Fans don’t agree on whether “The Doctor” is supposed to be called “Doctor Who” or if the show’s name is a question about who the Doctor really is. I watched the Peter Cushing movies on video a long time ago and I am pretty sure I remember him calling himself “Doctor Who”. I don’t know if William Hartnell ever called himself Doctor Who.
Missy (the Master in his last regeneration) introduced herself as “Doctor Who” in one of the last episodes of the season, the one where they landed on the big colony ship. When Bill and Nardol argued with her Missy explained that the Doctor used to call himself Doctor Who. And that is the oldest question in the universe as every young Matt Smith fan knows.
Peter Capaldi has been intense as the Doctor and I am going to miss him. He plays a mean guitar too.
Earlier this year we saw Jodie Whittaker will be the new Doctor. I haven’t seen her in anything but I think she looks kind of cute. So I guess it’s time for the straight fanboys to have someone to drool over other than a companion. Not that the show is about who you should drool over. But people will sexualize these characters no matter what we say.
Jodie’s Doctor will be the third Time Lord we have seen regenerate across genders. We almost got to see the John Saxon Master begin his transformation when he shot Missy and left in the elevator for his TARDIS. But we know he regenerates into her.
The other Time Lord who regenerated into a different gender was the Lord Commander of Gallifrey that Peter Capaldi’s Doctor shot when he was trying to rescue Clara.
I cannot help but wonder how Clara will come back. Capaldi’s Doctor is supposed to have forgotten her. Will he hallucinate her the way Matt Smith’s Doctor hallucinated Amy Pond? Isn’t that a cheat?
Be that as it may, now there are rumors that Matt may be coming back for a cameo. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if he was just an innocent bystander or something? Peter was a secondary character in one of the David Tennant episodes. When he was regenerating at the Doctor he asked “why this face?” Everyone saw that as a kind of in-joke and I guess it was. But now I wonder if Steven Moffatt was already thinking about the next regeneration. Did he always know the 13th Doctor was going to be a woman?
And may I say that I don’t like the way they have messed up the numbers on the Doctors. Here is how I think of them:
- William Hartnell
- Patrick Troughton (1st regeneration)
- Jon Pertwee (2nd regeneration)
- Tom Baker (3rd regeneration)
- Peter Davison (4th regeneration)
- Colin Baker (5th regeneration)
- Sylvester McCoy (6th regeneration)
- Paul McCann (7th regeneration)
- John Hurt (the War Doctor) (8th regeneration)
- Christopher Eccelston (9th regeneration)
- David Tennant (10th regeneration)
- David Tennant (11th regeneration, 2nd by David)
- Matt Smith (12th regeneration, last “natural” regen)
- Peter Capaldi (1st new cycle regeneration)
- Jodie Whittaker (2nd new cycle regeneration)
I know some fans want to count the faces Tom Baker saw in “The Brain of Morbius” but I prefer to ignore that whole mess. We have to live with the fact that the 4th Doctor saw the faces but that doesn’t mean we have to assume that any explanation is correct. Sometimes it’s okay to have an unsolved mystery in your universe.
Here is one more picture of Jodie Whittaker as the new Doctor. This is the official poster released by the BBC. I think her clothes look kind of like a kid show costume. I doubt they will last very long.
