Spoilers The Doctor Falls (Grade & Discussion Thread)

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Ah.... OK I can see why that makes things murkky.

First Doctor can mean anything, What we saw in the very first episode might just mean there were adventures before that we never saw..

The Time Lords in The Three Doctors called him "the earliest Doctor." Not a lot of room to wiggle around.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The Time Lords in The Three Doctors called him "the earliest Doctor." Not a lot of room to wiggle around.

Hmmm true.... But don't forget his childhood and life before he ran from Gallifrey.... Is that enough wiggle room?

 

[captainkirk]

Maybe there was an earlier point when he just had a lot of plastic surgery because he wanted to try different faces without having to regenerate.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Outrageously they turned Bill into a CyberMAN!
Enough with the genderbending already!

 

[The Wormhole]

Ok, something suddenly bugged me.....

The first Doctor, Hartnell. He was the first incarnation, right? The original? So..... There was a throw-away line in this episode where The Doctor says something about having been a woman before. But, if Hartnell was the first, and we've seen all incarnations in between (including the War Doctor), am I missing something here? Was that thrown in as a simple little gag, or perhaps a little tease about Whittaker already? Are we now supposed to asume that that were perhaps even more regenerations we haven't heard of yet, like the War Doctor?

Or have I simply completely misheard that line?

If you're talking about the line I think you're talking about, the Doctor telling Bill about his friendship with the Master in World Enough in Time Bill questions why he's referring to Missy as "he" and the Doctor says something like "back then she was a boy, I think. I might have been too, I'm not sure." That's clearly Moffat just being nonsensically vague, we saw the Doctor as a child in Listen, clearly a boy.

 

[Mage]

If you're talking about the line I think you're talking about, the Doctor telling Bill about his friendship with the Master in World Enough in Time Bill questions why he's referring to Missy as "he" and the Doctor says something like "back then she was a boy, I think. I might have been too, I'm not sure." That's clearly Moffat just being nonsensically vague, we saw the Doctor as a child in Listen, clearly a boy.

Ah, misremembered the line then, that was the one I ment. Thanks!

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

OK here's a fun video on this topic

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[matthunter]

In The Brain of Morbius, the Doctor and Morbius (yet another renegade Time Lord that left Gallifrey eons ago) have a "mind battle" and their past incarnations are shown off. When the first three Doctors are shown backwards, there are other incarnations shown and, by Hinchcliffe and Holmes' intent, they were meant to be the incarnations before the First Doctor. But that muted/ignored/retconned away relatively fast, as historically the First Doctor is the First Doctor, as per The Three Doctors. So, now, these incarnations are either a)potential future incarnations of the Doctor, or b)past incarnations of Morbius. The latter of which makes most sense to me, really.

The other explanation is that the Cartmel Masterplan was correct and the Doctor is the reincarnation of the legendary Time Lord figure "The Other" who helped Rassilon develop time travel (specifically the transcendental dimensionalism of TARDISes). In that scenario, the faces in Brain of Morbius were the various incarnations of "The Other".

Of course, various speculation exists that "The Other" was actually the Doctor having gone back to Gallifrey's past at some point (hence why he had lots of cryptic, almost future knowledge and tried to dissuade Rassilon from his extremes) so oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

The Time Lords in The Three Doctors called him "the earliest Doctor." Not a lot of room to wiggle around.

If we take that as solid, Jodie Whittaker is at least 14th Doctor. If we have one incarnation that wasn't the Doctor, and also one that the Doctor forgot, there's wiggle room for anything, even for Missy regenerating into the First Doctor.

ETA: Clarification - the Doctor never forgot the War Doctor, just what happened with the Moment. Apparently, my memory is fading.