We can’t say that we weren’t warned. The BBC and Chris Chibnall, the executive producer of the long-running science-fiction show ‘Doctor Who’ had warned the audience that they were in for the shock of a lifetime during last Saturday’s episode ‘Fugitive of the Judoon.’ They weren’t lying. The majority of the audience thought that they’d already had that shock halfway through the running time, but they were wrong. By the time all was said and done, the mouths of viewers were hanging wide open, and Twitter had almost exploded. But what could it all possibly mean?
Note: you probably shouldn’t read the rest of this article if you haven’t seen ‘Fugitive of the Judoon, as it contains spoilers.
The first of the episode’s shocking revelations was a pleasant one – after a full decade away, John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness is back. The lovable and immortal time agent was last seen drowning his sorrows in an intergalactic bar during David Tennant’s final episode, and fans have been missing him ever since. Although Barrowman is now a little older, the character has lost none of his charm or cheek. From the moment he kissed Graham under the mistaken impression he was greeting the Doctor to his lamenting the fact there wasn’t a bar on his (stolen) spaceship, this was very much the same Captain Jack that we know and love. During any normal episode of ‘Doctor Who,’ Jack’s return would have been the story of the night. This, however, was not a normal episode of ‘Doctor Who.’
All the way through the episode, we were given hints that Ruth wasn’t the normal, down-to-earth woman, wife, and tour guide that she appeared to be. Her true identity was kept a secret even from herself, but we eventually discovered the truth that her husband died to protect. Ruth only appeared to be human because she’d used a Chameleon Arch (another nod to Tennant’s time on the show) to become human. Her true Time Lord essence was hidden behind glass at what she thought was her old family home – and she wasn’t just any old Time Lord, either. When she broke the glass, we were all stunned to find out that Ruth, played by Jo Martin, is apparently another incarnation of the Doctor.
There is a precedent for this in Doctor Who. We’ve seen multiple Doctors on screen at the same time before. David Tennant, Matt Smith, and John Hurt all got together for the 50th anniversary special ‘Day of the Doctor’ in 2013. The first three Doctors – William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee, teamed up in the tenth-anniversary special ‘The Three Doctors’ in 1973. There were even (loosely) five Doctors working together during the 20th anniversary special during the 1980s. Never have two Doctors come together like this in the past, though, because there’s a big difference – Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor doesn’t recognize Jo Martin’s Doctor, and Jo Martin’s Doctor doesn’t recognize Jodie Whittaker’s.
This poses obvious questions and problems. If Jo Martin’s Doctor is an incarnation from the future, she should remember and recognize being Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor. If she’s from the 13th Doctor’s past, then we (and the Doctor) should already know her. Not only did Martin’s Doctor not recognize Jodie, but she also failed to recognize the sonic screwdriver, and her TARDIS was more reminiscent of the 1st Doctor’s than any of the more modern designs. There’s a strong suggestion that Martin comes from a distant past that ‘our’ Doctor can’t remember – but how could that possibly be the case?
As has been mentioned several times on the show before (by several different Doctors), regeneration is a lottery. The Doctor never quite knows what he or she is going to get. It’s like an alien version of an online slots game on websites like Amigo Slots, and the outcome is as random of the spin of the reels on an online slots game, too. There are even winners and losers. Colin Baker’s 6th Doctor, for example, would certainly have reason to feel he lost this Time Lord version of online slots because he was fired from the role. Tom Baker and David Tennant could probably be considered the biggest winners. Even in all this randomness, though, there’s a sense of order. We know when each Doctor started and finished. We know Hartnell was the first, and we know every incarnation up to and including Whittaker – or do we?
‘Doctor Who’ has pulled a trick on us before by unveiling a secret, unknown Doctor from the past. John Hurt’s War Doctor, first seen in ‘The Name of the Doctor’ in 2013, was retroactively positioned between 8th Doctor Paul McGann and 9th Doctor Chris Eccleston – a development that was made possible because viewers had never seen the regeneration between McGann and Eccleston on screen. Eagle-eyed fans on social media now believe there could be space for another ‘secret’ Doctor within the character’s past – but we have to go back fifty years in the show’s history to find it.
At the end of the sixth series of ‘Doctor Who’ in 1969, Patrick Troughton’s 2nd Doctor is exiled to Earth and formed to regenerate by the Time Lords. We next see the character in 1970’s ‘Spearhead from Space, which opens with 3rd Doctor Jon Pertwee stumbling out of the TARDIS as it lands on our planet. We never specifically see the 2nd Doctor become the 3rd Doctor, and that’s just enough wriggle room for Chibnall to shoehorn this unknown Doctor in – although why the 13th Doctor wouldn’t recognize her is a question that would still need answering.
The fans could be way off the mark, of course, as could all of the other guesses and rumors currently circulating online. What the episode has done, though, is got people talking about ‘Doctor Who’ more than they have for several years, and from a publicity point of view that can only be a good thing. For the real story of who this new Doctor is and where she fits with the show’s continuity, we’re going to have to carry on watching. The season has five full weeks to go. If the showrunners keep us waiting until the very final episode to let us in on any of their secrets – or even just to let us see Jack again – those five weeks are going to feel like a very long time.