Anyone feeling sorry for Jodie? (spoilers for Fugitive of the Judoon)

[Nightowl1701]

I think it's a bit unreasonable to expect Ruth Doctor to be an "old soul in a young body." If she is indeed a pre-Hartnell Doctor, then that would make her the youngest Doctor we've ever seen.

Depends. If there really was a full set of 12 lives before Hartnell (and a full back-to-the-cradle mindwipe afterward), is she #12 in that cycle?

 

[matthunter]

Actually, I'll take that point. Ruth!Doc as a more calculating, supercilious Doctor as Hartnell was pre-Ian and Barbara does work. If she is pre-Hartnell, it might also explain why none of the Doctors are surprised to meet other incarnations in The Three Doctors when such an idea is apparently abominable to Time Lords. And perhaps how One realizes Two and Three are his "replacements" if he has vague memories of past lives - these aren't past incarnations, so they must come after.

Of course, the novels got around this by having the Doctor play a dangerous game as a student at the Academy called "Eighth Man Bound" where Time Lords try to predict their future appearances - no-one was ever able to see past their eighth life (which, at the time, meant the Doctor could see to McGann who was the latest Doctor) and few could see even that far. This was also used to explain how 3 could guess "all teeth and curls" from Sarah's "you changed" line in The Five Doctors.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I was only thinking yesterday she seems like a minor character in her own series.

Actually there are times I think this very thing.

I really feel there was no need for 3 companions... I don't know why they decided this was ever the way to go or they lacked confidence in the show and wanted to tank it.

 

[The Wormhole]

I really feel there was no need for 3 companions... I don't know why they decided this was ever the way to go or they lacked confidence in the show and wanted to tank it.

I suspect it was a desire to try something different, and arguably some of the more memorable casts from the modern era of Doctor Who are when we had a team instead of just Doctor and Companion. Like the Doctor with Rose and Captain Jack, the Doctor with Amy and Rory, the Doctor with Bill and Nardole and arguably Miss as well towards the end of the season. Maybe three full time companions was pushing it, but it's what we got.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Again, don't get me wrong, I love RuthDoc, but outside of Colin with Pat has any Doctor ever been shunted into this position this early? (in fairness I guess Tennant had Sarah Jane pop up three episodes in)

Yeah, but I don't think that was ever a problem with Tennant. Tennant totally had me sold from, "New teeth. That's weird."

And Colin Baker has much worse problems than a multi-Doctor story where Troughton spends most of it captured & drugged. (Ugly costume. Shrill, obnoxious companion. Shitty scripts.)

Yes, many (including myself) have said that we could have had the Eighth Doctor in Day of the Doctor instead of the War Doctor and it would have worked just fine, and that is true.

I don't know about that. Part of the reason for the John Hurt Doctor was to have an older Doctor that spiritually represented the older Doctors from the classic series. Much as I love McGann, he wouldn't have provided that kind of stark contrast with the fun bounciness of Tennant & Smith.

As for Whittaker, I think she's doing fine. She's by far the best thing about her run and the only thing holding the show together, IMO. Jo Martin seemed fine but didn't leave too much of an impression on me. Granted, I'm too busy trying to figure out what she is to focus on her performance very much.

BTW, I don't think that she's a pre-Hartnell Doctor. As I've heard other people note, Hartnell's TARDIS didn't start looking like a Police Box until he landed in that 1960s junkyard in "An Unearthly Child." If she's part of the regular sequence of Doctors, she's more likely from Season 6B, between Troughton & Pertwee. But given how shocked that Gat was, I think it's more likely that there's some alternate timeline shenanigans going on, with parallel universes bleeding into each other.

 

[The Wormhole]

Part of the reason for the John Hurt Doctor was to have an older Doctor that spiritually represented the older Doctors from the classic series.

The role was originally written for Eccleston, and not much was changed in the final product. They even include a scene dwelling on the War Doctor's ears, which doesn't make sense with John Hurt.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I know that it was originally written for Eccleston. IMHO, changing it to Hurt was an improvement.

 

[Yminale]

This is Jodi Whittaker dialogue in every episode
1. Exposition
2. A Public service announcement about some weighty topic
3. Tells everybody how amazing humans are

Plus she acts like she's on cocaine just like the Twelfth Doctor. Most of the best moments either come from the companions (Usually Graham) or an extra. They treat her more as a plot device than a real character. They seriously need to rework the character