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Andrew Garfieldhas had a wonderful time in Hollywood so far. No scandals or spells of battling destructive inner demons, just hopping from one good movie to the next, like Peter Parker on top of New York buildings. So, when did the good times begin? Playing Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin inThe Social Networkput Garfield’s career on the fast track.He then gained wider recognition for playing Spider-Man in the superhero filmsThe Amazing Spider-ManandThe Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Since then, fans have found it hard to separate the actor from the iconic Marvel character, but he has consistently proved himself elsewhere.Garfield received Oscar nominations for his portrayals of Desmond Doss in the war filmHacksaw Ridgeand Jonathan Larson in the musical dramaTick, Tick… Boom!. However, it remains hard for him to shake off the webslinger tag, especially when his filmography is thoroughly examined, and one particular early role inDoctor Whofeels a lot like the superhero’s adventures.
Doctor Who
An alien from the planet Gallifrey travels through time and space to explore, solve problems and fight injustice while also making friends with human beings. His spaceship, called TARDIS, resembles a police box, but it is much more than it appears to be.
Who Does Andrew Garfield Play in Doctor Who?
Andrew Garfield appears in “Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks,” two episodes that are perfect odes to underclass endurance. The story isset during the Great Depression, and the cinematographer brilliantly shoots this dull version of America in a chilly, blue, and gray palette, buttressing the bleak predicament of the citizens.
Garfield’s character is Frank, a youngster born into a large family.After his father’s death, the family starts living in chaotic squalor.His mother constantly paces around the house, worrying about cash flow. She gripes about simple things like buying a fruit or toy while the rent is in arrears. Frank thusmoves from his native Tennessee to New York to fend for himself.For survival,he relies on back-breaking construction jobs,mostly around the Empire State Building.
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Things begin to look up when he meets the compassionate Solomon (Hugh Quarshie), the unofficial leader of Hooverville (a shanty region set up in the 1930s). But we shouldn’t expect the tale to continue with such serenity. After all,Doctor Whothrives in anarchy. After a tunnel collapses, Solomon and Frank join several workers in the sewers for repair work, only to be caught up ina conspiracy by the Daleks(a fictional extraterrestrial race of extremely xenophobic mutants).Frank is then captured by the Pig Slaves (genetically altered-mutant human-pig hybrids created for labor), and it is at this point that the Tenth Doctor comes into the picture.
Frank Can Easily Fit Into The Amazing Spider-Man
There are dozens of parallels between theseDoctor Whoepisodes and Andrew Garfield’sThe Amazing Spider-Manmovies.The first film’s villain, Dr. Curt Connors, is one of Oscorp’s leading scientific minds. An expert in cross-species genetics, he experiments with animal DNA and becomes the human-animal hybrid known as Lizard. This way,he comes off as eerily similar to the Pig Slaves from the BBC series, who were formed via an identical procedure.
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Beyond that, there’s Frank’s living arrangement.Like Peter Parker, Frank no longer resides with his parents. They set him up with Aunt May and left after the office of Peter’s father had been burglarized. Andthey left him nowhere else but New York. The two characters thus learn how to make the most out of life in the same city.Frank forms a connection with Solomon while Peter warms up to Gwen Stacy.
Frank Is Also Heroic as Peter in The Amazing Spider-Man 2
After Frank gets captured, Solomon teams up with the Doctor and Martha Jones to rescue him. They learn that the youngsterwas abducted as part of the “final experiment,” a plan by the Dalek collective to revive their dying race.As expected, The Doctor rescues Frank and once he is free, he gets to flaunt his heroism.
In an iconic scene, Frank connects metal poles from one of the Empire State Building’s edges to a lift shaft, generating an electricity-filled gamma strike. The strike kills off the Dalek hordes.Peter Parker does something similar inThe Amazing Spider-Man 2by restoring power to the city afterElectro causes an outageand then overloads the villain’s body, killing him.
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After saving the day, Frank gains a friend in the form of Laszlo (Ryan Carnes), a stagehand from New York who has fallen for Frank’s acquaintance, an actress named Tallulah (Miranda Raison).This mirrors the film’s plot, where Peter Parker befriends Harry Osborne. Interestingly, Laszlo doesn’t just remain Laszlo.In the same way that Harry becomes the Green Goblin, Laszlo becomes a Pig Slaveafter being captured and converted by the villains. Still, Frank exhibits some form of empathy towards him, convincing the residents of Hooverville to accept him as one of their own.
Frank is clearly Peter Parker, and neither Andrew Garfield nor theDoctor Whoproducers might have seen it that way when they were creating the character. As fans, we are forever glad we got to see the best of Garfield in two characters.Doctor Whois available to stream in the US onMax.
