Face of Boe

The Face of Boe is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It appears to consist of just a gigantic, human-like head, with—in place of hair—numerous tendrils which terminate in round, pod-like structures, almost like dreadlocks. The Face of Boe is a wholly mechanical effect, not portrayed on-screen by an actor, and is voiced by Struan Rodger. He merely grunted during his appearance in "The End of the World", but communicated telepathically in "New Earth" and "Gridlock", and verbally spoke for the first time in the latter. He is alleged to be billions of years old.

History within the show

In the episode, "The End of the World", set five billion years in the future, the Face of Boe is identified as coming from the "Silver Devastation", while "Bad Wolf", set in the 2002nd Century, describes him as "the oldest being in the Isop galaxy" (the location of the planet Vortis in The Web Planet, incidentally). "The Long Game", set 100 years earlier (the Face's youngest appearance), had a TV network reporting that he was pregnant with the "Baby Boemina". In "New Earth", the Face himself states that he is the last of his species.

The Face of Boe is a being of considerable influence in galactic circles, first noted in the 2005 series episode "The End of the World". The Face sponsored the safe viewing of Earth's destruction by the expansion of the Sun. The event was sabotaged, but the Face survives along with most of the guests thanks to the Ninth Doctor's intervention.

The Face of Boe returns in "New Earth" (2006), now apparently dying of old age at last. The Face has been able to relay the Doctor a message through his psychic paper, summoning him. One of the Sisters of Plenitude, Novice Hame, relates the legend of the Face's last words, which are to be revealed to a "wandering traveller" (i.e. the Doctor). When the Doctor asks the Face about the legend, he claims that it can wait for their final meeting, and enigmatically teleports away.

The Face of Boe's last appearance is in "Gridlock" (2007), where, after a viral plague has wiped out almost all life on New Earth, he uses his remaining life force to power the undercity of New New York. The undercity contains the last people on the planet, protected from the now-extinct virus by sealed exits. To help the Doctor free the people from the perpetual motorway-driving forced upon them by the protection, the Face uses the last of his life force to provide a power boost. As referenced in "New Earth", the sky (of the undercity) splits asunder just prior to his death. In his final moments, he reveals his last words to the Doctor: "You are not alone". The Doctor tells Martha Jones that the Face of Boe must be mistaken, but it is later revealed that the Master has survived the Time War.

In "Last of the Time Lords", the immortal Captain Jack Harkness speculates how long he may live and how he may look after millions of years, before mentioning having been a poster boy as a kid in the Boeshane Peninsula, and the "first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency", accomplishments that earned him the nickname "the Face of Boe". This astonishes Martha and the Doctor. Writer Russell T. Davies, in the episode's commentary, called the implication of this scene "a theory" as to the Face of Boe's origins, prompting Executive Producer Julie Gardner to urge him to "stop backpedaling" about the two characters being the same. Davies also mentioned that after writing the scene, he inserted a line in the ADR recording for "Gridlock" in which the Face of Boe calls the Doctor "old friend".

Other media

In the New Series Adventures novel The Stealers of Dreams by Steve Lyons, Jack Harkness (who is from the 51st century) says that he once saw someone "dressed up as the Face of Boe".

The tie-in book Monsters and Villains states that the Face has an abnormally long lifespan for an unknown reason; he had six children during the 2001st Century who only lived for 40 years each, the average lifespan of the species. It also states that when he dies, the sky will "crack asunder", and that he has one final secret that he will share only with a "homeless, wandering traveller".

As with all spin-off media, the canonicity of these accounts in relation to the television series remains unclear.

References

• "Doctor Who: Regeneration" Narr. Mark Gatiss. BBC Radio 2, 20 December 2005.
• Richards, Justin (2005). Doctor Who: Monsters and Villains. BBC Books. p. 63. ISBN 0-563-48632-5.