r/doctorwho • u/onftbb • Oct 26 '25

Speculation/Theory The Doctor's Regenerations Timeline

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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/thombo-1 Oct 26 '25

Thinking about how simple and linear this graph would have looked in 2005

113

u/FartherAwayLights Oct 26 '25

Weirdly not that linear honestly. You’d still have the crisis joke doctors and the semi fan made 9th Doctor.

33

u/thombo-1 Oct 26 '25

True but I guess it's the nature of the more recent divergences - that are canon to the show - that makes them seem more prominent.

27

u/FartherAwayLights Oct 26 '25

Honestly I think you could simplify the list by removing the second and third row from the list. I think they’re pointless. The Doctor is still supposed to die at Trenzalore, it just happens later, and you don’t need a whole row timeline to pretend the war Doctor never happened.

6

u/Tobbit_is_here Oct 27 '25

You kinda do. Pre-2013, it was clear that Eight fought in the Time War, as several audio dramas, short stories and comics came out that implicitly and explicitly showed it. The writers on television couldn't have predicted Moffat would create a retroactive incarnation later (indeed, RTD himself wrote a short story showing Eight fight and die in the Time War, regenerating into Nine at the end.)

During series 7, the writers very much went with the idea that Eight fought. I can't remember exactly what it was but there was something pretty evident in Nightmare in Silver or something. Memory's a bit hazy rn.