Doctor WHO? The Ever Changing Origins of The Doctor

[@DanTheMan2150AD]

It’s always a good day when Josh Snares uploads.

[@JoshSnares]

💕💕

[@bubbahealthy4725]

Amen other

[@Arachn3rd]

You could say... it's a fantastic day

[@peterdixon7734]

Amen to that.

[@AnotherScifiGuy]

A great day indeed!

[@kurukurushuffle]

Something I've always felt needs to be accounted for with the Doctor's origins is the fact that when he left Gallifrey to go on the run, he took his Granddaughter with him. That strikes me as an interesting choice knowing what we have since 1969 and it's something I'm surprised doesn't often come up with fans. I like to think that despite a life of disatisfaction with Time Lord society, the Doctor never would've left for himself, but instead what motivated him to finally break free was seeing the same disatisfaction with Susan and a desire to give her what he always longed for.

[@gaylordcomic]

Many forget about Susan because well to a large extent the show has. She was left in the 22nd century and yet the doctor always claims to be "the last time lord" after the time war.

[@BulbasaurRepresent]

@@gaylordcomic Susan isn't necessarily a time lady, even though she is Gallifreyan

[@owenmonahan5821]

Great point. You should check out the first Unbound audio, it kinda deals with that and is a really sweet story

[@kurukurushuffle]

@@owenmonahan5821 I've heard it! I really enjoyed a lot of its concepts but overall it wasn't really for me? I really like the two David Warner stories though.

[@owenmonahan5821]

@@kurukurushuffle fair enough. I love all the Unbounds personally. The Warner ones were great too. Have you heard Deadline with Darke Jacobi? That one is an absolute masterpiece

[@achristiananarchist2509]

The "I got bored so I stole a TARDIS and ran away" is probably my second favorite origin story for The Doctor, my first being the TARDIS's take on that story, "I got bored, so I stole a Time Lord and ran away".

[@davidconner-shover51]

What else was it gonna do, sit by itself for an eternity, unused, unloved, a empty white box for an eternity? What a condemnation for a living soul, even if an artifice. No wonder it broke it's chameleon circuit after settling on a police box

[@StarvedForTime]

I always liked the idea that the doctor wasn't special. they weren't even clever amongst their time lord peers. It was purely their curiosity and thirst for adventure that made them anywhere near special. The doctor is not a superhero, they're just a person trying their best.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

And, frankly, none of the changes ever made (except for the "Other" idea that was never implemented) changed that basic fact.

[@StarvedForTime]

@@MaryAnnNytowl I guess that's true, even if they do come from another universe.

[@daffy8995]

One of the most annoying things about the Moffat era is how the Doctor is made into something more God-like and special with all the grandiose speeches.

[@fletcherhamilton3177]

‘He’.

[@alexhodgkinson6718]

@@daffy8995 this is a misinterpretation. The whole arc is him getting too big and arrogant for his boots, following up on Ten being arrogant and egotistical, and having to calm it down. None of his big moments actually lead him to succeed. In Eleventh Hour, he'd already won and what he did to the Atraxi changed nothing. In Pandorica Opens, he didn't scare them off, they were playing him the whole time and his speech had no impact beyond feeding his growing ego. In Good Man Goes to War, the whole idea is brought to its climax as he fails big time and it's from there that he tries to step back. Then finally in Rings of Akhaten his speech didn't beat the god, it was Clara who came in last minute. People like to put this on the Eleventh Doctor, but his speeches never really did anything and it was all about his growing ego.

[@johnsensebe3153]

There's actually dialogue in the TV movie that states the Doctor can change species when he regenerates, so it's possible only the Eighth Doctor was half human, and the bit about his "mother's side" was a joke. In the new series, the Ninth Doctor talks about how "dodgy" the process is, which lends credence to this idea.

[@hexogramd8430]

I always liked the idea of it being a half broken Chamaeleon arc. The Doctor in the TV movie is obsessed with his pocket watch. That’s also the explanation expanded media gives.

[@MrRatherDashing]

Keeping some mystery about the Doctor is a good way of using intrigue to string an audience along. If you reveal the mystery, you start to lose that intrigue, but if you keep stringing people along the same mystery indefinitely, people will lose interest. So you either have to change the mystery, or introduce new mysteries, both of which Doctor Who has been doing for decades. Great video.

[@JacksMelancholy]

Excellent video. Personally, the more ambiguous the Doctor’s backstory, the more I enjoy the show. I feel like the Doctor’s heroic nature being something anyone from any background can manifest is truly inspirational.

[@tenacious3911]

What makes the Doctor a fascinating and inspirational character is that we see him _become_ a hero, he doesn't start as one. In _An Unearthly Child_ the Doctor is not a good person, he kidnaps Ian and Barbara in a fit of pique and seems intent on bashing a man's head in with a rock. But over the course of the 1960s he changes and shifts in his personality and attitude, and he takes us along for the ride.

[@Lastclerk3]

You want to know something weirder than the fact that we didn’t know the name Gallifrey until 1974. We didn’t know what regeneration was until 1974 either. The Doctor just “changed their face. Which means we got a Multi doctor story over a year before someone decided to explain why that was possible in the first place.

[@gregsmith7949]

I adhere to the "keep it simple" philosophy. There's something really relatable about the Doctor becoming fed up with the bureaucratic , stoic, and stuffy world of the Timelords, and stealing a Tardis to escape and seek adventure in time and space. There have been many times I wish I could do the same.

[@spacemcguffin]

Extra fun notes: In the draft scripts for Power of the Daleks, David Whitaker revealed that the Doctor had been "renewed" several times in the past, and that it happened roughly every five centuries. Whitaker scripts also specified the Doctor's age as 750, included various references to his granddaughter Susan (although the Doctor no longer was able to recall where he left her), and also hinted that it might have been the Daleks who destroyed his homeworld.(the Doctor was still envisaged as being a refugee from the destruction of his home planet during a galactic war).

[@robtymec2642]

Thank you for simply presenting a case study on the many-conflicting origin stories that the Doctor has had rather than getting into an extended rant that bashes some interesting new directions a Head Writer has taken the show in.

[@verilybitchie]

I think the "I made a jigsaw out of your history" thing in "The Giggle" was nice, I think that's a cute idea, that actually we're not trying to make all of this consistent, its just that the Doctor's timeline has been screwed up in cosmic ways, so it can all be true at once. Lovely!

[@johnleggett5054]

Another truly excellent video Josh. I've watched Doctor Who since November 23 1963 and being a child in the 60s was so exciting with the Hartnell and Troughton stories (hard to believe that you watched them on a Saturday teatime and then that was it. No other means of watching them again at the time!). Furthermore, I still remember the sheer excitement of opening the latest Doctor Who annual every Christmas morning! Magical times.

[@osuka6193]

Arcs like the Time War, confession dial, River Song, etc. show that you can reintroduce mystery into the character without changing the origin story - have something that happened between seasons, in the character's future, something they're not being honest about. Changes to the origin story are inconsequential because we know future writers will just ignore them and there's never been anything put forward that's better than the classic story you described at the end.

[@gameover9390]

Couldn’t have said it better, props

[@kaitlynmaxwell3737]

I like the idea of smashing it all together to make it all work in a somewhat complicated way.

[@lesigh1749]

What worked best about the character of the Doctor as a hero was him NOT being special among his own people, but becoming special through their own courage and choices to intervene rather than stand back and observe. Anyone could be like the doctor by choosing to be that way. Making the character destined to be special from their beginning completely collapses anything about them that is actually special, and turns them into a tedious mary sue. Only the doctor can then be the doctor because they were literally born superior.

[@Here_is_Waldo]

Agree completely.

[@Mark-pl3bv]

I think being the Timeless Child only makes the Doctor special on a superficial level. They *thought* they were like any other Time Lord and the vast majority of the other Time Lords also had no idea they were the Timeless Child, so the Doctor still became special through their own courage and morality. Chibnall just didn't highlight that because he's a shallow writer. The Timeless Child "reveal" could lead to great "nature vs nurture vs personal choices" conversations, and I wonder if future writers will grasp that opportunity.

[@gazda69]

@@Mark-pl3bv This 100%. What most of the fandom doesn't realise is that the Doctor and the Child/Other aren't the same. They're the same person, sure, but they're completely different identities. It doesn't matter how special the Child is, it doesn't make the Doctor any more special.

[@lesigh1749]

@@Mark-pl3bv If they are wise they will retcon the timeless child out permanently and unambiguously. it was to Doctor who was as stupid and destructive a retcon as if Agatha Christie had revealed in the 13th Poirot Novel that Poirot was from Alpha Centauri, not Belgium, and Captain Hastings was an android SHE built in her greenhouse.

[@lesigh1749]

@@gazda69 They don't "realise" it because that just is not true. its the same character, Chibnal added a backstory most of the fans hated.

[@ColeHrusovsky]

There was also a really weird backstory written by Anthony Coburn and David Whittaker and sent out to writers at the beginning of the series as a brief. In that one, Susan was the heir the throne of another planet that got invaded, and The Doctor rescued her during the invasion. So they were still on the run, but it was also this monarchical thing that everyone ignored lol

[@Akito01]

Watching the show as a youth, I got hooked on the idea that The Doctor was a kind of refugee from his home planet, perhaps escaping a civil war. After all, in what situation would you find a man taking his granddaughter away in a stolen ship -no sign or even talk of his wife or Susan's parents (the unspoken truth being that they are no longer alive).

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

In multiple situations. If they were both bored, and the Doctor didn't want Susan to have the opportunity to get into as much trouble as him. If he were concerned that Susan would be married to someone too young (we don't know their customs). If he were scared of one of the Timelords having a chance to hurt his granddaughter. If he had been frightened by the very things he was later obsessed with (the Hybrid prophesy, another prophesy, or even fear, itself), even - like in _Listen,_ or _Hell Bent._ And that's just off the top of my head, with only 4½ hours of sleep. 😄 I'm sure there are a ton more possibilities!

[@THIRV]

As Dan The Man says, it gives us a real Lift whenever a new Josh Snares video reaches us. He’s very very special, wonderful delivery and style, and well researched. He ought to be an international superstar in broadcasting. For me, he already is. ❤

[@AnotherScifiGuy]

I really enjoy how well his videos are out together, they have such a professional feel to them.

[@THIRV]

@@AnotherScifiGuy absolutely mate, that’s the word, professional. World class presentation skills. Cheers.

[@conscienceaginBlackadder]

11:06 Pyramids of Mars. Famous line - "The Earth isnt my home Sarah, I'm not human. I'm a Time Lord, I walk in eternity. "

[@wintyrqueen]

I always liked the offhand comment the seventh Doctor makes about the hand of Omega, suggesting that he was there with Rassilon at the Dawn of the Timelords. Weirdly, that was the biggest issue I had with Chibnal’s story: that the Doctor didn’t know about anything before Hartnell, when the Seventh Doctor has directly referenced it… but then maybe he went & spent time at the Dawn of the Timelords after running away, out of curiosity, & some weird type of manifest destiny. So far as the half human thing, or many other things, for that matter, there is always rule number one: The Doctor Lies. It’ll be interesting to see where the next series takes things

[@chimmychunger6376]

Surprisingly I dont hate the timeless children arc, I would very much rather it not be something that is a stated fact. And honestly it isnt a stated fact its just what the master said. But i do like the idea that its a possibility to the doctors origins. I dont think we should ever fully know honestly

[@Jansenbaker]

Except Tecteun was shown to be real, and she confirmed the portal story, and there's a watch full of memories.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

@@Jansenbaker who did she tell that to, and under what circumstances? AND remember that Timelords lie, all the time. And... that watch... the Doctor did NOT open it, did she? She gave it to the TARDIS, to hide it from herself, because she didn't want to know.

[@chimmychunger6376]

@@MaryAnnNytowl Yeah to me that means that its up to interpretation, they came close but never fully confirmed that what the master said was fully true

[@nealjroberts4050]

My headcanon is that the story told by the Master isn't entirely the truth

[@theonewhowatches869]

I'm not super fond of the story, but your right there's enough that's unclear about the whole thing for me to be able to craft a headcanon that agrees with my tastes. For one I follow with the version told in the 2021 annual (I could be wrong on the year) that says the Timeless Child didn't have infinite regeneration and that twelve is just a natural limit to it, so I then choose to belive that the Doctor has had their regenerations renewed more than once. And the other big thing I belive that is that the world the Timeless child originally came from was a future or parallel Gallifrey, I find it fitting that the Time Lords would come about as a result of a time loop.

[@paulaburrows8660]

There was a TV show in the early 80s here in the UK called Sapphire and Steel. The show never explained what or where the two main characters came from, even if they were actually human, during its run. Vague mentions is all we got and the show was so much the better because of not knowing. Great watch, as always sir.

[@MsCourier_]

actually the whole "half-human" thing was actually addressed in a doctor who comic titled "The Forgotten" the 8th doctor told a friend of his - "i once convinced my most hated enemy that i was half human with nothing more than a wide eyed expression and a half broken chameleon arch" So either he forgot and then just remembered, or he was just lying from the start to catch the master off guard during the movie

[@ExoplanetaryMedia2516]

A very thoughtful roundup of the changes. Everyone who has touched upon the Doctor's origins have very wisely left us asking more questions than we've had answered. Newman's greatest single contribution to his creation was to steer it away from being reactionary, and to emphasize the mystery. He truly knew what he was doing there, and that may be the best evidence to name him as DW's sole creator, as opposed to a group effort.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Nah, I've got to disagree with you. You're forgetting Verity Lambert, David Whitaker, and a bit later, Innes Lloyd, who all had a huge hand in shaping the shows lore.

[@ExoplanetaryMedia2516]

@@MaryAnnNytowl You can disagree all you want. I would say that Robert Holmes and Terrence Dicks shaped a great deal of the lore, as well. The problem is that only Sydney Newman was present at the creation, and able to hand off a coherent idea for the rest of them to shape. On down to what RTD is planning later this year.

[@ExoplanetaryMedia2516]

It is true to say that DW has been the product of a number of influences, starting from SN handing off to Lambert and Whittaker. But you can say that for any number of shows that have had multiple production teams.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

@@ExoplanetaryMedia2516 how many others that worked on the show in its infancy have ever been incorporated into the lore of the show? First with #10, as a human in Human Nature, when he says his mother's name is Verity. Then she _and_ Sidney were incorporated into the show with Verity Newman, the great granddaughter of the woman the 'human' Doctor fell in love with in that episode, who - in the episode End of Time - wrote _Journal of Impossible Things,_ the love story of her great grandmother and "the man from the stars." You have to admit that - even if you want to dismiss Whitaker's and Lloyd's importance to the show - if Sidney Newman was Doctor Who's father, then Verity Lambert was the show's mother.

[@ExoplanetaryMedia2516]

@@MaryAnnNytowl I don't understand the question.

[@EngineerLume]

I find it fascinating that when asking the question of Who is the Doctor that numerous creators settle on "THEY ARE AN INTEGRAL PART OF TIME LORD CREATION" instead of "he's just some guy, you know" Also, when I read that document and got to the note read aloud at 3:18 I actually spit out my drink. I strive to write something that elicits that type of editor's note.

[@not_enough_space]

Looms are the only part of _Lungbarrow_ that I would actually like... But regarding origins, I think I follow a more Moffat-like approach, where I take "Doctor Who?" to be more of a character question about personality and motivation and the open future of what he'll become rather than a backstory question about where and when. Questions that we can ask about ourselves sometimes, rather than mere lore. I greatly prefer the idea that the Doctor's adventures changed him and helped make him what he is. If we had to see his younger self on Gallifrey, I'd prefer to see that he hated travel, generally didn't make any heroic effort to get involved with others' business, etc. It would highlight that contrast and make that change clear. And I like the idea that we've never had a great explanation for why Susan was with the First Doctor. I take it as evidence that every explanation like "I was bored" was a simple lie, merely offered to shut down conversation rather than really explain things.

[@wendigo69]

A major factor of the Doctor's origins and life that people often overlook is that it is all subject to change within the internal rules of the world itself. Major changes to time have been made just during the Doctor's life. The Time War alone probably means both Daleks and Time Lords have been all but wiped from existence and 'rebooted' multiple times. Practically any contradiction in the sprawling mass of episodes and other media can be described as alternate time lines. Genesis of the Daleks drastically changes the Daleks. Prior to Genesis, Davros dies right after creating them and they had TARDIS Time capsule tech as good as the Time Lords and were a major threat in multiple eras. After Genesis, with Davros surviving the birth of his creations because of caution that made him install protections in his travel chair over the stories the Doctor told him they are perpetually stunted by their creator's obsessions. In other words, is the post Dalek conquest future Earth he left Susan on even THERE anymore?

[@gazda69]

I personally think that the fandom's notion of "The Doctor's origin needs to stay a secret at all costs!" is overrated, because there's really no point in keeping the mystery alive if there's no payoff. A 60 year long franchise is going to leave breadcrumbs, that's just how it goes. I like that they've finally actively laid the groundwork for future writers to build on the secret origins of Doctor Who. This can lead to some of the most exciting years of Doctor Who's storytelling history if only the writers (and fans) could grow up and stop dwelling on this weird craving for questions that don't have an answer. Let the show evolve please. It can do so much more than what it has so far.

[@goldslicenova4790]

Chose to speak facts 💯💯

[@theaussiebackflipboy]

I'd like to see them tackle the mystery that is Susan as the Doctors granddaughter. It implies that they had a family on Gallifrey before running away. With all of the cameos of old companions popping up in the past few years, why not have a story that has Susan return that somehow explains who she is and why the Doctor took her with him when he left.

[@briandaleske5139]

I theorize with each reboot of the (DOCTOR WHO) show series, there’s the chance The-Doctor’s, origin might change, and details about him might have additions added.

[@unclepatrick2]

Iirc the BBC books has Faction Paradox messing with the Doctor timeline and in one of the books it implied that the “half human “ were the result of the this

[@blackphoenix77]

I never had an issue with the Looms: I quite like them, actually. Why should an alien race conceive children exactly like we do? P.S. In my opinion, the Doctor's past is "multiple choice." Their exact origins aren't set in stone and change constantly due to time travel and multiple parties trying to alter their timeline. This was partially explored in the Doctor Who novel Unnatural History

[@handles0717]

It's also done excellently in Dave Rudden's Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir.

[@LightLMN]

Also, Lungbarrow ends by strongly implying that the Other was half-human anyway. Now, the one that's *really* wild that nobody ever talks about or acknowledges is Sometime Never, where the only sane conclusion of the madness is that The Doctor is a large shiny crystal duplicate of himself created by a jealous magic dog called Jamais, and Gallifrey has never existed.

[@blackphoenix77]

@@LightLMN Wait, what??? My knowledge of the novels is pretty basic; is the crystal duplicate you're talking about named Soul?

[@LightLMN]

@@blackphoenix77 It is! It's so wacky that the wikia barely talks about it, but if memory serves, Jamais gets jealous of his owner's doll so he bites its head off, causing eight crystals trapped inside to fall into the Time Vortex. These crystals become the Council of Eight, including Soul. Sadly, I haven't read much of it myself either, haha. If you want to know more there is a tumblr that I learned a lot from that talks about it a bit, called doctornomore, under the tag "Sometime Never." (They're a writer for the Faction Paradox spinoff, and know so much about the Whoniverse it's scary.)

[@blackphoenix77]

@@LightLMN Wow that's so weird.... even weirder than the Looms! P.S. do you mean doctornolonger? I follow him already but I never saw that tag. (I searched for "doctor no more" on Tumblr and he's the only one who popped up)

[@MichaelO2000]

“The Doctor…born to the House of Lungbarrow…Born to a human mother…Not a single one of them seems to agree with any of the others. I find three more birth notices, all in that typical poetic Gallifreyan style, and not a single one of them seems to agree with any of the others. The Doctor attended the Time Lord Academy for twenty years. No, centuries….These aren’t lies…They're all real, except they can't be, except they are.” - Celestial Intervention: A Gallifreyian Noir Brilliant video Josh!

[@resiseven7407]

Real ones know that the doctor is both half-human, and was loomed - The Other is the biological child of Leela and Andred, and was then reincarnated via the looms as Dr. Who

[@Hilda_ogden]

The half human thing was mentioned in Hell Bent as a possibility with the Doctor being the hybrid. The Doctor neither confirmed or denied it.

[@JAProductions494]

It seems like everytime I rewatch a Josh Snares video, they just so happen to upload whilst I’m watching Today was no exception as I was rewatching the Rob Ritchie interview before getting this notifications. Josh has great timing Also, this video is another certified banger from a channel of certified bangers

[@mariaantoniou1693]

I like the Timeless Child arc...I think it not only fits, but it has reinstated the mystery of the character of the Doctor...

[@Rocksteady72a]

Yikes. If anything, this video reminds me of the time when the showrunners went as far as to reshoot scenes to ensure vagueness to the Doctor's origin & leaving it to the audience to come up with their own conclusions.

[@kolbayada4938]

Nah.

[@charmedx3219]

Love the combination of humor and information in this one Snares, keep up the great work mate.

[@CrilG-Games]

after successfully getting my friends into Doctor Who I now need to get them into the (always) high quality videos Josh Snares releases.

[@HippieDalek]

I love all the positivity a new Josh Snares video always brings to fandom. So refreshing. Keep up the excellent work!

[@RossParker1877]

This was not only really interesting but absolutely hilarious. Josh you're wonderful, so glad you're uploading regularly.

[@robalexander8065]

Great video, Josh. Kudos on finding the original use of Gallifrey before its use on TV.

[@Redfern42]

I thought I was fairly knowledgeable of trivia relating to DW, but that detail came as a genuine surprise!

[@robalexander8065]

@@Redfern42 Me too!

[@brozotes]

I suppose it's hard to discount the Timeless Child origin, now that the Doctor has met Tecteun. I liked a theory that I read somewhere, that Leela was the Doctors mother.

[@GreenLad38]

The Doctor does change and he realises that he made mistakes and he/she wants to learn from the mistakes. I have not heard of "looms" before, thank you for explaining Josh.

[@scloftin8861]

What a lot of people forget, where the "half human, on my mother's side" is concerned, as River Song delighted in reminding us, the Doctor lies. And that would work with #8 getting that human to work with him. And I never thought of those extra faces as anything but The Doctor, because we'd already seen all of Morbius' faces before that happened.

[@seanryan3020]

There may not have been an instance of the Doctor *calling* himself an alien in the classic series, but what about the establishment of him having 2 hearts and blood that isn't a human blood type in "Spearhead from Space?"

[@PNWho]

Very nicely done ... am so enjoying the uplads and especially into this 60th Anniversary year!

[@DoctorWhoHugh]

I typed out my interpretation, but it was almost 2000 words long 😂Another amazing video! I really enjoy the ambiguity of the Doctor's origin, it could be any number of things, and is sort of like a 'choose your own adventure' type thing.

[@ronaldnelson6692]

I still think that the other 8 faces in the Morbius story were Morbius's since he was a time lord and the Doctor thought the bust looked like a renegade time lord. Only way to say otherwise means that Morbius never regenerated.

[@smuu1996]

I always liked the idea that he's just some time lord who semi-accidentally stumbled into being the doctor, but then realized that he liked doing that. But that's just my headcanon.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

But... 'Doctor' is a name chosen, carefully and with much consideration, by the person themselves. They didn't just one day accidentally discover they were being called the Doctor and decided to keep the name.

[@misterlau5246]

Since the actors were credited as "Doctor Who " for a long time since classic Era, and I think he signed Dr. W once, and not talking about Cushing's movies, 😄

[@Nobanion]

I think even the current writers know of how confusing it is for the Doctor’s origin, so they made a cheeky nod to it when the Toymaker states that he made his “history into a jigsaw” during the 3rd 14th Doctor Special; as well as dismissing it emotionally through the 15th doctor later on. It’s like the Doctor saying, “Ok, we have all got our emotional baggage. That was mine & I spent over a regenerated lifetime to sort it out. Let’s go on & have a grand ol’ time exploring, saving folks & ourselves when we can.” Kind of era now with Disney backing up finances for the show.

[@JP-vs1ys]

So well done. Great grasp of the big picture and the little details that explain it. Well done.

[@CrispyPro]

Fridays are the best. Brilliant video Josh!

[@JoshSnares]

thanks crispy 💕💕💕💕

[@rampantrambling]

I like the idea of slowly adding onto the doctors origin, and making it more and more convoluted and contradictory tbh.

[@SuplanterSB]

to me honestly, the timeless child origin is very interesting, it sheds some light on the doctors past but creates new exciting questions, like where is the timeless child from, what is division, what happened there etc...

[@EsotericArctos]

I think the Doctors origins will always be changing, because in reality no one knows how to describe his origin and now there have been so many, it is just an enigma within a mystery.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

It's the Doctor's old friend Winston Churchill's quote, 'a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,' there!

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Your favorite is so great! Love it!

[@mathieuleader8601]

my favourite tidbid of the Doctor's classic origins was that in the original intended XMAS special in the Hartnell Era was that the Doctor was Cinderella's fairy godmothers ex-husband.

[@Arachn3rd]

Fantastic video, Josh (as usual)! A sign of good things to come this year? Well, when new videos come I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

I hope you come back better than #1 did... I mean, the Doctor claimed they would, and never did, through the entirety of what they believed to be their only 12 chances. Even when #10 was going around checking on EVERYone while he was dying, he chose not to go see her. That always bothered me, frankly.

[@Arachn3rd]

@@MaryAnnNytowl "Until then there shall be no regrets". That line is interesting now. So, he doesn't regret not coming back to see her?

[@UgeFrostWolf]

As always, perfect!

[@rodneyabrett]

Doctor Who's writing started to fall into the same trap a lot of sci-fi shows eventually succumb to when they go on for awhile. Where they try to out-epic the last season with bigger and more outrageous story-arcs with more twists and surprises. But bigger isn't always better. My favorite episodes old and new series were always the simpler stories that felt more intimate and I tended to not like the big interplanetary invasion themed episodes with CG space battles as much. Just give me a self-contained single episode with an interesting idea with the Doctor being goofy and endearing.

[@disneyboy3030]

Interesting how we finally got a video that brings up why Chris made The Timeless Child arc. And it is interesting.

[@honesto4696]

"I'll take a good-hearted weirdo any day". I get that it's how the Doctor applies his/her skills, values and overall attitude in the face of adversity that matters the most in why we are so endeared to this character. It still doesn't cease to irritate me, how Chibnall pretty much muddied about 60 years worth of continuity, for the sake of one story. But I suppose that's just par for the course for any narrative that runs long enough and is passed through a lot of people. In the long run, you the fan, will be punished for ever paying attention in the first place. On a side note, I don't think the Doctor's name from The Time Lord Academy, Theta Sigma (or Thete, as Drax preferred to call him) was mentioned.

[@Departures1]

Lady Peinforte knew his origins in Silver Nemesis. They need to reboot the Chibnall era as a Master trick in the matrix similar to Trial of the Time Lord. If Matt Smith was out of 12 regenerations why did he need a new regeneration cycle thru the crack in time if he was the Timeless Child.

[@bradleycramer4110]

I love Josh Snares videos. They’re great. Keep it going, Josh!

[@SoulPoetryandOtherWorks]

Excellent video with just one minor omission. The ancient origins of the Doctor were hinted at in a couple of Jon Pertwee stories where he referred to himself as having been a scientist for thousands of years. I'm pretty sure that one of those stories was The Mind of Evil but I am not sure of the other. It could have been the Time Monster or Inferno but I am not sure. As for the potential immortality of the Timelords Patrick Troughton referred to them as living practically forever, barring accidents I think in The Tomb of the Cybermen. The Deadly Assassin retconned that though, as did later Peter Davison stories. On the whole, though this is a fantastic video. Very well done indeed.

[@williammoore9794]

Great video! There's another origin story alluded to in the New Adventures. You'll love this. In Human Nature the human Doctor writes a story from his dreams where a Victorian inventor creates a time/space machine in a police box. He travels back in time to a primitive Gallifrey where he teaches the locals time travel and gives them regeneration and a second heart. He then gets bored of his life there so steals one of the time machines to travel the universe. I believe Steven Moffatt helped contribute to that idea. There is also the Target novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks, written by Ben Aaronovitch which predates the New Adventures and was the first to mention 'the Other'.

[@SSJPENGUIN]

Wish the timeless child concept had been done with the master instead

[@TheVicarstownSentinel]

Here's a possibly hot take for you all: You know, now that enough time has passed since the Timeless Children thing, I've come to more or less accept it, because, despite being horribly botched, it does build up on the past. -You have the Third Doctor in one serial (The Silurians I think?) claiming that he had lived for several thousand years- before stopping himself from finishing his sentence. -Then you have the Brain of Morbius, which I thought was a fantastic serial, building up on that seemingly throwaway line of the Third Doctor's. -Then of course, the ever popular Lungbarrow novel, featuring The Other, and their connection to the Doctor. -Then we have Missy, who claims to have know the Doctor "since he was a little girl"- a hint at things to come in retrospect. -Which brings us to the Timeless Child and the Fugitive Doctor. The concept is solid, and builds up on all of these past claims about the Doctor's past pre-Hartnell. The concepts of course, were pretty poorly executed and horribly botched, but I don't think it's actually all that terrible. If it was written better, it might have gone over well and went on to become one of the hidden gems of Chibnall's run. I think all of these concepts can work together, if written well enough. From my point of view, this was a gradual build-up over the decades of this massive franchise. While I kinda doubt our lord and savior RTD will do anything with any of those, especially the Timeless Child, I think it would still be nice if someone addressed it in some way, maybe through another novel or a comic.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

I love those early ideas! And the creators' original intentions behind BOM? Wild!!!

[@peculiarchild4295]

To be fair, while i do prefer the more romantic "the Doctor is just one more timelord" origin for the Doctor, I don't hate The Timeless Children Arc. I actually quite liked it and enjoyed even more for the fact that it has left open to interpretation on what it will lead too. Maybe it will get picked up in the future for some madman. Maybe it will just stay there. Who knows? However, I always felt like the Doctor's origins was not an important part of the mithos. I feel like the Doctor already made it clear that he feels like other timelord and It's not important where he came from. Even, if he then discovers that his origins were more convoluted. But I also liked the idea of the Doctor being part human tho lol.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Exactly, precisely, and prezactly! Couldn't have said it better, myself!

[@rayasunshine8360]

This video has made me appreciate The Timeless Child... I did not expect that.

[@lukethomas216]

Good video as always 😁 I think you’re unfair on the Looms idea, it gives the Time Lords a tragedy in their omnipotence and in no way precludes the idea of sex or children. I always think the best way to enjoy DW is pick and choose what you like.

[@harrysboy]

Thanks Josh! For me the biggest mystery about the Doctor is how they seem to age a hundred years everytime they tell us how old they are.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

I think at this point the Doctor has genuinely forgotten their true age

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Or lose several decades, LOL!

[@joefolkie]

Gotta make space for Big Finish!

[@mtdl3x]

That Doctor Who intro was just *chefs kiss*

[@dashylongfoot]

Tbh the Doctor's origin should be a mystery it should always be retconned and weird and convoluted as it fits with the character. They're a jumble of mysteries in a humanoid shaped package, their legacy is that their a myth an anti-boogie man if you will. Changing faces, personalities, motifs and even their names. So to me, their origin being random and confusing, unable to be understood should be apart of the mythos, the Doctor shouldn't be fully understood in the past or future only known for who they are in the present.

[@mcyeddi]

The main issue with the timeless child is just how much it can't fit? Like for example the reason the TARDIS is a 1960s police box. It got stuck that way after The Doctor and Susan went to 1963 and stayed for a bit. After the first time in the show it travels The Doctor comments on the fact its still a police box. Yet the Fugitive Doctor's TARDIS was a police box. Also not to mention we've gotten an origin on timelord regeneration abilities before. Many, actually. Most from extended media. So I can't exactly fault Chibnall for trying to add a new one and on the TV show as a bid to make a DEFINITIVE answer. And if they did something more interesting with it like each mind wipe basically created an entirely new timelord. I.E pre-hartnell regenerations weren't The Doctor but had a different name/title and morals. But then, I suppose, what would have been the point of making them The Doctor. Neat idea, very poorly done.

[@robtymec2642]

Simple fix: the TARDIS the Doctor stole is an old model. So old that it was being used by the Timeless Child while working for Division. During that period, the time ship got stuck in the Police Box form. When the Timeless Child was captured and changed into Hartnell, the TARDIS was impounded and repaired. The Chameleon Circuit was fixed. The TARDIS even says in The Doctor's Wife that she chose him on the day he stole her. She wanted to re-unite with her old pilot. For a while, her Chameleon Circuit functions. But then, it breaks down in Unearthly Child, again. With the exception of Attack of the Cybermen, it stays that way. The Doctor is using the same TARDIS he used as the Timeless Child. There's an inherent problem with its camouflage technique that causes it to keep getting stuck as a Police Box.

[@MountainHomeJerrel]

Heeey!! I really enjoy your videos. With the new developments in Doctor Who, I'm looking forward to your future videos!

[@Djarra]

A couple of things you missed, had Roger Delgado not been killed it would have been revealed that he hand The Doctor are brothers. Some also point to The Rani’s comments in ‘Mark of The Rani’ confirming this. The Rani is also supposed to have discovered regeneration something that the doctor was around for making them significantly older. This is part of The Other.

[@IDidntSetAHandle]

I like the Doctor's answer when Ashildr asks if he's half human. "Does it matter?"

[@tonyp3824]

You’ve got serious talent- this could be on the disk as an extra on a blu-ray/DVD!

[@Gzeebo]

Josh has a merch goldmine right there behind him. The round things! I love the round things! What are the round things? I don't care I just want a curtain with round things on.

[@theshowbogan]

The Doctor is definitely confirmed to not be human in the classic series, not just the new series. Although it's not explicit until the 2nd or 3rd Doctor

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Well... confirmed to not be a "pure-blood" human being from Earth, at least. 🤣

[@TonksMoriarty]

I'm a fan of the Ouroborus fan origin stories for the Doctor is that the Doctor will return to being the Timeless Child after hundreds, possibly thousands of incarnation.

[@andrescarnederes2295]

Very well done video! I think that the doctor's origin is sort of like the joker's, it can be multiple choice! It's up to the viewer really. The only thing that matters is that they're the doctor. And they will never ever stop.

[@ThatRandomFastingGuy]

I loathe "The Timeless Child". It's such a gross retcon it feels like a spit in face of the legacy of Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman. It alienated me from the franchise. I never came back. I truly hope the 60th makes me fall in love again. Love your work Josh and I can't wait to see your channel blow up. You truly deserve it.

[@ThatRandomFastingGuy]

@@DrWhoFanJ I whole heartedly disagree.

[@ActionB2Z]

@@DrWhoFanJ this is hilarious. You are both being subjective and yet here you are being all high and mighty. I'm guessing you're a white man late thirties to early fifties who has issues with people who identify as anything other than binary. 😅

[@ActionB2Z]

@@DrWhoFanJ but they are not Objectively wrong. You both feel differently on the matter. Feelings are Subjective. You're coming across extremely toxic which is pretty gross. But hey, that's just how I feel. The Timeless Child is indeed a retcon. Artron stole regeneration energy from a race called the Ravenous. A race the 8th Doctor fought alongside the Master, multiple Masters.

[@ThatRandomFastingGuy]

@@DrWhoFanJ incredible, "I'm not Toxic" then immediately writes a toxic paragraph. 10/10 dude. You're a Dalek.

[@taker68]

The Morbius faces were just a joke by Hinchcliffe. I';d rather take them as Morbius' old faces as why would only the Doctor's be shown if it's a duel/.

[@Poliss95]

Hinchcliffe admitted he didn't know much about Doctor Who before he got the job.

[@macsnafu]

The mere fact that the show has run so long without completely destroying the mystery of the Doctor's past is an impressive achievement in itself. And while it can be fun to find out the protaganist is indeed something special like Luke Skywalker or Neo in the Matrix movies, I don't think it fits well for Doctor Who. The Doctor is 'special' because he cares about what happens in the universe, making him different from the other Time Lords and a renegade for running off and doing things. Of course, he's also a great thinking man's hero, because he outthinks his opponents, instead of being a warrior who wins physical fights. In trying to explain the more recent appearance of the Ruth Doctor, the theory I like the best (so far) is that she is the equivalent First Doctor (Hartnell) of an alternate timeline. This explains why her Tardis is in the shape of a police box, because in her timeline, she travelled to London in 1963 and then the chameleon circuit broke, just as Hartnell's did in our timeline. Some time in the hazy past, someone, either the Time Lords themselves, evil Time Lords, or maybe just some other time-traveling race or civilization, radically changes the timeline and caused all sorts of havoc and chaos. The Time Lords eventually managed to straighten the mess up, but in so doing, changed the timeline so that the Hartnell Doctor and not the Ruth doctor was the first incarnation of the Doctor. The Time Lord's policy of non-intervention is really a policy of maintaining the status quo timeline, and their main concern with the Doctor is that he'll end up doing something that disrupts the timeline again. And, based on this theory, if we're seeing the Ruth Doctor, it's because somebody *has* changed the timeline and made the existence of the Ruth Doctor possible once again. Which raises all sorts of questions about what are the key events of the past that caused such divergences in the timeline, and which timeline, if any, is in fact the 'real' or "correct" timeline that ought to exist? Or did the Time Lords just pick the timeline they liked the best, and decide to preserve that one? But hey, that's just a theory--a FAN Theory! Mwa-hahaha hahaha!!! But it does help to make the Time Lords and their policies more rational and understandable. Instead of being inscrutable and aloof, they're actually more like the Time Police, and probably more active in the universe than we realize.

[@ImmortalAbsol]

I wouldn't mind looms as an additional method, like creating new adults to fight the Time War.

[@Nige031077]

The creation of the Time Lords in the 'real world' is a tricky one, especially with their being accounts alluding to more than one person who came up with the concept, or in other cases some would just credit the author of the story with their first mention. Could it have been the work of Mac Hulke, Terrence Dicks and Derek Sherwin or ideas from all three, then built upon by Barry Letts and Robert Holmes, but if you don't focus on any story where The Doc is identified as human before The War Games and then stated by the Doc in Spearhead from Space that he is not human, then maybe there is a possibility that the images in the mind bending were Morbius and any incarnation before The first Doc is part of a elaborate ploy thought up in the twisted mind of the Master. Plus there's always the first rule, The Doc lies, so we may never get an answer.

[@CaptRobertApril]

Chibnall needs to have his fanboy card revoked, and a sonic screwdriver inserted in a very uncomfortable place. A big reason why the fans essentially rewrote the Morbius thing into those being Morbius' previous incarnations is that storywise, it makes a lot of sense. It shows the Doctor is fighting back and is now pushing into Morbius' mind, and ultimately wins. Otherwise, we're shown the Doctor just standing there and taking it until, what, Morbius wears himself out? Not very heroic.

[@AndrewopolisEternal]

The important thing about the Doctor's origin is that we never know for sure.

[@timdailey2690]

I really wonder how long Newman thought Dr. Who would last in the new world of episodic TV. It went supernova!!

[@hugahhl04]

Seems plausible to me that an individual living on Gallifrey grew up, regenerated a number of times in their childhood/youth, went to university where they eventually graduated with a doctorate - and decided to take on the name The Doctor (with the William Hartnell we know as the 1st Doctor). The Brain of Morbius shows incarnations of this individual before they took on the name The Doctor.

[@ponchoman49]

The Timeless nonsense was simply a demented made up origin story concocted by the Master to mess with the Doctors mind and memories. The original 1963 explanation is the best and Hartnell is the first Doctor as far as I'm concerned who got bored and snagged his grand daughter and fled Gallifrey in a stolen Tardis. They really should have kept this as mysterious as possible instead of analyzing it to death like they do everything these days or retconning.

[@idle_speculation]

Gallifrey wasn’t introduced until the second doctor era. In 1963 the character was a human with one heart.

[@grahamturner1290]

An excellent video, thanks! 👍

[@gary13th]

Another brilliant video Josh.

[@thebobbrom7176]

JNT: Likening The Doctor to a god might be offensive. RTD: Let's have angels fly The Doctor to defeat the villain and have characters literally call him "The Lonely God"

[@aleatoriac7356]

Excellent video, I'd never heard of that original (reactionary) character background for the Doctor. Did you create the Doctor Who logo/graphics/background animations for this? They are amazing - blue/white/silver with a tinge of gold are my favorite