeneration. Say what you want about the writing for the Thirteenth Doctor, but these stories were wild.
This is just a small sampling of the incredible young talent the show introduced us to. Obviously, the portrayals in Doctor Who are always stellar, but these characters and their young performers brought a little something special every time they were onscreen. They made the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, just a little more interesting.