Has the Doctor been a Woman before?

[Kibbin]

I'm surprised we've got this far without Pertwee, Tennant and or others showing up in drag. Personally I agree with others that it was just a bit of word play on behalf of the writer as the Doctor plays with homonyms using them to spring board from one topic to another due to her slightly scatter brained mind.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I absolutely hate The Brain of Morbius faces. I get the intent but it was silly and dumb considering it didn't fit with anything else. And there are people who absolutely want them.

Me! Me! Pick me! I do! I do!

I love the idea that the Doctor is older and stranger than we imagine. No, it doesn't fit with anything else, and that's the joy of it. It adds to the mystery and the strangeness of the Doctor, and you don't have to accept it any more than you have to accept the Curator or the Rowan Atkinson Doctor or the Richard E. Grant Doctor (version 2.0).

 

[Christopher]

I love the idea that the Doctor is older and stranger than we imagine.

I guess I can understand that, but the Moffat era soured me on the tendency to mythologize the Doctor as some supremely special, cosmically important figure around which the whole universe revolves. I prefer the "I'm just a traveller" idea that Chibnall seems to be returning to -- that the Doctor is a hero not because she's some elite Chosen One, but just because she knows lots of stuff and tries to help when she sees people in trouble.

I prefer to think that the Doctor was a fairly ordinary Time Lord on Gallifrey, just more open-minded and curious than most, perhaps inspired in that direction by his teacher K'anpo and his fellow iconoclast the Master. And I think the Doctor's backstory works better if stealing the TARDIS was an act of (relatively) youthful rebellion, if the Doctor we met on Totters Lane in 1963 was relatively inexperienced and self-absorbed and became more through his adventures and through the example of his companions (and the subtle nudging of the TARDIS sending him where he needed to be to awaken his nascent altruism).

 

[Hey Missy]

but the Moffat era soured me on the tendency to mythologize the Doctor as some supremely special, cosmically important figure around which the whole universe revolves.

Wasn't it the RTD era that started that? And if you wanna get real technical, then the EDAs before it. And the VNAs. And Cartmel before even that.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Regardless, whatever The Doctor's backstory (He/she also may or may not be half-human on his/her mother's side), pretty much everyone agrees that William Hartnell's First Doctor IS the first Doctor

Not only that, but he (well, Richard Hurndall anyway) actually SAYS he's the first Doctor, in "The Five Doctors".

"As it happens, I am the Doctor. The ORIGINAL, you might say!"

Now I can buy the Doctor's memories of ONE incarnation (War Doc) being repressed, but not an entire cycle of them.

 

[Jedman67]

Wasn't it the RTD era that started that? And if you wanna get real technical, then the EDAs before it. And the VNAs. And Cartmel before even that.

For the most part, I got the feeling that 9 and 10 were just travelers, doing their best to save those in trouble. Most mythology surrounding them was based on their actions.
11 on the other hand got turned into Time Lord Jesus. Don't know about the earlier instances.

 

[Hey Missy]

11 was "Time Lord Jesus" because of his own actions and those of his previous incarnations.
To quote; "I got too big. Too noisy."
Wow, Moffat being used yet again as a scapegoat like he's Rick Berman.

 

[The Wormhole]

Now the Master... might be a previous female incarnation between the kid and Delgado. Missy implies so, but she lies a lot.

The Pertwee era novel The Harvest of Time, published over a year before Missy was introduced, does indicate the Master had a female incarnation prior to Delgado. Although, in The Doctor Falls, Simm Master seems to act as though he'd never been a woman before.

 

[Christopher]

Wasn't it the RTD era that started that? And if you wanna get real technical, then the EDAs before it. And the VNAs. And Cartmel before even that.

It's not about who did it first, it's about what overexposed me to the point that I got tired of it. So if anything, it's about who did it the most recently, because we've gotten it constantly these past few years and I want a change of pace now.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Me! Me! Pick me! I do! I do!

I love the idea that the Doctor is older and stranger than we imagine. No, it doesn't fit with anything else, and that's the joy of it. It adds to the mystery and the strangeness of the Doctor, and you don't have to accept it any more than you have to accept the Curator or the Rowan Atkinson Doctor or the Richard E. Grant Doctor (version 2.0).

Oh sure. Though I view the curator as a future Doctor. (Though it doesn't really matter as the man said himself.) As for the others, I pass off Rowan as comedy and sir not appearing in this listing. As for the Shalka Doctor... I actually like to think he's evidence of the Great Intelligence trying to take over the Doctor's timeline. (Which I wish was more overtly shown in Name of the Doctor)

I'm surprised we've got this far without Pertwee, Tennant and or others showing up in drag.

Where is the ol' Pertwee as the Washerwoman Gif when you need it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Pertwee era novel The Harvest of Time, published over a year before Missy was introduced, does indicate the Master had a female incarnation prior to Delgado.

I take it the actual show itself never stated which incarnation Delgado was?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I take it the actual show itself never stated which incarnation Delgado was?

Nope. None of his incarnations were given numbers. Hell, The Doctor's incarnations were barely referred to until the new series.

 

[The Wormhole]

I take it the actual show itself never stated which incarnation Delgado was?

No, but it's generally accepted among many in fandom that Delgado was the twelfth, since Peter Pratt being the thirteenth is a plot point of The Deadly Assassin.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Perhaps Simm regenerates into Delgado? It would explain why the latter never seemed to hear the sound of drums...

 

[Christopher]

^Simm's Master regenerated into Missy. That was established in last season's finale.

No, but it's generally accepted among many in fandom that Delgado was the twelfth, since Peter Pratt being the thirteenth is a plot point of The Deadly Assassin.

But there could've been plenty of Masters between those two. I know the classic series tended to have Time Lords always meet each other in chronological sequence, but that hardly makes sense for time travelers.

I always had the impression (probably from the novelization of "The Deadly Assassin," which I think had lines cut from the episode) that the Master had burned through regenerations quickly because of his dangerous life and need for periodic changes of identity. That's why I figured there could easily have been multiple incarnations between Delgado and Pratt/Beevers.

 

[Skellington]

When Twelve first casts eyes on Ashildr in The Girl Who Died, he seems to remember her despite never having met her before. He explains to Clara that this sometimes happen with time travelers and that premonition is really just remembering in the wrong direction. This idea could be used to clear up a lot of continuity issues...

 

[BritishSeaPower]

The Master's timeline is actually quite a mess. Like staring into the time vortex.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I'm surprised we've got this far without Pertwee, Tennant and or others showing up in drag. Personally I agree with others that it was just a bit of word play on behalf of the writer as the Doctor plays with homonyms using them to spring board from one topic to another due to her slightly scatter brained mind.

et voilà

 

[The Wormhole]

Simm's Master regenerated into Missy. That was established in last season's finale.

Although I agree that is likely the case, it should be noted The Doctor Falls seems to make a point of not identifying Missy as Simm's direct successor. Indeed, when Simm even asks her if she's the next one after him, she only gives a vague non-answer.

Of course, Moffat always did have a problem providing direct answers.

 

[TJ Sinclair]

Addressing the main topic of the thread... am I the only one who took Thirteen's line about being a sister in exactly the same way that I took Twelve's line about being a Vestal virgin? To me it was just a bit of banter about having once been/pretended to be something traditionally feminine. It's a variant on the classic Doctor "name dropping" that Four and Five excelled at, and all of Seven's befuddled ramblings, and all of the myriad references that all of them have made in Big Finish stuff. I don't think for a moment it was meant to be taken literally and that there was a previous female incarnation heretofore unknown.

Now, someone over on Divergent Universe is adamant that all this means that Chibnall is setting up for "pulling a Moffat" and introducing another "lost" Doctor. I think that's a massive stretch. It's just a throwaway line. Have we in fandom all become so precious about every little thing that we have to take what's obviously a jokey aside and turn it into some vast conspiracy?

As for the Master... I always thought that the Pratt/Beevers Master was the Delgado Master, just burned beyond recognition. I always thought the "it's his last incarnation" fact originated during the Pertwee era, long before The Deadly Assassin. And thus, the Ainley Master was just the burned Delgado Master having merged with Tremas' genetic material, or possessed his body somehow, and that he was still on the last incarnation of his original cycle up through the TV movie, having escaped execution as the "deathworm" to possess yet another body. And when Jacobi showed up in the New Series, I just assumed that was the first (or at least an early) incarnation of a new cycle granted when the Time Lords resurrected him for the War, leading to Simm, then (presumably) Missy.

I have no idea where Big Finish's Alex MacQueen Master fits into all this, as I haven't gotten that far yet. But as far as televised Who, that's what I've always thought based on what I remember from childhood PBS reruns and NuWho. What am I missing?