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Nikus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,368
I'm not big on the idea of pre-Hartnell Doctors, I'm even still iffy on the War Doctor (John Hurt was great, don't get me wrong), so I would like to think it's an alternate universe thing, but Ruth's story seems to be meant to mirror 13's. The fact that she thought she knew her past but actually didn't, at all, and then 13 goes through the same thing.. An alt-universe would feel like a cop out now. But I guess we'll see.

I loved the episode though, but I'm tired of the trio doing nothing and just stand there, perfectly aligned, just to tell her "we're with you fam" every once in a while. I really hoped they would do something better with them this season. I liked Graham and Yaz in last season, but I have pretty much nothing to say about them now, except "well, they're present.". 🤷‍♂️

I think it's more about how everyone does their best as she does, but yeah I think it's more unfortunate wording more than anything. And I get that complaining won't retroactively fix anything but criticism should be taken into account going forward.
This season is just that. Criticism of series 11 fully taken into account. For better or worse.
 

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,616
Why would pre-Hartnell Doctors contradict Listen? All we saw was a kid's hair.
dws08e04-1.jpg


"He'll never make a Time Lord."
 

Kalnet

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,046
This is honestly the best 13th Era episode. I don't care what happens next. I hope Chibnall and crew gets to stick the landing till the end of this series.
 

M.Bluth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,250
I've not seen this week's episode, since I never had the time to catch up on last week's, but I did read the spoilers, and all I can say is that if they're true then my God, it's hilariously bad.
It DOES sound very Kingdom Hearts-y like someone said, though, lmao.
 

Hellers

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,381
Yeah. Gotta do some real goofy gymnastics to get around that one... if she isn't from another reality.

There''s a million and one ways you can get around that. Especially if the Time Lords have been manipulating things. In the grand scheme of things it's literally nothing.

Reading some of the comments I'm honestly at a loss how some folk are having a hard time rewriting the canon to fit this in. It's also definitely not a parallel universe situation.
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
I think the how mental and lore-soaked this episode is can be summed up in the fact they mention the Chameleon Arch in one line without any explanation of what it actually is, have a half second cutaway to the same prop from Human Nature inside alt-Doctor's TARDIS... and that's it. Christ alive.
 
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Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,616
I think the how mental and lore-soaked this episode is can be summed up in the fact they mention the Chameleon Arch in one line without any explanation of what it actually is, have a half second cutaway to the same prop from Human Nature inside alt-Doctor's TARDIS... and that's it. Christ alive.
Definitely could be confusing for a lot of people, but I was suspecting the Chameleon Arch pretty early on. Really reminded me of Human Nature.
 
May 26, 2018
24,019
There''s a million and one ways you can get around that. Especially if the Time Lords have been manipulating things. In the grand scheme of things it's literally nothing.

Reading some of the comments I'm honestly at a loss how some folk are having a hard time rewriting the canon to fit this in. It's also definitely not a parallel universe situation.

I suppose she could be brainwashed by a fobwatch with fake memories. That'd be a direction to go.
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
Regarding if it's Pre-Hartnell or not - worth pointing out the TARDIS she has is clearly Hartnell era. Not inside - never mind that - but the one clean shot we get of outside when it's being beamed up to the Judoon ship - it's the narrower design, shorter. It has the St. Johns Ambulance logo, which disappears after Season 3 (so, during Hartnell's tenure) and doesn't reappear until Smith's TARDIS - and the proportions are all wrong for it to be the Moffat-era TARDIS, as that one is massive. It's also got the season 1 style light on the top, so it doesn't even match the TARDIS from Hartnell's later serials, only the very earliest ones, like his first 3-4 stories. So it is pretty definitively a TARDIS from the very, very start of the show.
 
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CommodoreKong

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,707
Very interesting episode. Feels like this could be the start of the an amazing arc for the rest of the season but it's obviously too early to say but I hope they stick the landing.
Happy to see Captain Jack back even if he didn't interact with the Doctor (though I'm sure he'll be back later this season, I doubt this will be our only Jack appearance this season). It will be interesting to see what's going on with this new Doctor and how the Master ties into all of this.
 

EvilRedEye

Member
Oct 29, 2017
747
So apparently John Barrowman had to fake a house renovation to hide why he was in Cardiff and then got so into the deception that he actually did the house renovation!
 

Dwebble

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,626
It's not like theory-crafting a way around the TARDIS being a police box would be the biggest stretch this fandom has ever made. We're good at making incompatible things fit.

Exhibit A: the way Doctor Who fandom has managed to delude itself that The Brain of Morbius didn't introduce pre-Hartnell Doctors despite all evidence to the contrary.
 

Rand a. Thor

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
10,213
Greece
First series is a flop, so he hits the deep lore button and goes full RTD. I mean hey I love it, but as a fan it makes me feel shallow as fuck cause this was all I really needed to warm up to him as a showrunner, instead of trusting his vision and creating something new instead. Ah well, maybe somebody can move on and actually evolve the series instead of chasing the coattails of the past, but until then I definitely need a 3rd series that continues down this road cause its so damn good. Something definitely tells me that the companions will stick around for Jodie's entire run, at this point they are tied 100% to her character and not just a supporting cast to bounce ideas off of.
 

Xagarath

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,140
North-East England
It's not like theory-crafting a way around the TARDIS being a police box would be the biggest stretch this fandom has ever made. We're good at making incompatible things fit.

Exhibit A: the way Doctor Who fandom has managed to delude itself that The Brain of Morbius didn't introduce pre-Hartnell Doctors despite all evidence to the contrary.
The scriptwriter and cast of Morbius have apparently gone on record saying that's how they intended it at the time, too.
 

Lynd

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,439
There''s a million and one ways you can get around that. Especially if the Time Lords have been manipulating things. In the grand scheme of things it's literally nothing.

Reading some of the comments I'm honestly at a loss how some folk are having a hard time rewriting the canon to fit this in. It's also definitely not a parallel universe situation.

Why can't it be some sort of parallel or alternate timeline thing? Didn't it get alluded to in the first two eps? Would have to rewatch those however to check.
 

Hellers

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,381
Why can't it be some sort of parallel or alternate timeline thing? Didn't it get alluded to in the first two eps? Would have to rewatch those however to check.

Not even slightly. The maps in Skyfall was a misunderstanding about what they represented and Orphan 55 was a "possible future"

Also the leaks which I'm not going to discuss.
 

Dwebble

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,626
The scriptwriter and cast of Morbius have apparently gone on record saying that's how they intended it at the time, too.
Phillip Hinchcliffe said:
"We tried to get famous actors for the faces of the Doctor. But because no one would volunteer, we had to use backroom boys. And it is true to say that I attempted to imply that William Hartnell was not the first Doctor"
It's cut and dried, straight from the pen of two of Doctor Who's greatest geniuses, and fandom just ignores it. It's crazy.

In fact, Hinchcliffe and Holmes were trying to imply that Tom Baker's Doctor was the last one, to build up some tension- they inserted eight new faces before Hartnell, and then Holmes introduced the regeneration limit in The Deadly Assassin the next season. This never went anywhere because Hinchcliffe got the sack, but Baker was intended to be the last Doctor, and they were going to fudge the numbers to make it work- it's VERY similar to what Moffat ended up doing with Time of the Doctor thirty five years later, funnily enough.
 

smashballTaz

Member
Oct 29, 2017
749
I think its telling that
When the Doctor finds the buried Tardis, RuthDoctor is doing her introduction and makes sure to mention that "that's a Tardis, which stands for Time And Relative DIMENSION In Space." Makes me think they will potentially go the alternate dimension angle. Which I'm fine with, why not. Or if they make it another 'secret' doctor, again they've set a precedent for that and people largely were OK with that in the end.

Either way, this was the most fun and interesting episode for me in a long time. Can't wait to see what they've got planned, and I haven't felt that way about these past 2 seasons until now even though I love Jodie as the Doctor and all the companions are very likeable. If they can get to the level of writing at least one episode as experimental as Heaven Sent with Jodie I'll be ecstatic. I'll definitely be looking forward to other episodes written or co-written by Vinay Patel.
 

The Unsent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,435
Not even slightly. The maps in Skyfall was a misunderstanding about what they represented and Orphan 55 was a "possible future"

Also the leaks which I'm not going to discuss.
It looks like everyone read some leaks that said it's pre hartnell, because nothing in the show has confirmed that, yet it keeps being brought up. At least that's what it looks like. I hope I'm wrong and you guys aren't being obnoxious.
 

Hellers

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,381
It looks like everyone read some leaks that said it's pre hartnell, because nothing in the show has confirmed that, yet it keeps being brought up. At least that's what it looks like. I hope I'm wrong and you guys aren't being obnoxious.

The trick with Doctor Who plots is to assume that the less complicated the potential plot the more likely it is. Then factor in just how little parallel universes have been used in the entire history of the show (Quite rightly too since as much as I love them they make consequences fairly meaningless to a large extent).

Also the leaker so far has been very accurate indeed despite the limited info they provided. This is Chibs doing his own Cartmel Master Plan. It reads exactly like a Virgin NA plot. The show is adding to what we already know. For some reason the Doctor has had previous live(s) before what we knew to be the first one and for some reason has forgotten it. The knowledge of what was going on caused the Master to destroy all the time lords. There'll be some sci-fi bollocks but ultimately the plot will be fairly simple. Something happened in the past that changes our perception of what we've already seen.

It's like how people get confused and think the Doctor changed history during the time war. He didn't. We were just presented with information he hadn't previously had access too. He never destroyed Gallifrey. He just assumed he did. He saved it. Doctor Who doesn't do complicated plots on TV. It's all bog standard and very well worn sci-fi. Enjoyable yes but not complicated. We the fans make it complicated in our heads and then get upset when it doesn't match up on TV.
 

16bits

Member
Apr 26, 2019
2,862
I loved the episode though, but I'm tired of the trio doing nothing and just stand there, perfectly aligned, just to tell her "we're with you fam" every once in a while. I really hoped they would do something better with them this season. I liked Graham and Yaz in last season, but I have pretty much nothing to say about them now, except "well, they're present.". 🤷‍♂️

They did absolutely nothing in the episode, just taking up space. Definitely just needed one of them, three is too much.
 

Rand a. Thor

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
10,213
Greece
Maybe the Doctor doesn't remember being Ruth because she is the Doctor but not The Doctor? What I'm saying is that perhaps others have been the Doctor before but some sort of mind bending trickery is utilized so Gallifrey cant remember the previous Time Lord who was the doctor and what not? Better yet have it turn out the last Doctor was actually the Master.
 

Horsefly

Member
Oct 27, 2017
296
UK
Maybe the Doctor doesn't remember being Ruth because she is the Doctor but not The Doctor? What I'm saying is that perhaps others have been the Doctor before but some sort of mind bending trickery is utilized so Gallifrey cant remember the previous Time Lord who was the doctor and what not? Better yet have it turn out the last Doctor was actually the Master.

It'll be a Twins twist. The essence of the "Pre-Doctor" is distilled into two new beings. All the good into one (Doctor/Arnie), all the bad into another (Master/Danny DeVito).
 

The Unsent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,435
The trick with Doctor Who plots is to assume that the less complicated the potential plot the more likely it is. Then factor in just how little parallel universes have been used in the entire history of the show (Quite rightly too since as much as I love them they make consequences fairly meaningless to a large extent).

Also the leaker so far has been very accurate indeed despite the limited info they provided. This is Chibs doing his own Cartmel Master Plan. It reads exactly like a Virgin NA plot. The show is adding to what we already know. For some reason the Doctor has had previous live(s) before what we knew to be the first one and for some reason has forgotten it. The knowledge of what was going on caused the Master to destroy all the time lords. There'll be some sci-fi bollocks but ultimately the plot will be fairly simple. Something happened in the past that changes our perception of what we've already seen.

It's like how people get confused and think the Doctor changed history during the time war. He didn't. We were just presented with information he hadn't previously had access too. He never destroyed Gallifrey. He just assumed he did. He saved it. Doctor Who doesn't do complicated plots on TV. It's all bog standard and very well worn sci-fi. Enjoyable yes but not complicated. We the fans make it complicated in our heads and then get upset when it doesn't match up on TV.
Some people earlier in the thread were saying something like "if the leaks suggest, Chibnall has balls... to rewrite the show 's origins sounds awful" that was before this episode. What else could that mean except saying there were doctors that were pre hartnell?

II mean it doesn't really match up with Twice Upon A Time when you see all the doctors with Testimony and the glass people who make records of people and several other times when you would have saw other doctors in psychic visions of whatever if they were there. It sounds you have had read something specific like spoilers to believe that as confidentially as you do, because it's a vague idea.

I'm going to be disappointed if you guys have been dropping hints, from the leaks.
 

Hellers

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,381
It'll be a Twins twist. The essence of the "Pre-Doctor" is distilled into two new beings. All the good into one (Doctor/Arnie), all the bad into another (Master/Danny DeVito).

I've been trying to google for it unsuccessfully but wasn't the original plan for the Delgado master before his death to be something like this?
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
The main reason I think this probably has to be pre-Hartnell, like it or not, is the TARDIS, as said earlier - cos if it was just an alternate universe thing, that's a very specific model of TARDIS exterior to use from the show's history. Like, that style, those dimensions - that has only been used before under Hartnell for the first two years, never since.

Regarding if it's Pre-Hartnell or not - worth pointing out the TARDIS she has is clearly Hartnell era. Not inside - never mind that - but the one clean shot we get of outside when it's being beamed up to the Judoon ship - it's the narrower design, shorter. It has the St. Johns Ambulance logo, which disappears after Season 3 (so, during Hartnell's tenure) and doesn't reappear until Smith's TARDIS - and the proportions are all wrong for it to be the Moffat-era TARDIS, as that one is massive. It's also got the season 1 style light on the top, so it doesn't even match the TARDIS from Hartnell's later serials, only the very earliest ones, like his first 3-4 stories. So it is pretty definitively a TARDIS from the very, very start of the show.

Regarding The Brain of Morbius, it absolutely does not towards this, but obviously the problem is that the suggestion that episode has made has been trampled over and killed stone dead a lot in recent years - Name of the Doctor, Time of the Doctor, blah blah.
 

Horsefly

Member
Oct 27, 2017
296
UK
I've been trying to google for it unsuccessfully but wasn't the original plan for the Delgado master before his death to be something like this?

I'll have to defer to those who know the pre-2005 lore far better than me. I'm just trying to link it to the end of episode 2: why would the Master be so damn angry about what he found out? If it just involved the Doctor then it wouldn't fit. It has to be enough to warrant the Master returning to his old ways and also destroying all that remained of the Time Lords. The Master is completely a part of the revelation, by my reckoning.
 

Hellers

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,381
I'll have to defer to those who know the pre-2005 lore far better than me. I'm just trying to link it to the end of episode 2: why would the Master be so damn angry about what he found out? If it just involved the Doctor then it wouldn't fit. It has to be enough to warrant the Master returning to his old ways and also destroying all that remained of the Time Lords. The Master is completely a part of the revelation, by my reckoning.

Yup. I agree with that. If this was just something about the Doctor alone he wouldn't have been nearly so angry. This definitely involved him at a deep level.
 

Wallace Wells

Member
May 24, 2019
4,841
The problem is The Doctor snapped at Ryan this episode by saying she knows more than he possibly could and added it a bit of tension to the group but five minutes later it was all forgotten about and then at the end they delivered the usual "fam" speech.

They could have built on that instead of it being all sunshine and rainbows
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
I've been trying to google for it unsuccessfully but wasn't the original plan for the Delgado master before his death to be something like this?

I'll have to defer to those who know the pre-2005 lore far better than me. I'm just trying to link it to the end of episode 2: why would the Master be so damn angry about what he found out? If it just involved the Doctor then it wouldn't fit. It has to be enough to warrant the Master returning to his old ways and also destroying all that remained of the Time Lords. The Master is completely a part of the revelation, by my reckoning.

Originally the Third Doctor's final, regeneration story was going to be a final showdown with The Mater where the reveal was either going to be that they were brothers or that they were opposing aspects of the same individual - like the yin and yang, or the ego and the id. At the end The Master would recognize this and sacrifice himself to save the Doctor (so, a little bit of this eventually seeped into both The End of Time and The Doctor Falls, and RTD even acknowledged the similarity of the sacrifice after The End of Time broadcast). The story never got far enough along where they decided in a concrete fashion what'd happen. Delgado died, the serial was canned, and that was that.
 

Hellers

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,381
This better be a Valeyard or future doctor thing

I'm pretty sure the answer to any plot question going forward is never going to be the Valeyard. :)

Originally the Third Doctor's final, regeneration story was going to be a final showdown with The Mater where the reveal was either going to be that they were brothers or that they were opposing aspects of the same individual - like the yin and yang, or the ego and the id. At the end The Master would recognize this and sacrifice himself to save the Doctor (so, a little bit of this eventually seeped into both The End of Time and The Doctor Falls, and RTD even acknowledged the similarity of the sacrifice after The End of Time broadcast). The story never got far enough along where they decided in a concrete fashion what'd happen. Delgado died, the serial was canned, and that was that.

That's the one! I'd love it if something along those lines was happening. Imagine you're the Master and you find out you're a cast off part of what became the Doctor :) Real gut punch to the ego.
 

APZonerunner

Features Editor at VG247.com
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
1,725
England
The curious thing about the way this new Doctor talks is when she talks to 13 about regeneration, she talks as though she's been through it and has faces she remember. So if it is a pre-Hartnell, it's not just one - it's a whole set of proto-Doctors, presumably.
 

CalamityPixel

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,810
Why would pre-Hartnell Doctors contradict Listen? All we saw was a kid's hair.
Rules of Regeneration. The kid must be Hartnell or it's just gonna get weirder lore wise cramming in Doctors.

The Doctor had ran out of regenerations until the Time Lords pumped more back into the 11th Doctor. At this stage of the docs life though the Valeyard should be knocking about though.