Doctor Who (2020) - spoilers!

[Blackrat]

Yeah, I don’t know what expletives to use! That was some episode

 

[Morrus]

So she had a TARDIS that looks a lot like old Who, and she doesn’t know what a sonic screwdriver is.

Theories?

 

[Richards]

If we take her story at face value and she is a previous incarnation of the Doctor, then she's got to be pre-Pertwee, as I believe the Third Doctor was the first to wield a sonic screwdriver. And since I believe we saw the First Doctor regenerate into the Second, she's either pre-Hartnell or perhaps somewhere between the Second Doctor and the Third. (I don't recall there being an actual regeneration scene between those two - but I could be wrong.)

I'm personally of the opinion that the "Ruth" Doctor somehow isn't in fact the real Doctor, as it would seem odd to cast the first female Doctor and then write up a plot-line where nope, she wasn't the first female Doctor after all. (I'm applying "meta-game" logic here, I admit.) I do recall in "The Doctor's Daughter" the Tenth Doctor ended up with a female clone patterned after himself; it could be something like that or maybe the "Ruth" Doctor is from a parallel dimension. That is, after all, where the current batch of Cybermen come from (another Tenth Doctor group of episodes - funny how much of this season is calling back to Tennant's reign).

Johnathan

 

[Morrus]

We’ve seen Hartnell steal the TARDIS, though. So she can’t be pre-Hartnell.

 

[Nagol]

If we take her story at face value and she is a previous incarnation of the Doctor, then she's got to be pre-Pertwee, as I believe the Third Doctor was the first to wield a sonic screwdriver. And since I believe we saw the First Doctor regenerate into the Second, she's either pre-Hartnell or perhaps somewhere between the Second Doctor and the Third. (I don't recall there being an actual regeneration scene between those two - but I could be wrong.)

I'm personally of the opinion that the "Ruth" Doctor somehow isn't in fact the real Doctor, as it would seem odd to cast the first female Doctor and then write up a plot-line where nope, she wasn't the first female Doctor after all. (I'm applying "meta-game" logic here, I admit.) I do recall in "The Doctor's Daughter" the Tenth Doctor ended up with a female clone patterned after himself; it could be something like that or maybe the "Ruth" Doctor is from a parallel dimension. That is, after all, where the current batch of Cybermen come from (another Tenth Doctor group of episodes - funny how much of this season is calling back to Tennant's reign).

Johnathan

The 2nd to 3rd Dr. regeneration was at the hands of the time lords who stole Jaime's memories and dropped him back in his normal timeline at the time he left with the Dr. They also placed blocks in the Dr.'s mind to prevent TARDIS use until Pertwee was able to work around them. So probably not pre-Pertwee.

 

[tomBitonti]

If the master went to a "parallel" (or some similar alternate universe), could it be that the other doctor is a parallel universe doctor?

Or, is she a failed replica, with most of the doctor bits, but not the entire moral package?

Thx!
TomB

 

[Richards]

Some further thoughts:

The Ruth Doctor kind of works as a pre-Hartnell Doctor if we assume her TARDIS isn't stolen (because we know Hartnell, the First Doctor, was the one who stole the TARDIS in the first place). She could have been given the TARDIS by the Time Lords and sent to Earth on a secret mission, requiring her to use the chameleon gate to temporarily transform into a human. Then, mission complete (which hasn't been shown on screen yet), she later returns to Gallifrey, eventually regenerates into the First Doctor, who at some point gets fed up with Time Lord intervention and decides to steal a TARDIS. If that were true, it would explain why he chose that particular Type 40 - he'd already become accustomed to it from his previous incarnation.

But that raises some questions about regeneration: it's been stated (since regeneration was mentioned on the show) that Time Lords can regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 bodies. This was a plot point with the Master during the Fourth Doctor's era, since he had used up his 12 regenerations and was shambling around like a lich (in "The Deadly Assassin") and was offered a new complete set of regenerations during "The Five Doctors" (after abducting Nyssa's father's body in "The Keeper of Traken"). Also, the Eleventh Doctor was at the end of his regeneration cycle (10 previous forms, his current form, plus the War Doctor, plus the Tenth Doctor "wasting" a regeneration on growing his severed hand into a clone replica for Rose), so the Ruth Doctor being a previous incarnation of the Doctor doesn't make the math add up.

Unless...the Ruth Doctor is just one of the Doctor's original 13 bodies, at the end of which he was (for whatever reason) given a new full set of regenerations and the First Doctor we know is really just the first of the second set of 13. That's possible, but I don't really like it - too much retconning for my liking. (Although it helps explain the extra images when the Fourth Doctor was engaged in a mental duel with Morbius (in "The Brain of Morbius") when the images on the screen regress from Tom Baker to Pertwee to Troughton to Hartnell...to a bunch of other men we'd never seen before. Former Morbius forms, or previous Doctor incarnations?

Eh - I'm still holding out on the "parallel universe" explanation.

Johnathan

 

[trappedslider]

Some further thoughts:

The Ruth Doctor kind of works as a pre-Hartnell Doctor if we assume her TARDIS isn't stolen (because we know Hartnell, the First Doctor, was the one who stole the TARDIS in the first place). She could have been given the TARDIS by the Time Lords and sent to Earth on a secret mission, requiring her to use the chameleon gate to temporarily transform into a human.

The secret Mission idea can fit nicely with what Jack was saying,about some sort of alliance sending someone

As for parallel or alternate universe unless Chris is lying,that's a no.


show boss Chris Chibnall has confirmed that this isn't 'a trick'.

He told The Mirror: 'The important thing to say is – she is definitively The Doctor. There's not a sort of parallel universe going on, there's no tricks. Jo Martin is The Doctor.'

Chibnall noted that the Top Boy star was credited in the same way John Hurt was credited when he appeared as another previously-unseen incarnation, who cropped up during the 50th anniversary special The Day Of The Doctor in 2013.

'That's why we gave her the credit at the end which all new Doctors have the first time you see them. John Hurt got that credit,' Chibnall explained.

Doctor Who unveils Jo Martin as first black Time Lord in show history

Doctor Who has introduced its first black portrayal of the titular Time Lord in its illustrious 57-year history.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Richards]

Interesting, although the title of that article is misleading: this may be the first black Doctor we've ever seen, but she certainly isn't the first black Time Lord - or even the first female black Time Lord. We saw a white male Time Lord regenerate into a female black Time Lord when the Twelfth Doctor shot him with a gun. There may well have been more, but admittedly not in as prominent a role.

So it sounds like my parallel universe idea is out the window, then. Hmm. I guess I'll have to go back to my "13 previously unknown incarnations" theory, if only to get the numbers to add up correctly. I just hope Chibnall is taking the Doctor's past history into account; I don't want him blatantly ignoring the past so he can do what he wants in the present without worrying about creating logical paradoxes or opening plot holes that are never resolved.

Johnathan

 

[Rabulias]

But that raises some questions about regeneration: it's been stated (since regeneration was mentioned on the show) that Time Lords can regenerate 12 times, for a total of 13 bodies.

Everything you think you know is a lie.