Spoilers Fugitive of the Judoon grade and discussion thread

The Doctor's past is only the shape it is because Clara is bending time back the way it was after the Great Intelligence turned the Doctor into a Giant Loser by turnlefting him at ten thousand points on his history.

If the Doctor was hiding as a human lady, Clara wouldn't have been able to have found her, and moved on, or Clara is still looking for this abberant wrong Doctor.

Welcome home Jenna.

 

I'm also sure that whilst the old Doc might have lost his memory, River certainly would have found out about sexy Ruth Doctor on her searches for the Doc and mentioned her over the pillow some night.

 

I'm curious how they'll handle this arc and a "Doctor Multiverse". Imagine an alternate universe 1st doctor that was a woman or a doctor that's been a woman since the 1st regeneration.

I think two female alternate doctors was a bit much. Couldn't they have thrown a man somewhere in there?

 

Not really.

 

The episode overall was mediocre, but seeing Jack was cool and the Judoon weren't terrible. For Chibnall, this is probably one of his best episodes. Also, the Timelords are not gone "forever" now. They were brought back once, and can easily be brought back again when Chibnall is long gone. 6/10

As for this "Doctor", there are a bunch of theories, but I gravitate to two (which aren't necessarily the most likely, just the ones I like the most):

This Doctor is from a parallel universe. They do exist, and it would easily explain everything except how she and the other Timelord showed up in the "Prime" universe without knowing it.

or

This Doctor is from between the 2nd and 3rd Doctor. The 2nd Doctor's regeneration is the only one that is off screen as of right now, and if we take the Series 6B theory into account, and its about as close to being canon as a theory like it can be, there is certainly room for an extra Doctor, and you could even say that the time Lords erase The Doctor's memory of this regeneration when The Doctor regenerates into the 3rd Doctor, possibly to keep what The Doctor was doing for them secret. The only problem with this is that the 2nd Doctor had a sonic screwdriver, but honestly it wasn't that similar to the modern versions so this could be handwaved away,

This being Chibnall's show, I'm sure the actual explanation will be nowhere near as interesting as either of these (especially Theory #2, since I wouldn't be surprised if Chibnall was not aware that the show even existed before 2005, or that there were any Doctors before the 9th ).

 

Doubling back to this topic for a moment, I just remembered another piece of evidence aside from RTD's BTS comment about the main universe being the only one with Time Lords: In "The Time of the Doctor," the Time Lords used the Doctor's name as a call-and-response to know if they were returning to the right universe. If they thought there were parallel Doctors and parallel Time-Lords in other universes, that wouldn't have worked. Of course, the Time Lords can be (and frequently are) wrong.

Well, this is a blast from the past. I remember back starting around season two or three, and possibly up to the 50th, there was always a rumor going around that there was a Total Continuity Reboot around the corner, and some episode would end with the incumbent Doctor becoming either a "new" First Doctor with no history, or being revealed to be a younger version of Hartnell's Doctor.

I don't really like the idea of a dozen-or-so female proto-Doctors, if only because it seems like a cheap solution to the representation issue (see, now there are Doctors of all ethnicities and genders, so we can cast all the white dudes we want with a clear conscience), Masterplan-style mystery-driven storytelling that's frequently disappointing, and, yeah, wikipedian-trolling having us all figure out how the Doctor got two TARDISes with a busted chameleon circuit that locked on the same model, or who the little boy from "Listen" was, or what does this do to Susan, and why did no one notice another set of Doctors around history (though that's always been an issue with the potentially-infinite number of future-Doctors, and the War Doctor being referenced by River even though she wasn't in the Time War), and on and on.

On the other hand, there is something interesting about Ruth being from a more conservative era of Gallifrey. Gat was repulsed by the notion of two versions of the same Time Lord standing side-by-side, suggesting she was from before "The Three Doctors" when the Time Lords themselves broke the seal on that particular taboo, but even Ruth thought it would be dangerous for the same TARDIS at different points in its history to get too close (which could be ignorance or received wisdom, or it could be that the "shields" that were down in "Time Crash" haven't been invented yet, so the universe being compressed down to the size of Belgium is an everyday concern for Time Lords). Sure, it's a little "Enterprise," where the past of the future is mostly different cosmetically, but I'm a sucker for world-building.

 

That was a solid 10 for me. I
Loved it!

 

Uhhhhh.... you are aware of how he first became associated with DW, right...?

 

Yeah a huge 10 for me. I thought Jack being back would be the big thing they were teasing and nope, the fact the Doctor doesn't remember herself. I loved that The Doctor was as confused by time as the viewers (and writers) normally are.

Plus Jack thinking Graham was the Doctor was great because Bradley Walsh would be a fantastic Doctor. And Jack being Jack and hitting on everyone. Lovely. Loads of fun.

 

Another 8.........

My mind is temporarily broken right now after watching that. They did something I never thought I'd see ever. It's something I wrote stories about as a kid. Sorry malfunction. Will post theories later.

The Peter Cushing version of The Doctor was pure human. He wasn't alien at all.

 

So he claimed! And even if he genuinely thought he was...fob watch!

 

Yes but that's just a silly retcon. I love the Peter Cushing movies and like to think of them as a human who invented a time machine that just happens to look like the Tardis from the British TV show. Plus his Tardis only had the one room. Sorry to sound super anal haha. BTW it doesn't have to be a fob watch. It could be any object, like for instance a lighthouse alarm panel.

 

Silly? Silly! You do realize what show you're watching, right?

 

This episode had danger, energy, mystery, and several huge surprises. So, I gave it a 9!

But, there's obviously multiple things going on here that we don't know about. The Master. The Time Lords. The Doctor. The Cybermen. And, probably most of all, the super weapon that was brought from elsewhere to knock down the Cybermen. I'm guessing that was a secret mission that is being kept secret.

I will be very disappointed if there are new incarnations before Hartnell. That just doesn't fit with the majority of the series. Throws off the need for Smith to get a new cycle. That's really a pillar of the series. Plus, I don't want to have to renumber!

The secret, unknown Doctor from the past is a stunt that's already been pulled. I'm hoping it's an alternate Doctor from an Alternate universe. Maybe the one where they got the secret weapon.

Great to see Jack back. Assuming that he'll meet the Doctor this season. And, always fun to see a new console room with reuse of the recreated original console. They're getting their money worth out of it!

 

When Hartnell and Co. went back to visit the cavemen in the 2nd episode ever, they were surprised that the TARDIS hadn't changed. That's when the chameleon circuit broke. So, Ruth Doctor can't be pre-Hartnell. At least not in our universe.

I also think it's notable that the two Doctors didn't connect, which would've irrefutably confirmed or denied stuff. The fact that they didn't, shoot they didn't even compare notes, was a conscious decision and leaves open the possibility that not all is as it seems. Pretty sure she's an alternate Doctor with an alternate TARDIS from an alternate universe!

 

I'm interested to see where this is going and it's nice to see Capt. Jack again. I got the new Doctor bit spoiled but not Jack, so that was a nice surprise.

 

Then he must have just grown to hate the show in the intervening years. I mean, he's a bad writer in general (I say that as someone who watched all of the first season of broadchurch before Chibnall got control of Doctor Who), but he really comes off as some dude who doesn't give the slightest shit about the franchise getting forced to make the show by the BBC.

Talking about that video though, going through Chibnall's parts, in that clip Chibnall apparently thought that Trial of a Timelord was too complicated, and complained about all the running through the halls away from monsters, when that is most of what his shitty Who is, running away from bland, generic monsters. He even complained about Terror of the Vervoids being too "routine" Doctor Who, and not challenging enough.

The man who gave us the most boring season of Doctor Who in the franchise's history at one point complained about a Doctor Who story being generic and not "challenging". The irony is unbelievable. I find Terror of the Vervoids to be a very average story, but the guy who wrote...basically every episode he's written for the 13th Doctor has no right to complain about "routine Doctor Who".

That video certainly showed some stuff about Chibnall that I didn't know. The fact that 1986 Chibnall would almost certainly dislike 21st Century Chibnall's work is kind of funny.

 

What a bizarre interpretation.

 

What a bizarre interpretation.

 

Good lord - a Doctor Who episode that felt like Doctor Who! Feel like I'd been thrown back to the RTD era.

Best of the Chinball era. Nutty as a fruitcake episode, that's for sure. By far the biggest surprise for me -- the show has finally caught my interest again. Given the revelations of the episode, I predict they'll either knock this out of the ballpark, or we're in for one hell of a train wreck. It'll be a sight to behold one way or the other. Stay tuned!