When The Doctor Was a Human Who Invented the TARDIS
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When Doctor Who was first created, the main character was definitely from another galaxy. But many changes were made and different writers had different ideas, many of which went unchallenged. - Zábava
My personal headcannon with Susan making the name Tardis is that there was a naming contest on Gallifrey and she won it, second only to Timey McTimeface
😂
@@Dalek6388 you’re alive
I have another theory. When learning English, because the Doctor and Susan's native tongue is Gallifreyan but Susan is very interested in Earth culture (so interested she requested to be educated there!) Susan found there was no English word for TARDIS because why would there be, no one on Earth would know what a TARDIS was. So, she came up with the word "TARDIS" as an acronym from the English words "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space". The Gallifreyan word for TARDIS is probably not an acronym at all (in fact they mainly call them TT capsules). Now every time the TARDIS is doing simulataneous telepathic translation from Gallifreyan to English the Gallifreyan word for TARDIS is translated to "TARDIS", a word invented by Susan as a placeholder for a word that previously did not exist in the English language.
Oh wow! That’s a really good theory! Might also explain why Wotan knew what the word meant, if it somehow got entered into the stream of earth words. Nice one!
Much easier answer is that it was always called Time and relative dimentions in space machine or something like that, and she just abbreviated it.
Romana was able to stop her hearts without dying so maybe the doctor could also give the impression that he had one heart beat.
Possibly. But that was canon introduced much later that happens to conveniently cover the earlier inconsistencies
@@Dalek6388 In The Mind of Evil the Doctor is put under so much stress by the Keller Machine that one of his hearts stops. This would explain why Ben only hears one heartbeat from the Doctor in The Tenth Planet.
my reading of the scene from Wheel is just that human technology has developed so much by that time that some people happen to have second hearts implanted. I'd assume that this has become normal to the point that someone having two hearts is just sort of normal, no need to question it
well weve seen the doctor with only 1 functioning heart in the power of three and it seems he cant function very well with one functioning heart (i think it also happened in the shakespeare code)
@@onekie5787 yeah it did, but he was definitely struggling in those conditions
In the sensorites, Susan was talking to the Sensorite Elder, who said that humans were actually cool and Susan was a strong point of this, and Susan pointed out that she and her grandfather weren't human. She said those exact words, 'not human.' She then went on to describe her home world. 'It's quite like Earth, but at night, the skies shine a burnt orange, and the leaves are silver' or something like that. Recognize that line from anywhere? Gridlock, anyone?
I just rewatched The Sensorites, she doesn't say that. The Sensorite calls them Earth people, and Susan mentions they're not from Earth.
She does say that quote in the final part when she's alone with the first elder and the other main characters are in the aqueducts. She doesn't directly say she's not human, but it's implied by the fact she's from another planet.
Being not-from-Earth does not imply you are 'not human', that's an interpretation of this content maker only. Human or humanoid can mean from many planets.
Late to the party, but The Sensorites also has the Doctor mention being human, specifically in reference to his eyes. Fast forward to the TV Movie, where the half-human Doctor has human retinas... but of course, there's all sorts of explanations you could come up with to circumnavigate these issues.
@@AwdryFan1997 The 60s episodes call the Doctor human fairly often. But that's easily explainable by people simply thinking he is human, and he doesn't want to say he's actually a Time Lord because he's in hiding from them. (As he explains in the War Games when Jamie asks why he never told him.)
It's a bit harder to explain the many serials where the Doctor falls unconscious and has a medical professional check his pulse and find nothing unusual... In The Spearhead from Space, which I think is the first serial where Time Lords are said to have different internal anatomy, it's very obvious something is up to the nurses and doctors taking care of him.
The easiest solution for a LOT of this - is that Susan doesn't know anything about Timelord society. In later elements of the cannon there are Gallifreyan Civilians, who are pretty much human and can't regenerate. In fact the ability to regenerate as with time travel come from the Timelord Academy.
So it's possible Susan is a citizen and a) cannot regenerate b) didn't know anything about the tardis or time travel before starting their journeys and so c) assumed the Doctor made the ship - meaning d) he was lying just to make himself seam more important and special in the eyes of his grand-daughter
See Underworld. The Time Lords gave the Minyans medical and scientific aid which enabled the Minyans to build regeneration couches. This gives them unlimited regenerations which is not a good idea.
The line, "That's my Time Path Detector. It's been in the ship ever since I constructed it." comes from The Chase. The Doctor just mentions it offhand, so doesn't seem to be trying to impress anybody. Susan had already left by that time.
Susan doesn't necessarily need to be genetically relate to the Doctor at some point prior to the start of the show he may have rescued her as a very child or even a baby and taken her to Galifrey to raise in safety until the High Council found out so they ran away. Grandfather is just the name she calls him & her saying she named the TARDIS is just her making a reverse acronym out of its galifrey name to help describe what it does.
Did your grandfather tell you he'd built his own car to impress you?
@@paulbeardsley4095 Yes he did
- Oh shut up Ford.
All that is likely all non canon now thanks to Chibbers and The Timeless Children
As far as the naming of the time rotor goes, the TV Movie also named it as the central column. The Doctor Who Technical Manual oversized book also named it as such and was just as likely a go-to source in the 1980s as the novelisations you mentioned.
I was fully aware of the whole “dial on the console” business from “The Chase,” but when advising Neil Gaiman what bits of the TARDIS were called what for “The Doctor’s Wife”, I made a choice to favor the more numerous 80s references to what the column is called.
"Oh, Davros, I am far more than just another Time Lord..."
That cut out line could have a different context now.
That line would have had a different context after Lungbarrow
@Magi Tail Welkin - I've actually never been a fan of the tendency, quite prominent in recent years, to "upsell" the Doctor as someone above and beyond a "mere" ordinary Time Lord origin.
For me, it _diminishes_ how unique he is, rather than embellishing the character in any meaningful way. Why is the (until recently), commonly accepted origin of a bored and ideologically different Time Lord who stole a Tardis and escaped Gallifrey any less satisfying than the Cartmell "He might be God" or the Chibnall "He's not Gallifreyan after all!"*? Sometimes less is either more, or just perfect.
*not that this has been revealed in Series 12 but I hear it's what they're going for.
@@edwardcatt2399 Well the new series loves to portray the Doctor as the highest authority (especially in the David Tennant era) when the Doctor is just a smart person who help sort out problems.
@Magi Tail Welkin - I prefer the latter but I'm not a militant fan. I also dislike Jodie Whittaker but I'm happy if people _do_ like her. I try to avoid being a d*ck about others' preferences.
@@edwardcatt2399 I'm okay with Jodie Whittaker. There has never been a bad actor to play the Doctor.
The Doctor also makes a reference to his home planet in Evil of the Daleks.
All very vague though. Could be a human colony planet?
@@Dalek6388 True, he only says to his human friends "I could try and take you to my home planet".
@@Dalek6388 He also tells Jamie that the Dalek Factor conversion doesn't work on him because he's not human in the same episode.
TheValeyard92 yes he definitely says he’s not human towards the end of this story.
@@TheValeyard92 Yes, the line is, "I don't come from Earth, Jamie".
"Yes and if you had your shoes on my boy you could've lent her hers."
-The First Doctor
"in my time" could also be interpreted as "when i was younger"
So up until The War Games the Doctor could have been an advanced human ?
So Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke finally made him an alien which for me was an better idea
Benjamin Davis yeah thats how i hope they explain it because it means the 1st doctor is still the 1st doctor and it doesnt really mean hes still technically the other because hes now a time lord from gallfrey Instead of the unknown alien the other was
@Benjamin Davis Yes, we all hoped for The Cartmel Masterplan and Lungbarrow, but that isn't anything like what we got, is it? Also, loom, not looms. Each Chapter had its own loom.
*reads title*
Me as an intellectual: the Peter Cushing film!
JamesPlaysGames95 exactly what I thought
My sentiments exactly.
Me too
The Peter Cushing films were both remakes.
@@scottwooldridge8946 Yes, We know
You can make an entire documentary about the inconsistencies of Doctor Who and still probably not cover half of it. Such a good video.
Daem
It is all very easily explicable, Gemma gave a superficial examination of the Doctor, assumed he was human, only looked for one heart.
My theory is that, with all the constant travels through time and space, is that he is constantly changing history and causing all manner of discontinuity - like someone from reality inventing a time machine, going back in time and changing all the disastrous events so that they either don’t happen at all or the impact is lessened - like the Titanic never hit the iceberg and made it to her destination - or someone managed to rescue all souls aboard before she sank - or the two World Wars were prevented, resulting in the Korean and Vietnam wars not happening and more recent disasters!
Several Dr Who stories feature more than one Doctor - but no episodes were made where the earlier one met the later one in the original series - the first instance of more than one Doctor sharing screen time was The Three Doctors - at no point during the Hartnell & Troughton eras did they meet their future self or their companions - yet later episodes see as many as five Doctors on screen (The Five Doctors) - to get all five actors in the episode, six actors were used - footage from the story where Susan leaves was used to allow William Hartnell, who was dead by then, to make a posthumous appearance - an actor called Richard Hurndall had to play him as William Hartnell and footage from an unbroadcast story, Shada, was used to incorporate Tom Baker, as he didn’t want to play one-fifth of a character!
A later episode from the Colin Baker era, The Two Doctors, saw him interact with Patrick Troughton and saw Peri meet Jamie!
The later Doctor never told the earlier one what would happen in the future!
For my own part, I have never met a future version of myself - but would teenage me believe what almost 60-year-old me said to him?
@@arthurvasey Altering the past is strictly impossible, that is why the Doctor kept telling people so from The Aztecs to Earthshock etc. The grandfather paradox demonstrates that if you could rewrite history you would also wipe out the agent of change. It is self preventing. In most of the alternative who versions they make this mistake and the plot falls apart.
The Doctor says "the time path indicator; it's been in the Ship ever since I constructed it", but maybe the 'it' referred to was the Time Path Indicator, and not the actual Ship. The Doctor says in the Daleks that he was once regarded as an innovator on his own planet, and if he did steal the Tardis he would have wanted to have something which warned him if another time ship was following him - just in case his own people were in pursuit.
Well yes Gav refers to the point that some people suggest he was talking about him making the Time Path Indicator and not the ship. But as he points out, taken that way the line doesn’t really make sense.
@@Dalek6388 It does make sense actually that way, it's just his interpretation.
I always assumed Gallifrey was both in the future and far away in space. So I never even baulked when the older series indicated they were from the future, it just went without saying that Gallifrey was in the future lol.
"It's my time path detector. It's been in the ship ever since I've constructed it."
In that line the Doctor perhaps means that what he constructed was the time path detector, not the ship. "It" might be referring to the time path detector rather than the ship. Accidentally flexible phrasing here on Nation's part but it makes it very easy to fix his mistake here. Despite what Dalek 63•88 implies in the video, nothing about this line seems to make it a tautology and therefore it's a valid explanation.
Yes, and while Nation's intent as writer seems clear-he thought the character speaking built the time ship-if I'm playing Devil's advocate, the line could easily be read, rather than _"You've been alive ever since you were born,"_ as instead the equivalent of _"You've lived in this town ever since you were born,"_ with a detector conceivably capable of existing _independent_ of a ship, maybe as a cartographer's tool, but this particular device having been installed right away after its creation, or maybe even constructed in place where it sits in the already-existing ship.
A lot of effort and research was definitely put in this episode. Great work!
Thank you!
That thing about the Doctor building the TARDIS himself still works because the Doctor has been shown to make modifications to the TARDIS, so he could have drastically modified it when he fled Gallifrey, effectively making it pretty much new.
I rememeber when the doctor who movie was first shown on bbc one.....people did kick off about the half human business
I always assumed he did that to mess with the Master. Note any time he referenced it, the Master was watching or nearby. A leftover for the freshly regenerated Eighth Doctor from the Seventh's penchant for convoluted plans.
@@erichurd7605 i believe thats the excuse used for it now but originally the half human aspect was going to be part of the new doctor history which would be explored if it got a proper series in america
My personal pet peeve about the 1996 movie is when the medical personnel are trying to save the Doctor, Grace says something about the "bronchiocephalic artery". There is no such artery, and nor would there be. Arteries are vessels that carry oxygenated blood to bodily structures. A "bronchiocephalic" vessel would go from the lungs to the head, and that makes no sense. There is a brachiocephalic artery - I figure the actress just misread or mispronounced it.
The problem with the half human business is that it was lame and unnecessary. Some defend it as explaining why the Doctor is so obsessed with Earth, but that's worse than no explanation. "Why did you save that man from a burning building?" "Because he's my third cousin."
It was a long time ago but I have a memory of being outraged by the early 1960s comic strip making the Doctor an ordinary man from earth. Ditto the two Peter Cushing films although I didn't see them until three or four years later.
Appropriate that this should be released now, just before they retconned the Doctor’s origin again😅
The sensorites Susan mentions that they come from another planet.
"1ST ELDER: When I listen to you, you who are so young among your own kind, I realise that we Sensorites have a lot to learn from the people of Earth.
SUSAN: Grandfather and I don't come from Earth. Oh, it's ages since we've seen our planet. It's quite like Earth, but at night the sky is a burned orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver.
1ST ELDER: My mind tells me that you wish to see your home again, and yet there is a part of you which calls for adventure. A wanderlust.
SUSAN: Yes. Well, we'll all go home some day. That's if you'll let us.
1ST ELDER: I think I will."
Could be an human colony in the far future though?
@@Dalek6388 I think you are being a little obtuse. Look at the quotation again: "[W]e Sensorites have a lot to learn from the people of Earth." Do you think Susan would have said, "Grandfather and I don't come from Earth" if they were from an Earth colony? If they were, they would BE people of Earth.
@@paulbeardsley4095 Not only that, but in the *very first episode* An Unearthly Child, there is an exchange in which Ian complains to the doctor. "IAN: You're treating us like children.
DOCTOR: Am I? The children of my civilisation would be insulted.
IAN: Your civilisation?
DOCTOR: Yes, my civilisation. I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it. Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? *Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without friends or protection. But one day we shall get back. Yes, one day. One day.* The implication of this exchange being that neither the Doctor nor Susan are from Earth or any Earth colony.
@@kalinystazvoruna8702 Yes, it's clearly the intention right from the start that the Doctor and Susan are grandfather and granddaughter and from another planet as well as another time zone.
Dan 23 I came here to put this exact comment 😂
Welcome back!
Would love to see you do one about the various designs of Dalek mutants, also exploring how the props / effects were done.
yes!!! That would be amazing! The dalek mutant designs have changed quite a bit.
Great idea! I would love to see this - I love prop knowledge!
I, always assumed that when the Doctor says "That's the Time Path Detector, it's been in the ship ever since I constructed it." that it was the time path detector that he had constructed and he had installed it in the TARDIS so no problem there with canon for me. We know the Doctor adds and removes bits from the TARDIS... Anyway i like ambiguity much better than canon. I can remember the days of Dr Who when there was no canon - stuff just happened, which was/ is much more fun...
I feel like Ambiguity should be embraced in Doctor Who more
Seems kind of redundant. "I've had this baby ever since it was born", "the steak has been in my stomach ever since I ate it".
That doesn't sound right though, it's like saying I've had this plant ever since I grew it.Or I've owned this car ever since I bought it.Im sure he was referring to the Tardis.I agree ambiguity is way better than canon.
@@alexhetherington8028, The Hartnell Doctor is notoriously vague.....Thanks for agreeing that ambiguity i better than canon.
The way I interpret that line is simply that it's never left the ship before
I have always assumed that the Time Lords were descended from humans, as were all of the very humanoid aliens that they encountered (such as the Kaleds who were modified to become the Daleks). When humans spread out to colonize the galaxy, they encountered many different hostile environments that required many different adaptations. Humans were the first to develop time travel, but the Daleks soon acquired it too. This led to the Time Wars. To thwart their enemies, all either the Daleks or the Humans had to do was travel back to a time before those enemies existed, and prevent them from ever developing in the first place. So humans and Daleks were forced to go back to as close to the beginning as it was possible to attain. The humans colonized Gallifrey, the first planet to become habitable as far as they could tell. They had to adapt themselves to the harsh conditions on this planet, especially the thin low-oxygen air, and so they genetically modified themselves to have two hearts and more efficient blood. Thus they ceased to be humans and became Gallifreyans instead, with those who most concerned themselves with the balance of the universe, in particular those who graduated from the academy on Gallifrey, being designated Time Lords.
The theory that humans eventually evolve into Time Lords has been going around for quite some time. In Twice Upon a Time, when future humanity invented The Testimony device to reach across time and record the memories of people a second before their deaths, it reminded me of the Gallifreyan Matrix. It could have been the earliest version of that system.
I'm pretty sure we're gonna get that reveal in tonight's episode, with the doctor seeing galifrey through the breach and the whole timeless child being Brendan
I think that the breach is sending the human cyber war refugees to galifrey in its far past making them the first gallifreyans
There seems to be a strong argument, thanks to some sloppy/lazy writing and extended material such as books and comics etc, that EVERY race seen in the Doctor Who Universe is descend from Earth Humanity.
As well Timey Wimey, Wibly Wobbly, Interdimensional fiddling always seems to leave Humanity as the ONE race left in the Universe, or the ONE race being hunted by all others, and so on, yet Humanity is also the most fiercely defended species in any timeline or dimension, and not just by the Doctor alone.
So why does everyone want to conquer some backwards primitive homosapiens from an insignificant backwater rock on the spiral arm of a dime a billion Galaxy? (Well its because its our show and we are incredibly egocentric) Most likely its because whoever controls the Human Race BEFORE they colonize the Universe will control the Creation, Form, and Destiny of potentially EVERY RACE IN EXISTENCE.
Or not. Timey Wimey, you know. O.o
I always assumed the line "You look Timelord" was literal, and humans looked like Timelords not vice versa
@@grayeaglej I think it's been established since almost the beginning that pretty much every humanoid race seen in the Doctor Who universe is descended from Earth humanity. For instance, when the Doctor encountered Leela (1977) she was a member of a primitive savage tribe called the Sevateem. That turned out to be a corruption of "Survey Team". In 1973 we had learned that Earth and the Draconian Empire were rivals for control of the galaxy. I seem to recall the Tardis materializing quite often inside an Earth colony or survey ship; not (necessarily) sloppy/lazy writing, and not extended material such as books and comics. The cybermen originally came not from Earth but from Mondas, but we were told that Mondas was in some sense a twin of Earth.
And do you remember Jack Harkness being a time agent from the 51st century, a member of a human agency which had developed time travel? Is it hard to imagine that agency establishing a base on Gallifrey and morphing into the Time Lords? To me that seems a lot more likely than the alternative, that humans and the extremely humanoid Time Lords both developed time travel independently of one another.
Right, let me explain something about Dr Who:
Hartnell & Troughton = Fugitive Years
Pertwee = Convict Years
Until his capture at the end of The War Games, The Doctor was on the run.
A fugitive is going to lie, obfuscate, and omit. They aren't going to be completely honest with anyone.
After his capture, The Doctor became more open and honest, and we learned more about him, his past, and his people.
Why? Because he wasn't looking over his shoulder anymore.
A lot of relief can come from finally being caught.
Also Susan's dialogue in the broadcast episode of 'An Unearthly Child' - "I was born in another time...another world", re-enforces the Doctor being "Not of this earth", but again could be from a future Earth colony.
The Ark in Space. Doctor: " It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favourite species."
How do we know that gallifrey isn't an earth colony anyway?
@@Yetaxa don't worry NuWho will retcon it in next season lol
@@Yetaxa You really must'n't have watched much DW if you can ask a question like that
It could also be metaphorical. One could very well describe Earth 3,000 or 152 million years ago as being ‘a different world’.
I like his statement "I tolerate this dimension but I don't like it".
I will also add that I was aware of the Doctor being a refugee from a 'Galactic War' LONG before the 2005 series (thanks to DWM) and I thought when I first saw 'The End of the World' back on it's first showing in 2005 that the concept of the Time War was supposed to be RTD making use of a rather good idea that had otherwise not been used before (barring the BBC Books series) in spite of it being a solid concept.
When I first began watching the Hartnell stories on UKGold back in 1998 (I had already seen 'The War Machines' thanks to BBC Video and 'The Time Meddler' thanks to BBC2 though) I will admit to being somewhat weirded out regarding the way the the First Doctor was portrayed as having the same physical frailties as an elderly human, likewise the same can be said of my reaction to the way Susan had the same physical frailties as a human teenage girl (eg her reaction to extreme cold in 'The Keys of Marinus' and her relationship with David in 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' being the two most infuriating ones as a 14yr old Whovian after already seeing the 4th Doctor cope with extreme cold in 'The Seeds of Doom' like it was nothing and the many, many references to the Doctor's advanced age being simply the norm for his race that are far too many to point out here).
However for many years I simply assumed that the concept of the Doctor building the TARDIS and also being a human were simply mistakes on the part of the various writers not being aware of what had already being established by other writers, (maybe they were readers of TV Comic? Or perhaps their sole knowledge of the series came from the first Dalek film? As I would often assume)
However the concept of the Doctor being a human inventor from the future in my eyes isn't really all that bad an idea, perhaps the BBC could one day do a full on reboot where the Doctor actually is a human inventor from Earth's (or a colony world) future and see what happens from there.
Happy Times and Places.
This is absolutely brilliant. I love the dismantling of all the fun nonsense that’s built up over the years.
Thanks David!
This is why, when you start a sci fi television programme with multiple writers, it's best to have a head writer write a Cannon book.
Doctor also mentioned his race in unearthly child, right? Saying about when the humans made the first wheel his ancestors made time travel as a game for children, soooo...
Actually in the first script for Unearthly Child Susan says outright they are from earth in the 24th century. The line was cut from the episode in favour of keeping it vague.
@@BadWolf739 could be where they came from before
@@BadWolf739 no it was the 49th Century
@@gwres My bad, I was thinking of Star Trek for some reason. It's been awhile since I watched Unearthly Child, let alone the uncut version of it.
He doesn’t say anything about his “race,” but he does discuss his “civilization” briefly.
So the TARDIS is a futuristic Ford Cortina?
And breaks so often as a Found On Planetside Dead... FOPD. The R leg is damage from a Dalek
You always have such amazing attention to detail with these documentary worthy videos!
Glad you enjoyed!
Just you wait till Sunday's episode when Chibnall is probably going to un-canon everything you've so eloquently explained.
Thank you for helping us to remember things as they should be. ☺️
Isn't that their point though? This video is saying that in the early years of the show the Doctor is shown to be human more than he is alien. All of this is evidence is routinely ignored my fans as it doesnt fit the idea of the renegade time lord from Gallifrey who can regenerate. Ignored until this Sunday perhaps?
@@paularthur3793 I don't think that's going to be the way he'll change things. I think it's going to be way bigger than just explaining that.
@super john ॐ Understatement.
@@beebopvroop5218 No he'll do something different but the point of the video is that the continuity we cling to so rabiddly is riddled with inconsistencies. A doubt Chibnall is going to damage this fragile house of cards.
I stopped watching after capaldi, as in my opinion it went down hill faster than super Gran on a banana skin.
Clearly the Doctor’s line about building the Tardis proves that the Doctor is The Other and designed the Tardis with Rassilon back in the day. Cartmel Master Plan confirmed. 😉
😂
And yet the other isnt really canon
@@ontos8534 Blasphemer! Non believer!!! *The Other is love, The Other is life!!!*
@HN not really aince they are different characters
@HN
One is a character, the other is a bland structural device
Interesting video, as always, but this is the first one where, in my opinion, you're barking up the wrong tree. The show's creators, and successive production teams, always conceived of the Doctor as being an alien from another planet. Verity Lambert was certainly adamant on that point in conversations I had with her back in the 1990s. The reason Sydney Newman wanted the references to the Doctor's origins made less specific in the pilot episode was not that he was uncomfortable with the idea of him being an alien, but that he felt the dialogue in the draft script was too "on the nose" - he wanted more of an air of mystery to remain, leaving room for further development and explanation in later episodes. This is also the reason why Susan turned out to be, on screen, less obviously alien than Carole Ann Ford had been led to believe when she was first approached about the role. (There was at one point in the scripting process a suggestion that she should be an alien princess.) No doubt Terry Nation - and perhaps some of the other early writers - either overlooked or misunderstood the fact that the Doctor was supposed to be an alien, but any suggestions to the contrary that might have slipped through to the transmitted episodes were really just the result of script editors failing to spot and remove them - although the more obvious ones, such as those in the deleted dialogue from "The Chase", were whittled out, as you've correctly noted. The fact that the first episode is called "An Unearthly Child" is a pretty big clue that Susan and her grandfather do not come from Earth; and, one thing you've missed is that in "The Evil of the Daleks" the Doctor explicitly tells both Victoria and Jamie, in separate conversations, that he does not come from Earth. Another thing you've omitted to mention is the references to the Doctor's and Susan's latent (non-human) telepathic abilities in "The Sensorites", with the Doctor talking about them getting back to their "own place" (although admittedly that's rather vague). Although references to the Doctor's origins throughout the 1960s are indeed sparse - in line with the aim of preserving the air of mystery around the character - such references as there are clearly, on balance, support the idea of him being an alien from another planet. Any to the contrary are ambiguous at best - for instance, the "human beings" reference in "The Savages" could easily be taken as synonymous with "humanoids".
That’s all very interesting and the video hopefully opens up that debate to a few people who aren’t so aware of the early years.
What’s interesting is the production teams thoughts at that time. It may be that Verity said she thought he was an alien but surely you can only go by what appears and is said onscreen? And the fact that Nation was obviously still unclear on the matter by the time of The Chase implies that he hadn’t been pushed in any direction with regards to The Doctor being an alien.
When the Doctor talks of his planet who knows if it’s a human colony in the far future? Maybe having developed long life and telepathic ability. After all... there are people around now that can talk to spirits. 😂😉
The title chosen is perhaps a bit clickbaity that implies that thats the way we feel about the 60s Doctor. But really it just a video to highlight those inconsistencies that can be read a certain way. Hopefully it opens up a debate.
Anyway. It’s all pointless really as we know what happened in later stories! 😄
@@Dalek6388 Terry Nation wasn't the sort of writer to have taken much interest in the Doctor's back story, to be honest, and if he was briefed on it by the production team, he probably promptly forgot about it! As I suggested in my comment, even if you go only by what appears or is said on screen, the weight of evidence in the 1960s stories is that the Doctor is an alien from another planet. Really the whole resolution of "The Evil of the Daleks" hinges on the Doctor not being human - that's precisely why he's unaffected by the Daleks' machine intended to imbue humans with the Dalek Factor. Your idea that he might come from a future human colony is not supported by anything in the transmitted episodes, whereas there are repeated hints of him having non-human physiology - his latent telepathic abilities, his great age, the fact that aspirin could be fatal to him etc.
All that is very true and personally I agree with you.
What Gav is really trying to say is that it’s easy, with 50 years of additional canon, to look at it in that way though. If the series has stopped before the War Games it would have been far less clear exactly who The Doctor was. He never specifically says he is alien. There are just hints of things.
Like I said, maybe the title is a bit clickbaity, but the hopefully the video is just saying to look at 60s who in a slightly different way without what we know now. To maybe put yourself in the mind of a casual viewer back then.
@@Dalek6388 Hartnell is my favourite Doctor and I've always thought of him as an alien. I did watch the 2005-2006 series first and got hooked and have been trying to catch up since....lol Stupid BBC and their deletion policy.
Stephen James Walker bang on!!
"The term 'galaxy' is thrown around in a very improbable fashion" - I'm almost ashamed to say that made me laugh lol. I racked my brain figuring out what the "outer galaxies" thing was. I'm definitely watching that next video.
There is something on the wheel though. She listens to his heart/hearts and furrows her brow, saying something about how it's remarkable, and the Doctor quickly changes the subject.
Great theory though.
Edit: I went and rewatched it. It seems I remembered it incorrectly. She doesn't react, and nothing happens. I believe that bit of dialoge is from the novelization, which I have read. That is strange though.
I went looking and found the dialogue.
She says "You and your friends are amazingly healthy specimens, Doctor. Though some of these readings are..."
The Doctor interrupts her, and quickly says "Well, we all keep fit as best we can."
Wow another meticulously thought out and thought provoking piece! Excellent.
Thanks Tim!
In my head Canon I think that at one point prior to the start of our program the Doctor and Susan actually visited Gallifey during the Old Time, back when it was still possible to do so (its safe to say that that era has long since become time locked) hence the various references to him being more than 'just another' Time Lord during his 7th Incarnation, and also Susan's claim to 'inventing' the term 'TARDIS'.
The same can be said of many of the cases of the Doctor's name dropping of him meeting famous figures from Earth history. Barring cases which are 'shown' to us and/or cases that are explicitly stated to have happened during later Incarnations.
Happy Times and Places
Thank you so much for this exploration of early Who! This helps explain and tie together so many of those little oddities pepper those early episodes. Such a fascinating peek into a lore that might have been!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Those CGI reconstructions are pure nightmare fuel
The novels and Big Finish stories kind of make more sense of Susan's desire to not leave the 20th century. In _The Beginning_ we find out that Earth was actually the very first planet they visited after leaving Gallifrey, and because of this, it quickly became a favorite place for the Doctor and Susan to visit. While their time in 1963 was their first time revisiting Earth in awhile, as they had actually been in another universe before then visiting the planet Quinnis. When they did arrive on Earth again, they decided to settle down for a bit in 1963 and Susan grew to like it more than any other time or place they had visited, including on Earth.
Fascinating and well researched. I love that you are opening things for debate, and I enjoy your videos as per usual! Keep it up!
Thank you Christian 😃
this is my first video of yours i have watched and i must say it has helped to revive my intersest in watching more of classic who! :)
Glad you enjoyed it! And I hope you go on to watch the rest of our videos!
I think it’s not at all a stretch to say that the Doctor was saying that the detector was in the ship since he built it (the detector). The idea remains that he could have removed it and hen reinstalled it later at any point, so the fact that it’s never been removed since it was constructed carries ample enough meaning to be worth saying.
I love that clip you threw in at the very end. Priceless. Haha.
I dont see the fact of the Monk having a TARDIS, indicating they are mass produced, as contradicting the original portrayal of the Doctor having constrcucted it himself. The Monk is said to have come from the same civilisation as the Doctor but 50 years on. In 1903 the Wright brothers constructed the first flying airplane, the Wright Flyer, at the time it was unique, the only one in the world, and it was theirs. Fifty years later their design had been copied, modified, improved and planes were in mass production. It seems quite reasonable, indeed likely, for this to be the case with the TARDIS.
Very good. I particularly liked the animation added to stills from missing episodes.
Thank you Joe!
Okay the way you ended it with 8's terrible line was hilarious
I keep coming back to one quote... and I believe it was said to sort out some of this.... "the doctor lies' the truth is whatever the doctor wants it to be, whatever is convenient at that time. It helps sort out many paradoxes in many ways, and makes canon a bit more... fluid.
Yes, it’s a short cut to get themselves out of all sorts of trouble! 😂
When you've been going as long as doctor who has, continuity gets a bit difficult.
Fascinating. Brilliantly argued and ingeniously researched. Thank you!
I like the idea, that the Doctor only Show his „True Colors“ as Alien in „True Colors“ with Three & UNIT, after he is kicked to Earth. 😂
Fascinating! It's interesting that the Doctor's origin was still ambiguous when the first Peter Cushing movie was commissioned. I always thought it strange that they depicted him as a human, rather than an alien/Time Lord, in the two movies. Explains a lot!
I have my own silly back-story for the Peter Cushing character. He is the inheritor of the role of adventurer-inventor with the title 'Dr Who' that was instigated by that character from the revived series story The Next Doctor. A master-apprentice lineage originally inspired by the real Doctor eventually achieves time-travel after a century or so of obsessive work. :)
They were putting together an action adventure movie set on another planet. It was ABOUT the adventure, not the back story of the title character. For the sake of popular appeal it made more sense to say, look, I’ve invented this amazing space and time machine, let’s go!
such a huge step to make him ahead of his time to what's apart of him now
Huh maybe the doctor IS half human half timelord somehow
The Doctor could have been an engineer who worked in a TARDIS factory. That way he could still have built the ship and also stolen it.
I'm always amazed at just how well done your videos are, Even if I should expect it by now.
And the footage used for Daleks Master Plan? Where ever did that come from?
Thanks! 😀 The footage is Gav working his magic with various software!
I mean... after last weeks episode... the main character genuinely did have amnesia lol
A nice surprise for a Friday and an enlightening one at that!
Glad you liked the surprise!
Very good look at this. Whilst some have pointed out that there are a few other bits of 60s Who, like the Sensorites, that hint at a more directly alien origin for the Doctor, in a way they're beside the point of this; the point is that there was still a lot of ambiguity, the "lore" was far from being set in stone, or in a show bible or anything, since if it was, we probably wouldn't have those moments at all. It shows that retcons happen all of the time in the show, to quite major parts of it (try and reconcile the events of The Dead Planet with those of Genesis of the Daleks. Go ahead, just try!).
As for the whole Timeless Child thing, I really like it, for the simple reason that though it reveals a lot, it adds in a tonne more mystery. We now know the truth about The Doctor's place in Time Lord society, but it raises a bunch of interesting new questions about their true origins. In fact, it's almost like we've gone right back to that original pitch mentioned at the start of this video, with the Doctor unable to remember their true name or origins or anything...
Great video, a bit weirded out by the inhabitant of Uncanny Valley you got on the Time Curve Visi-Scope display whilst playing some William Hartnell dialogue...
PS the First Doctor could be referring to a universally understood concept as 'Van Bruden's law' so that the humans would know what he was talking about.
Rule #1: The Doctor lies
14:35
This idea isn’t _entirely_ retconned. It’s stated to be the reason for River Song’s regenerative abilities, despite the fact that both her parents are human.
Great episode! It's neat to think that the Doctor (was originally written as) human inventor from the future. There was a TV show in the states from the 1950s called Captain Z-Ro. He'd built time machine and each episode he would get involved in some historic event. The Captain eventually had some sci-fi adventures as well. I was wondering if perhaps someone saw these and may have been influenced by some of the ideas. Anyway, enough rambling, thank you.
I'm so glad I found this channel.
Welcome!
There's an hypothesis from Peel in a Cyberman-themed BBC publication after the final axing, and before the Fox film which refers to the possibility that Gallifreyans are effectively human, yet regeneration is a nano-technological TARDIS-based intervention which augments the body with an auxiliary respiratory system, second heart etc. The Time Lords may be distinguished by Class-based access to this technology - hence the distinction between them and the rural/tribal Gallifreyans.
8:50 Ooh, that's interesting, because in Day of the Daleks the reference to Blinovich as a time theorist implies that the Time Lords" understanding of temporal physics includes the work of Earth scientists, so that thread is not completely abandoned.
2:59 Maybe, although I’ve not got many experiences of conversations with alien beings to go on... 😉
Exactly. Perhaps he didnt want to share his true nature with them
Brilliant as ever, guys, and great timing, as the new series seems to be suggesting some kind of impending timelord/Gallifrey origin story, so this could become highly relevant.
On a side note, interesting CGI talking heads there, is that pics of real faces wrapped on a 3D model, or some use of Deep Fake?
Thank you 🙏
Re. The faces. That’s Gav and his magic so I’d better leave it to him to answer but I don’t think it was 3D modelled heads
The part where the Doctor says "It's been in the machine ever since I counstructed it" is ambiguous due to using 'it' to refer to the piece of technology he was referring to at the time.
While it could be interpreted as "this device has been in the machine since I built the entire vessel", it is also possible it could mean "This addon has been installed in the time machine since I finished building the addon."
What I love about Doctor Who is that with time travel, you can hand-wave everything and make it all true. For example. In the future, the Doctor invents the Tardis and starts time travelling. Other humans copy his idea and make more Tardises, eventually gaining enough mastery over time to make the Web of Time. In time travel, there is no past, present and future so the Time Lords have always been around because they can just retcon everything. They start improving their bodies (e.g. two hearts) and so when they force the Doctor to regenerate, he gets these new additions. That's why he's only got two hearts from 3 onwards. It's FLAWLESS
That was very interesting and very thorough, thanks!
Glad you enjoyed!
Building upon your idea that the Doctor used to build TARDISes, I think it's entirely possible that him and Susan were present when the first ones were invented, and that it was indeed Susan who coined the term "TARDIS", which the rest of the Time Lords adopted.
Something I love about the world of Doctor Who is that any plot hole or inconsitency can be fixed with a wacky theory. This is why, ultimately, tonight's revelations in The Timeless Children won't have that big of an impact on the show. Doctor Who lore, much like time itself, is in a constant state of flux.
On an unrelated note, was it the old "galactic war" idea that inspired Russell T Davies to introduce the Time War years later, I wonder?
Well there's a big difference between a galactic war and a time war. The only thing they have in common is that they involve a war, a phenomenon which I believe predates Russell T. Davies.
Time wars predate Doctor Who - see the works of Poul Anderson, Jack WIlliamson, Fritz Leiber and others.
To me it appears the interpretation depends on who is script editing at the time. Whittaker and Tosh work on the assumption that he's definitely an alien, Spooner that he's an advanced human, Davies keeps it vague (either through a choice to have mystery or simply through being too busy to plan it out) and no-one else seems to think about it until Sherwin, Dicks and Hulke bash out the Time Lord concept.
It’s funny how the ideas they had then were used 50 years
13:48 it isn’t certain because he says “like you or me” *like* is what he
Very nice video my friend. Nicely researched.
Easy fix for everything.
Rule 1: The Doctor lies
Which was a rule put forth by a frequently amoral liar.
Rule one, do exactly as I say.
There's also: "I'll explain later."
Too easy of a fix.
@@Terminus_El_Camino I understand that Reference.
I like to believe the Peter Cushing Dalek movies are set in a parallel universe
Another possible explanation comes from Moffat’s novelisation of Day of the Doctor: the Dalek movies exist as in universe films. The Doctor apparently loves them, 10 and 11 even watch both films while the zygons and UNIT negotiate in the black archive and they start imitating Peter Cushing’s walk and voice
Ironic that the early episodes fixated so much on the time element (which is perfectly understandable as it is a much more unique and interesting concept), yet the majority of the show that was to follow focused on the space travel/alien element.
That brightened up my day.
😃
Excellent and timely video, I was discussing just the other day when the mythology of the Time Lords was introduced. Now I know! And I do wish they'd carried on with McCann. He showed promise.
Glad to have helped!
At least Big Finish audios have him a chance to shine
Excellent as always!
Thank you!
Many thanks for this !
So here’s an idea for a dalek video you could talk about all the dalek merchandise that exists and how some of it from the 60’s to the 90’s was handled and such like that
Cool- like the animated inserts for the Dalek Master plan and other missing episodes
Gav did some great work on those bits!
Absolutely fascinating...Brilliant video 👍
Thank you Phil!
The Doctor building the TARDIS could be referring to the fact that he chose the interior and maybe built it himself. What I mean is that he built the design as we have seen many iterations of the roundels and console.
Also, the Ninth Doctors TARDIS was created with the idea that the Doctor built the console himself with old parts. This doesn’t mean the whole TARDIS was built by him, just that he modified it like one might modify their car.
In the Time Clash minisode where Ten meets Five, Five clearly references the desktop theme. I know this was a sort of joke but it does show the Doctor can control the theme of the interior and even the layout / components on the console itself.
Numerous components, such as the radiation detector or the fast return button have come and gone on different consoles so the Doctor can choose what instruments are on the console. In the modern era (except for 12 adding the roundels and bookshelf) the TARDIS chooses its own interior but I think the Doctor can build it as he pleases, choosing every instrument on the console and the layout.
What do you think?
It’s kind of like building a website. You rarely add type the raw HTML code anymore, you instead build using already existing code but you assembly it in your own way. It still counts as building a website even if you don’t write the raw for yourself.
Riversong can also regenerate and she is human but is effected by being concived is the TARDIS.
My personal headcanon is that the Humans become one of the most prominent species in the universe, so the like of the Monk are interested to visit Earth
Great video as always :)
Thank you!
When you watch episode 1 of The Web Planet they emphasise the differences between Barbara and Vicki when they talk about medication and education. It feels almost like this was something they wanted to explore at that point in the show, highlighting the cultural differences between Ian & Batbara with Vicki due to the times they were from, and similarly with all of the companions compared to the Doctor who was from even further in the future.
Most series which use different writers, especially those which ask established freelance writers to pitch ideas for stories, have what's called a bible. It's usually a document of a few pages. It details the backstory of the series and the characters, what elements the producers want and what they don't want etc. A bible may be longer or shorter, depending on the complexity of the series backstory.
I would have expected any bible for the series to give the Doctor's background as either human, non-human or that they wanted the matter to remain ambiguous.
Certainly by the late 1970s I know that there was a bible for Dr Who. If there was such uncertainty between writers during the 1960s on such a fundamental point as the lead character's background then maybe there wasn't a bible at the time and the format was merely passed on verbally to the different writers. That's a recipe for confusion and maybe that's partly what we have here.
David Whitaker wrote one. It was dropped by his successor.
Even the actual Bible has an Old Testament & a New Testament, which don't always agree! 😉
3:53 spooky, the character David has a profile quite like David Tennant
Brilliant series please keep them coming. Anyway you could so something about the first film or is there not enough data?
That’s definitely something that could happen. We’d like to cover the props in that movie and what happened to them at some point in the future
Brilliant guys.keep them coming
Thank you! More to come!
You are forgetting 1 point in the sensorites Susan says "grandfather and I don't come from earth"
I believe the Doctor having two hearts shows up in "The Dominators" first, but still doesn't explain how it wasn't noticed in "The Wheel in Space." The First Doctor had one heart, but novels later explained Time Lords got a second heart after their first regeneration.
The Doctor's planet is always interesting too, in the early days. He thinks he should go home in "The Massacre" but says he can't. In "The Faceless Ones" he says he never got back to his home, like he tried. In "The Tomb of the Cybermen" when he talks to Victoria, the implication is almost like his family is dead, and I remember thinking "wait, Susan's dead??" like there's some unseen story we don't know about. And finally "The War Games" reveals he ran away to explore and help people and the Time Lords put him on trial for interfering. Funny they didn't ask what he did with the Hand of Omega...
It's like there is a plot point where the Doctor's second heart is about to be discovered but the Dominator doesn't bother examining him because he will just be the same as Jamie, he assumes. Then we learn that more advanced species like the Dulcians and Dominators have two hearts.
The first clue that they are from another planet is the very first episode title - "an unearthly child". Also there is still a lot to suggest that timelords and humans are linked by some form of genome due to Riversong - A human born conceived in the timestream, alomes indicating that humans are stunted versions of timelords.
The issue with the line in the chase about the Dr building something makes more sense about it being the detector - it doesn't make sense to have mentioned creating something if its was part of the ship originally. Keep in mind this is the same episode we see the Time-Space Visualiser built and set up so we already are introduced to the itea that the Dr tinkers and adds new items to the Tardis. Using the same line but having it as the Time-Space Visualiser (as if he was talking in a few seasons time) still makes grammatical sense and is clear because of the context we have seen that hs isn't referring to the whole ship "Thats my Time-Space Visualiser, its been in the ship ever since I built it"
As a second take on it, its known that the Tardis was needing repairs but not how many - its possible there has been a situation like with the ship of theseus where so much of the Tardis has been "repaired" and replaced that its almost as it its been completely rebuild by the Dr without having been built by scratch by them.
Fascinating research! I knew this from the movies, but not really anything else pre-Pertwee.
And The Monk really intrigues me now.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Another great video essay. Thanks
Thank you!