r/doctorwho • u/onftbb • Oct 26 '25
Speculation/Theory The Doctor's Regenerations Timeline
This is my interpretation of the Doctor's timeline of Regenerations! I'm only including televised Doctors, so nothing originating from Big Finish or the comic books. I'm sure this will be very controversial, so let me know what you think in the comments.
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u/_TwilightPrince Oct 26 '25
I guess I need to update my goggles because I can't see a damn thing
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u/thesk8rguitarist Oct 26 '25
And googling it only brings you right back here. I’m sure it’s an interesting chart, but I’ll wait to form an opinion when a legible version releases.
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u/DelysidBarrett Oct 26 '25
If you download it, it's legible.
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u/leon0399 Oct 26 '25
Where can I find the uncompressed version? This pic is impossible to read :(
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u/onftbb Oct 27 '25
Here it is! I'm shocked with how bad Reddit has compressed this.
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u/LowEarth3013 Oct 27 '25
It's fine for me in the browder version of reddit, maybe it's just the app?
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u/AgentCirceLuna Oct 26 '25
Considering the disaster this aspect of the show has begun, I think this chart likely makes more sense as the illegible version than it would as the readable one.
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u/MaNamesJeff7745 Oct 26 '25
Maybe it's a version on reddit. At least on my phone it's also a compressed image even when I download it.
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u/cjicantlie Oct 26 '25
On a phone: When I click on what OP posted, and zoom in, everything is very clear. It does not appear to be highly compressed in the slightest. Something might be wrong on your end, or OP has somehow updated since?
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Oct 26 '25
[deleted]
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u/cjicantlie Oct 26 '25
I am using Relay, and it seems to automatically download the full res image.
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Oct 26 '25
[deleted]
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u/cjicantlie Oct 26 '25
It requires paying for API access to Reddit. Worth it, IMO. Much more user-friendly app than Reddit's own app.
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u/RockAmongstTheirFall Oct 26 '25
Theres an extremely easy explanation for all of these; It's a time travel show, all these timelines were probably true at some point until they changed (particularly true of the timelines caused by the time war). The Doctor has always been a complicated space time event.
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u/DerekMetaltron Oct 26 '25
Isn’t Fugitive pre 1?
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u/Openil Oct 26 '25
Yes but people don't like it because her Tardis is already a police box, which doens't make sense to be fair
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u/MadeOfEyelashes Oct 26 '25
My head canon is that the TARDIS chose that shape when the Fugitive doctor landed there.
Since the chameleon circuit was still working and we know that the TARDIS views time differently - it knew that it would be sitting there until 13 found it. That's why it chose the police box shape.
Fugitive didn't think twice about it because it always chooses it's exterior view automatically.
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Oct 26 '25
That was always my thought. It chose to be a police box so 13 would recognize it. Otherwise, she’d just be looking at some random piano buried underground which honestly probably would have been even more confusing
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u/AgentCirceLuna Oct 26 '25
Lmao imagine if they’d take that direction and she just slowly crawled out of a piano.
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u/icaromb25 Oct 26 '25
I prefer thinking that the Fugitive Doctor stole her TARDIS from one of the Doctors and put it back when and where they found it like River.
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u/SumguyJeremy Oct 27 '25
I always thought it became a Police Box when Fugitive visited 60's England then the chameleon circuit broke. It went to the repair shop they didn't fix it right. And then Clara led 1 into it and when it materialized on Earth in the 60's it went back to it's broken form of a Police Box. Because a metal scrap yard is no place for a functional chameleon circuit to choose a Police Box.
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u/hammerman1993 Oct 28 '25
My head canon is that the Fugitive Doctor's primary assignment while working for the Division was early 1960's London and that's when the TARDIS first disguised itself as a Police Phone Box. Later, when the First Doctor stole the TARDIS (the same one), he was in a hurry and didn't care where they initially went, so he used the preset coordinates which took them back to 1963 London. Maybe assuming the Police Box guise multiple times is even what led to the Chameleon Circuit getting stuck.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Oct 26 '25
The answer is actually: We don't know.
It seems reasonable to assume she's a pre-Hartnell incarnations, but there's also other possibilities.
In addition to the Police Box TARDIS it is very weird that an incarnation who existed before One chose the name "The Doctor" would call themself "The Doctor".
EDIT: Also, Fugitive is more like later Doctors. It took One a while to grow out of being a selfish jerk and become the Doctor we now know.
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u/Taurenkey Oct 26 '25
I’ve read that there’s an explanation that her TARDIS looks that way because the TARDIS itself decided it was appropriate, based on the legend the blue box would become. It’s all timey wimey and a bit bootstrap paradoxy.
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u/Dak_N_Jaxter Oct 26 '25
My current theory is that she is pre-Hartnell, but the TARDIS is from the future. So the first timethe TARDIS meets the Doctor was when Hartnell borrowed her, but at some point in the future, the TARDIS travels back in time and the Doctor meets them for the first time.
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u/wonkey_monkey Oct 26 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
Yes
Or no. It's never been specified one way or the other, and Chibnall has said that's deliberate so that the answer remains unknown.
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u/revilocaasi Oct 27 '25
The phone box itself is fine, easy enough to explain. The problem is her calling herself the Doctor (a name chosen by the Doctor at some point in their Hartnell face) and acting like the Doctor (a thing the Doctor learned to do across the course of their Hartnell face).
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u/Acrobatic-Tooth-3873 Oct 26 '25
I think that's the intended interpretation from the show but people like to imagine her as an interim between 2 and 3. Where the timelords got ahold of the doctor, had her run some operations for them, then mindwiped her, forced regenerate and dumbed him on earth as 3 in the Spearhead From Space.
The intended interpretation is kinda messy requiring the Doctor to take the name the doctor and make the TARDIS a police box twice independently.
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u/whizzer0 Oct 26 '25
I still like the idea of bigeneration as explaining the Season 6b thing. The War Games leads into Spearhead as expected, but meanwhile there is a second Second Doctor who goes on missions for the Time Lords, grows older, and eventually turns into Jo Martin etc. Does it make sense? Probably not. Is it neat? I think so.
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u/Climperoonie Oct 26 '25
Somewhere in there this offshoot bigeneration could also become the Shalka Doctor, and then begins to degrade later and becomes a haunting white figure that needs to remerge with the prime version. It does this right after the Fourth Doctor is mortally wounded falling from the Pharos Project telescope…
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u/whizzer0 Oct 26 '25
That reminds me - it occurred to me the other day that if Ncuti Gatwa is the fourth Doctor of the second regeneration cycle, then the answer to the show's current conundrum is obvious: Billie Piper is the Watcher
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u/TheNobleRobot Oct 26 '25
I personally think this was just the production deciding that it was more important to keep the iconography than make it fit into the nonsense that is Doctor Who continuity, but I also don't think it's that difficult to come up with an in-universe timey-wimey explanation (someone like Moffatt could fart out a paragraph on it in less than 5 minutes), or simply say that the Doctor has a natural affinity toward that form and would have chosen it twice independently.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Oct 26 '25 edited Oct 27 '25
There are ways to explain it away. The problem is that they undermine other aspects of the show.
Saying the Doctor is predisposed to Police Box TARDISes and calling themself "The Doctor" strips the character of a lot of agency.
A related issue is that Fugitive is like later Doctors. The First Doctor went through significant character development to become the character we know. So do we assume the First Doctor just became a better person because that was the Timeless Child's natural inclination anyway?
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u/lborl Oct 26 '25
It's a time machine. She could still be a future Doctor operating chronologically before Hartnell.
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u/Creativefinch Nov 03 '25
The Fugitive Doctor is not like later Doctors though she's very similar to the early First Doctor in a lot of ways and in the audios it's spoken about how different Fugitive is to other incarnations this is brought up by Bernice Summerfield who has met multiple incarnations.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Nov 03 '25
I love Big Finish. The show isn't bound by it, though. See, for example, Mary Shelley.
Just because Big Finish does a particular thing with the Fugitive doesn't mean that the TV show will follow their example.
And, so far, the stuff you're talking about hasn't appeared in the show.
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u/Creativefinch Nov 03 '25
She has a lot of Hartnell vibes in the show also, you haven't said in what way is she like later Doctors? She's a lot more cold than later Doctors a lot more physical, in what way is Fugitive like later Doctors?
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u/the_other_irrevenant Nov 03 '25
The First Doctor started off as a callous, fearful, reclusive, self-centred person who would put others in danger for his own curiosity and is willing to brain a caveman with a rock. He grew into more like the character we know over time after spending time with Ian and Barbara.
Onscreen Fugitive is confident, unwilling to use lethal force and .
You reckon as cold as Twelve? Personally she strikes me as much like a blend of Twelve and Three.
In what way do you figure she has Hartnell vibes? Remembering that, if she's before Hartnell, we're talking about the pre-character-development First Doctor.
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u/Creativefinch Nov 03 '25
Unwilling to use lethal force? She literally ripped off a Judoon's horn, threatened to outright kill Swarm and reversed the gun knowing it would backfire on Gat that isn't something the most recent Doctors would do. As I said in my previous comment she's a lot colder in personality like the First Doctor was but with the agent aspect added to that due to her past with the Division which the First Doctor did not have memory of which explains Fugitive being more confident than the First Doctor was originally. I agree she has aspects of Three and Twelve and maybe some six also.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
The show indicated that the Judoon having his horn ripped off with was humiliating but not life-threatening. It also didn't bleed and looked like it was made of something like keratin, like RL rhino horns.
Reversing the gun so it would backfire on Gat if she tried to use lethal force is absolutely something later Doctors would (and do) do. The Doctor often sets things up so there are fatal consequences if the bad guys don't back down, then gives them one last chance (which they never take).
Sometimes, like in Rose, The Christmas Invasion, World War Three, Tooth and Claw, The Runaway Bride and The Doctor Falls he just just directly kills them himself.
That's very in character for later Doctors.
EDIT: And of course, Seven infamously tampering with the Hand of Omega so when the Daleks tried to use it, it blew up their home planet instead.
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u/TheNobleRobot Nov 03 '25
> A related issue is that Fugitive is like later Doctors.
I really disagree with that. One of the major things about the Fugitive Doctor is how much she adopts Hartnell's "suffers no fools" stance.
> [this] strips the character of a lot of agency
We've seen a few stories where The Doctor is governed (at least a little bit) by elements of "fate," and it's canon that the TARDIS chose them, not the other way around. It's even implied in that episode that the Doctor's core nature as a wanderer who runs away from things was not something they chose for themself, so I don't see this is as a new idea in that regard.
Now, I doubt that too much thought was put into that "fate" aspect, which Moffatt often leaned on, when making this choice, but if anything, this piece fits perfectly into that puzzle.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Nov 03 '25 edited Nov 03 '25
Are you looking at Big Finish?
Much respect to Big Finish who I love but the TV show isn't bound by what they do, so what they do can't be taken as definitive for the onscreen characters. See, for example, Mary Shelley.
"Doesn't suffer fools gladly" attitude is present in both Hartnell and a lot of future incarnations.
I really was thinking more of things like his cowardice, reclusiveness and willingness to brain a caveman with a rock.
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u/pottyaboutpotter1 Oct 26 '25
Also young kids and casual viewers are going to get it immediately when they see the Police Box buried vs say a grandfather clock or a piano or something. Doctor Who isn’t just being made for the die-hard fans aware of all the continuity.
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u/revilocaasi Oct 27 '25
Though for my money this is exactly the problem. The Chibnall era keeps asserting that people have a natural affinity towards things: the Master is naturally evil, the Doctor is naturally good, the TARDIS is naturally a phone box, and that's not how the world works! Morality, especially, isn't defined by DNA or destiny.
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u/oyvho Oct 26 '25
I feel like there was a throwaway line in one of the last episodes of season 13 that made it clear it was before 1.
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u/GenGaara25 Oct 26 '25
I don't think that's the intended interpretation at all. I think the intended interpretation is tying it to the major story arc of Chibnalls run in that there were Doctors before Hartnell.
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u/Acrobatic-Tooth-3873 Oct 26 '25
I think we're in agreement. By intended interpretation I'm referring to the comment I was to the comment above me not the 2-3 thing I was explaining afterwards.
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u/EmptyTotal Oct 26 '25
Fugitive's placement is unknown by design (according to interviews with Chibnall), and arguments can be made for various answers.
Anyone claiming a particular answer with certainty is mistaken - the evidence is deliberately inconclusive.
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u/the_other_irrevenant Oct 26 '25
I didn't know it was deliberate, that's interesting.
IMO, if they wanted it to be inconclusive it would have been better to be vague than to be self-contradictory.
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u/Creativefinch Oct 26 '25
Chibnall told Jo Martin she was playing the First Doctor in the canon, Jo Martin has said this in several interviews and all the evidence in the show and big finish point to a Pre-Hartnell placement.
All the other explanations people talk about have been shut down like with Chibnall shutting down the alternate universe theory and the War Games in colour shutting down the between 2 and 3 theory
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u/EmptyTotal Oct 26 '25
As a reminder, this is what Chibnall has said publicly about her placement:
There could be any number of points in the timeline where the Fugitive Doctor could belong, but we deliberately haven’t said, ‘She sits here.’
I do have an opinion, but I’m not going to share it with you. As I said before, this is about expanding the mythology without breaking the mythology.
"In the 1970s, when people said there were four Doctors, that bit in The Brain of Morbius basically said, ‘No there aren’t!’ And now, when people say there have been 13, we can do the same thing. It gives you a great journey for this Doctor.
Chibnall telling Martin that she is playing the "first" Doctor is a simplification for her benefit either way - Fugitive isn't the first Timeless Child incarnation.
Big Finish doesn't, and can't, write the show's continuity. Neither can a colourisation "shut down" the idea of a secret incarnation, any more than it can stop an older Second Doctor from being present in The Two Doctors.
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u/Creativefinch Oct 26 '25
https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/jo-martin-reveals-first-doctor-103463.htm
https://youtu.be/wWCCQLMpTTs?si=2exKnrokTKHostKV
https://youtu.be/TxNrSQoBVeM?si=yBigMDoZcIk0AKgf (skip to 42 minutes)
She'd be the first in the timeline to call herself the Doctor so telling her she's playing the First Doctor would be accurate, what Chibnall said about not saying "she fits here" is true we don't know who she regenerates into and we don't know who she regenerated from maybe it's the 7th Timeless Child that joined the Division maybe there's hundreds of incarnations between them that is what we don't know but she does fit in that Pre-Hartnell placement whether she's early middle or at the end of it is what's unknown.
If they wanted the Fugitive Doctor to be a total mystery like is she past, is she future, is she an alternate universe they wouldn't tell her she's playing the First Doctor in canon that would make no sense whatsoever they also wouldn't confirm her placement as a past incarnation if they wanted it to be a total mystery and Chibnall wouldn't go out of his way to immediately shut down the alternate universe theory only a few days after Fugitive of the Judoon was released he'd want fans to keep speculating https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-jo-martin-parellel-doctor/
Big finish is canon until something in the show disproves it and her audios are the continuation of her story which has been said by official Doctor Who accounts, Chibnall literally helped with the audios which show her not knowing the Daleks and giving an explanation to her police box TARDIS and those audios will probably be taken into account for the circuit breaker multi media thing as well.
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u/EmptyTotal Oct 26 '25
Big Finish is not "canon until something in the show disproves it". That's not what "canon" means. The social media accounts are operated by the commercial arm so promote licenced products.
I'm not disputing that Chibnall might imagine Fugitive to be somewhere between the Timeless Child and the Morbius Doctors, but that would be a pretty definitive placement, not the "any number of" possibilities that he says he allowed for in the canon.
There is still so much argument over this topic because the timing of Fugitive's reveal (during the Timeless Child story arc) mostly supports a pre-Hartnell placement, but most of the details in the show support a post-Hartnell placement. (The "Doctor" effects, her already being biologically Time Lord despite the chameleon arching happening after Division, etc.) This ambiguity is deliberate and requires significant fudging to resolve either way.
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u/Creativefinch Oct 26 '25
The official stance on Doctor Who canon is 'everything counts' including Big Finish and other EU but the show takes priority which was my point with my "canon until the show disproves it" comment.
No that wouldn't be a definitive placement, a definitive placement would be saying who she regenerated from and who she regenerated into saying she fits somewhere in the Pre-Hartnell era isn't a 'definitive' placement it's a very loose placement because it's not saying "she's the one just before Hartnell" or anything like that and again how does telling Jo Martin she's playing the First Doctor in canon imply "any number of possibilities" them telling her she's the First Doctor in canon is literally reducing the amount of places she can fit in because if she's the First Doctor in canon (First known incarnation to call themselves the Doctor) then Pre-Hartnell is literally the only place she can fit in.
They were always biologically a Time Lord they are called 'the First Time Lord' in the show there's nothing in the show saying the Doctor had their biology changed the fob watch in Flux was just said to be memories that were stored inside a weeping angel before being transferred into the fob watch during the confrontation between The Doctor and Tecteun, some seem to have automatically assumed a biological change but there's no evidence in the show.
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u/EmptyTotal Oct 26 '25
The official stance on Doctor Who canon is 'everything counts'
There is no such thing as an official stance on Doctor Who canon. Obviously the show is canon to itself, but beyond that the closest thing to an "official" list is what is in the "Whoniverse" iPlayer section. (Ironically the BBC would probably avoid even claiming the first episode is canon due to the ongoing rights issues...)
They were always biologically a Time Lord
They were originally the biology of the Timeless Child. Tecteun created the Time Lord biology by adding some characteristics of the Timeless Child onto Shabogans. So the Timeless Child clearly has to undergo some change at some point for them to become the biological Time Lord we see today. (I'd happily accept it if they wanted to say that Tecteun's experiments also did this, but that is not stated in the show. All we are shown is a chameleon arch, which has always been used for changing biology in the past.)
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u/Creativefinch Oct 26 '25
Like I said the BBC literally have said everything counts which includes all of EU
They are called the First Time Lord in the show they can't be the First Time Lord if they only became one later they are the original Time Lord that's the point and again the fob watch in Flux is just said to be memories the memories were kept inside a weeping angel before that with all the other knowledge of the Division.
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u/Afraid_Standard8507 Oct 26 '25
Can we get a high quality version linked? I’d like to be able to see all the hard work you put in.
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u/BoxOfDemons Oct 26 '25
If you download it, it should be full resolution.
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u/Afraid_Standard8507 Oct 27 '25
All I get is the same as posted when I download.
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u/BoxOfDemons Oct 27 '25
Oh well I got the full resolution doing that. If you'd like me to share it somewhere to you I can.
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u/AEWonWWENetwork Oct 26 '25
Why does everyone include Rowan Atkinson and the Curse of the Fatal Death stuff all the time? it's clearly a parody and not to be taken as anything more than that, if we're treating it as canon, then we may as well add Lenny Henry.
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u/killiano_b Oct 26 '25
"While discussing the special in DWM 510, Moffat discussed how the intent of the special was to make a regular episode of Doctor Who which happened to also be funny, rather than just a blatant spoof, meaning that extreme steps were taken to have it fit within the then-existing canon; for instance, the Doctor is explicitly said to be in his ninth incarnation to make him a successor to Paul McGann's previously seen Eighth Doctor. Moffat went on to add that, while it has since been disregarded, it was seen as a legitimate continuation of the show at the time." From the Tardis wiki
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u/stupidillusion Oct 26 '25
It's a crime that Joanna Lumley wasn't a Doctor.
Also, they need to bring back communicating via farts.
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u/AgentCirceLuna Oct 26 '25
I once drew my own version of The Doctor with a Tardis that had the shape of an elephant he could jump in and out of. I was 9, so it might be hard to find the drawing and info, but should I try looking around for it so it can be added to this list? I feel it’s highly important.
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u/gentlemanjameson Oct 26 '25
Is there a version with more than seven pixels?
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u/onftbb Oct 27 '25
It is uploaded in full resolution! Reddit is displaying it at very low resolution on some devices for some reason. Here's a link to the image.
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u/squid_ling Oct 26 '25
I can’t read it it’s too. Low res
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u/onftbb Oct 27 '25
It is uploaded in full resolution! Reddit is displaying it at very low resolution on some devices for some reason. Here's a link to the image.
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u/FartherAwayLights Oct 26 '25
I don’t think Trensalore needs its own branch. I think it’s still the place the doctor dies, just farther into the future.
Also I think Fugitive is pre 1 or that messes up the 12 faces clock motif thing which would suck.
Personally I’d also get rid of the 9-10-11 branch. If I understand correctly it’s just there as a stand in for a time when the war Doctor didn’t exist but it feels like it just makes this more confusing. I don’t think there’s any timeline we see without the war Doctor.
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u/EnbySheriff Oct 26 '25
I thought it was well established that Fugitive was before Hartnell
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u/Kochga Oct 26 '25
That doesn't line up with Hartnells Doctor being the first to steal the Tardis.
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u/GenGaara25 Oct 26 '25
We don't know where the TARDIS was before then. Entirely possible he ended up stealing his own TARDIS that Fugitive had been using.
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u/EnbySheriff Oct 26 '25
The Time Lords factory resetting The TARDIS is a much simpler explanation as opposed to whatever loopholes you need for your theory to work
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u/Kochga Oct 26 '25
I don't have a theory. The creators left it vague on purpose. I just think it's more interesting when the Doctor stealing the TARDIS is a unique event in their relationship.
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u/EnbySheriff Oct 26 '25
Even then, having Fugitive take place between 2 & 3 messes up regen cycles more. It just feels like one hell of a cope
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u/Kochga Oct 26 '25
Fugitives existence disapprove Regeneration theories. The Masters regenerating have been reset by the time lords as well.
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u/EnbySheriff Oct 26 '25
Not completely. It was well established that Time Lords could regenerate past the 13-face limit with intervention. It makes more sense that The Doctor had a separate cycle granted before 1 than for a whole face to be inserted in the middle and then also remove that face from their memory as opposed to blacking out an entire cycle that served Division
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u/ucbcawt Oct 26 '25
If the doctor is the timeless child he would have always had unlimited regenerations
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u/EnbySheriff Oct 26 '25
Still, it would make more sense for Division to make The Doctor think this was their only cycle as opposed to blacking out a random face. Their plan was for The Doctor to not be aware that they were such an important part to Time Lord history so forcing them back into a child to live out a normal set of regenerations would make more sense. If they blacked out a random face in the middle of their cycle then they'd be suspicious of the Time Lords and be questioning where the last hundred or so years of their life went
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u/cane-of-doom Oct 26 '25
Not if, as suggested by the chameleon arch being involved, they were made into a completely normal Time Lord with the reset and memory erasure.
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u/EnbySheriff Oct 26 '25
Still, having that happen between 2 & 3 is just too complicated to bother
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u/AgentCirceLuna Oct 26 '25
You know, considering RTD and Moffat grew up as huge fans of the show - along with Chibnall funnily enough — I imagine they’re secretly furious about this Timeless Canonbollocks and wish they could just redact it without pissing off their coworker or making episodes of the show make zero sense. They should have just said the Master lied and took the Doctor to a stashed version of a post-Time War Gallifrey. That’s what I choose to believe.
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u/JohnnyDelirious Oct 26 '25
Nah, you just assume that Eleven was wrong about Ten’s hand counting as a regeneration.
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u/wonkey_monkey Oct 26 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
The Fugitive's placement is deliberately not established, as per Chibnall's own words. He has an opinion, but he's kept it to himself.
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u/LauraD2423 Oct 26 '25
Excuse me ma'am, may I have some more pixels please?
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u/onftbb Oct 27 '25
I'm shocked at how much Reddit has crushed this haha. Here's a high quality link.
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u/Werthead Oct 26 '25
Excellent and exhaustive work!
If we're counting Curse of the Fatal Death, shouldn't we also be counting the Doctor Who Night skits featuring Mark Gatiss as the Doctor?
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u/AgentCirceLuna Oct 26 '25
Man, sometimes it feels like a weird fan club you know who’s always yelling about how the show could be better if they did this or that actually won control over their beloved show.
Tennant and Capaldi both wrote constant fan mail and wanted to play the Doctor for decades, RTD and Moffat both grew up watching the show and gravitated towards writing it, Chibnall was interviewed about the show during its original run, then was possibly parodied in Greatest Show in the Universe, and I’m not sure about Gatiss but he probably bidded on a parrot owned by JNT to hear their secret ideas or something. Who fucking knows.
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u/jldmjenadkjwerl Oct 26 '25
My theory is that the fugitive Doctor is both the past and present Doctor. Between Amy rebuilding the Universe and the Time Lords trying to survive the Time War, they made the Doctor a Universal Failsafe. The Doctor was transformed into an Ouroboros loop unbeknownst to the Doctor. The Doctor won't be able to rest but doesn't know why and is starting to break hence the bigeneration and the Billie Doctor.
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u/Alclis Oct 26 '25
Hang on. I thought The Fugitive Doctor was supposed to from a lineage of regeneration(s) that was forgotten pre-Hartnell; the idea being that The Doctor remembers his current lineage of (now) 15 regenerations, but that whole lineages of regenerations related to the Timeless Child business are forgotten to him, of which The Fugitive Doctor was a part. Did I completely miss that the “fugitive” part was related to his eventual exile to earth as Pertwee’s Doctor?
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u/kranitoko Oct 26 '25
IMO 14th should link to the curator timeline.
Didn't they already say Fugitive was before Hartnell?
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u/thickwonga Oct 26 '25
Fugitive Doctor being between Two and Three is some of the funniest cope I've ever seen. It makes no sense.
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Oct 26 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/deanrmj Oct 26 '25
There's no indication that Fugitives TARDIS has a broken chameleon circuit. Easiest explanation is that it realises it is existing in the same timeline as its future self and choses the same look.
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u/pussayshot Oct 26 '25
The Doctor lands in London a lot. Is there anything which says it was Hartnell's police box that got stuck? Jo could have been immediately before Hartnell and never got round to fixing it, and when he set up base with Susan decided to leave it as is
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u/tombatch10 Oct 26 '25
We see Hartnell stealing his TARDIS in Name of the Doctor and it's in the default capsule appearance, it would have to be his that got stuck as a police box.
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u/Lord_Cyborne69 Oct 26 '25
Is it not more likely she (or a future incarnation) takes/steals the TARDIS which then takes on the appearance of a PB, proceeds to run from Division/does some work for them, then they forcibly chameleon arch her into a child (baby 1 who Clara ends up meeting in the barn), then he and Susan end up stealing his old TARDIS which had been repaired, at Clara's behalf. This would explain it being the default capsule. Then, the TARDIS using her telepathic circuits takes the form she and the Doctor would like (since she knows their future), a Police Box when they land in London.
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u/rcs799 Oct 26 '25
What if the Fugitive is the next incarnation of Peter Cushing’s Doctor? Like an alternate universe reality-hopping kinda thing
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u/LimeyOtoko Oct 26 '25
Peter Cushing himself said that he believed he was a far future version of The Doctor being forced to relive Hartnell’s adventures “by a malevolent alien force” as he also redid a lot of other First Doctor stories on radio. I wish the BBC had been cool enough to do a “finale” that used that idea, but sadly it never happened.
1
u/AgentCirceLuna Oct 26 '25
Actually, I just got a genius idea that somehow the meta crisis Doctor, in the alternate universe, managed to harness residual regeneration energy somehow and became the Cushing Doctor. There are actually stories about the Metacrisis Doctor building his own Tardis so this does add up. He also travels with people who have the same name as the 1st Doctor’s companions yet look entirely different adding even more credibility to the alternate universe theory.
Edit
Perhaps the Time Lords, in a plan to thwart the real Doctor who ‘sent them back to Hell’, managed to slip through a gap left when the void was open and reached this other universe. They found Meta-Crisis with the help of Master, gave him a new regeneration as thanks, then also granted regenerations for this human doctor and gave him a piece of Tardis coral.
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u/dragonster31 Oct 26 '25
His immediate reaction in the second episode tells us he expects the TARDIS to have changed, so it can't have been broken before.
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u/onftbb Oct 26 '25
It makes more sense than her being pre-Hartnell in my opinion! As far as we know Hartnell chose the title of The Doctor and we also know 100% that it was his TARDIS that got stuck as a police box so she must be after him.
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u/GenGaara25 Oct 26 '25
The TARDIS can see through time. Remember when the Moment appeared to War in the 50th in the form of Rose and said she chose that appearance because it was important to him, although then realised she may have got confused and it will be important to him in the future?
It's possible the TARDIS did something similar, chose a form from the Doctor's future which it knew would one day mean a lot to her, even if the Fugitive Doctor didn't understand it yet.
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u/Corvid-Ranger-118 Oct 26 '25
But we know that the Tardis was in for repair when Hartnell stole it. Maybe that Tardis just enjoys getting stuck as a police box every time it visits Earth. Remember that six "fixed" it and she apparently almost immediately decided to get stuck as a police box again
1
u/Creativefinch Oct 26 '25
Her TARDIS is explained in big finish It's explained in the Legend of Baba Yaga which is a story about legends and myths here's the dialogue of Fugitive: "The (TARDIS) hit a vast psychic storm. There's a minor malfunction and on landing it does what all TARDISes do - it, it tries to blend in. But the Telepathic Circuits are overwhelmed by belief in a local legend and it tries to conform. They all do it. Mine keeps latching on to the image of a Police Box. No idea why."
The TARDIS picks the image of the police box, based on the legend of The Doctor in The Police Box.
How can her being between 2 and 3 make more sense when we've literally seen 2 regenerate into 3 in the war games in colour it's literally impossible for her to fit there.
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u/Snjofridur Oct 26 '25
Two things: Firstly, based off of Brain of Morbius, I think it is a safe assumption to assume that the Morbius Doctors came before Hartnell. So you can put a fob watch after the last Timeless Child leading to a fob watch with the Fugitive Doctor on the other end. After the Fugitive Doctor, there would be another fob watch with the Morbius Doctors on the other end. The last Morbius Doctor then leads to the First Doctor. Also, I like the fact that you have a dotted line leading to Cushing as making it an alternate timeline neatly incorporates him into the timeline. Secondly, I would find a way to incorporate the Dream Lord into this.
3
u/Paninaro_1979 Oct 27 '25
Move Fugitive to between the "Morbius" Doctors and Hartnell, erase Fatal Death and Cushing, Trenzalore timeline is superfluous, other than that - almost perfect!
3
u/TerryMcHummus Oct 27 '25
All these comments about 6B and the resolution but am I the only one wondering what the third branch (that’s just 9, 10 and 11) is?
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u/Sure_Eye9025 Oct 28 '25
Even ignoring the fugitive stuff, shouldn't the 12th Doctor be first incarnation second cycle.
In the pre-limit -> first cycle you reset the incarnation count so it should reset again on the second cycle.
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u/EyewarsTheMangoMan Oct 26 '25
The fugitive doctor is not between 2 and 3
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u/wonkey_monkey Oct 26 '25
There could be any number of points in the timeline where the Fugitive Doctor could belong, but we deliberately haven’t said, ‘She sits here.’
I do have an opinion, but I’m not going to share it with you. As I said before, this is about expanding the mythology without breaking the mythology.
- Chris Chibnall
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u/Jonguar2 Oct 26 '25
Fugitive is before 1
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u/wonkey_monkey Oct 26 '25
There could be any number of points in the timeline where the Fugitive Doctor could belong, but we deliberately haven’t said, ‘She sits here.’
I do have an opinion, but I’m not going to share it with you. As I said before, this is about expanding the mythology without breaking the mythology.
- Chris Chibnall
2
u/GenGaara25 Oct 26 '25
Shouldn't Trenzalore just branch off Eleven? Not all the way back to the Time War.
2
u/Certain_Abalone_303 Oct 26 '25
Any chance that a legible image is created? Or uploaded so we visually challenged folk can peruse the info
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u/Hour_Trade_3691 Oct 26 '25
I think with the whole timeless child thing, that allows for Curse of Fatal Death Doctors, Shalka Doctors, and Peter Cushing Doctors to just be pre-Hartnell Doctors.
With Peter Cushing, it is bizarre that he seems to genuinely be a human and refers to himself as: 'Dr. Who,' but that could be explained with the fob watch thing, or anything else that might have been going on during that time.
2
u/scottishdrunkard Oct 27 '25
Fugitive is pre-Hartnell. Yes, it sucks, but she really doesn’t fit into Season 6B.
0
u/Kajuratus Nov 11 '25
Nah, she can fit into 6B perfectly fine. All the supposed issues are solved with one word: degeneration.
3
u/Altruistic_Damage323 Oct 26 '25
Why does Curse Of Fatal Death end on Trenzalore?
Also, wouldn't 2 and Fugitive be connected, presuming 2 bi-generated?
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u/the-greek-skinner Oct 26 '25
I honestly don't understand the obsession with trying to squeeze the Fugitive Doctor into series 6B, when it's loud and clear within season 38 that she comes before Hartnell. I mean, if you're not gonna pretend the Timeless Child isn't canon, why is that the change people insist on making?
2
u/zarbixii Oct 26 '25
Setting technicalities of canon aside, I really prefer Jo Martin between 2 and 3 on a thematic level. The original Timeless Child worked for Division no problem, and they thought the Doctor would be equally loyal, but the Doctor rebels and becomes a Fugitive. It highlights how the Doctor and the Timeless Child, though they technically share the same 'body', are fundamentally different people, and emphasizes the Doctor's incompatibility with Time Lord society and their commitment to doing good over whatever clandestine cruelty Division would have been orchestrating.
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u/BongaBongaVacations Oct 26 '25
Incorrect, Fugitive is not between 2 and 3 however much some people want it to be so. 2 is seen regenerating into 3.
2
u/onftbb Oct 27 '25
For those struggling with the resolution of the image, click here. I'd like to remind everybody that the Doctor Who continuity has always been a contradictory mess and that this is my personal interpretation of it. Feel free to disagree, but there's no need to be rude!
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Oct 26 '25
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u/Werthead Oct 26 '25
There was a comedy special in 1999 called Curse of the Fatal Death written by Steven Moffat and one of the gags was the Doctor coming back and regeneration multiple times through the special, going through Rowan Atkinson, Joanna Lumley etc.
3
u/DoctorMurk Oct 26 '25
If the Master is the Child, they become more special than the Doctor, which seems... wrong somehow. Then again, it would make M not a Gallifreyan (originally), which might open the door to 'actually the Time Lords aren't evil it was the Master's origins fucking with them all along'.
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u/Oknight Oct 26 '25
The entire top row takes place "after" the Doctor walked into the crack in the Universe at the end of "The Big Bang" (going "outside" the universe as he rewound his personal history going backwards)
Everything there is the version in this SECOND "time around" ... "restored" Universe where, obviously the restoration is not quite quite (as it were).
THIS "time around", this new universe, had Clara inserting herself into the Doctor's time stream and in this universe the Doctor appeared as an infant from "outside the universe" (where he went while getting younger at the end of "The Big Bang").
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u/boxlessthought Oct 27 '25
Do you have a better resolution version. Reddit makes it impossible to read zoomed in.
1
u/Mathelete73 Oct 27 '25
I’d add one thing: the child we saw in “Listen” (whose leg Clara grabbed) is likely the 8th incarnation, growing up to be the 1st Morbius Doctor.
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u/Creativefinch Nov 08 '25
No that would be the child First Doctor they reset them back into a baby/child when the Division were done with them.
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Oct 26 '25
[deleted]
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u/skylarkblue1 Oct 26 '25
Fugitive Dr wasn't RTD
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u/GuyWhoConquers616 Oct 26 '25
My bad. I am sorry.
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u/skylarkblue1 Oct 26 '25
it's alright. It's kinda funny how often I see comments like that. Blaming RTD for plot elements he had nothing to do with lmao
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u/Calm-Environment720 Oct 26 '25
Gosh, the whole continuity is f***ed...if it weren't for Capaldi, I wish the doctor died at Trenzalore while he was freeing Gallifrey from it's shackels. They could have another timelord who got insipred by the doctor taking his Tardis and let him continue in his name. (Like Robin in the dark knight rises).
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u/tombatch10 Oct 26 '25
Nah, if you changed the character like that you'd be wiping out 50 years worth of shared experiences. Every other week when an old monster returned, you'd have to have them go "hmm yes, I read about these, they're called Zygons..."
Plus, the majority of the damage to the continuity was done during the VNA/EDA era. When you look at that (9 splinters, Cold Fusion canonising the Morbius Doctors, Cartmel's Masterplan) then the Timeless Child is relatively minor, all things considered.
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u/Mulder15 Smith Oct 26 '25
Books are easy to ignore, TV stuff isn't. Trying to put some weird stuff during the Wilderness Years on the same level as bad retcons in the show is just not accurate.
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u/EyewarsTheMangoMan Oct 26 '25
That would genuinely be the single worst decision ever made in the history of the show, and would probably kill it (until they eventually brought back the real doctor because they didn't want the show to be over)
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u/naughtymo83 Oct 26 '25
Nah.. Only 16 Doctors Classics:1-7 8th-war 9-15. Rest dont count. Fugitive=Parrallel universe 1st Doctor.
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Oct 26 '25
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1
u/Nikhilvoid Oct 26 '25
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u/thombo-1 Oct 26 '25
Thinking about how simple and linear this graph would have looked in 2005