Spoilers Why do you think the TARDIS threw the Doctor out?

[Christopher]

Oh, I think the First Doctor was clearly an alien. He contemplated going "back to (his) home planet" some time after the Dalek Masterplan stories.

A home planet in the distant future, though. Many alien planets in Doctor Who's future have been colonized by humans. That was the original implication, that the Doctor and Susan were far-future humans from a civilization that had mastered travel through space and time, and had developed intelligence and abilities that transcended 20th-century humanity.

In "The Sensorites," the Doctor said that cats "can see better than we humans" at night. Later, a Sensorite referred to him as a human being, though the Doctor wasn't there to confirm or refute it. Similarly, in "The Chase," the Daleks referred to the TARDIS crew as "the four humans," and Brett in "The War Machines" described the Doctor as having a "special human brain." Captain Blade in "The Faceless Ones" called the Doctor human, and the Doctor didn't correct him. The Daleks in "The Evil of the Daleks" referred to the Doctor as "more than human," but attributed it to him being a time traveler. Overall, the writers seemed to assume that the Doctor was human. It wasn't until "The War Games" that he was clearly established as being from an alien race, and not until "Spearhead from Space" that he was established as having two hearts.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The doctor has new companions this series

Graham, Ryan and Yasmin (played by Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gil

 

[Mr Soak]

The doctor has new companions this series

Graham, Ryan and Yasmin (played by Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gil

Welcome to last October. Link

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Welcome to last October. Link

Sorry

 

[The Wormhole]

Outside of "The Day of the Doctor" and "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls," we didn't see any Davies-created characters during the Moffat era either, as far as I can recall.

We did have RTD-created aliens, such as Ood and Judoon, though that was usually budgetary convenience of needing a costume that already existed. The Shadow Proclamation and the albino woman who runs it were briefly seen in S9.

 

[Starkers]

We did have RTD-created aliens, such as Ood and Judoon, though that was usually budgetary convenience of needing a costume that already existed. The Shadow Proclamation and the albino woman who runs it were briefly seen in S9.

We also saw Rose, Martha and Donna in Let's Kill Hitler!

 

[Christopher]

We did have RTD-created aliens, such as Ood and Judoon, though that was usually budgetary convenience of needing a costume that already existed.

Sure, but we also saw Daleks, Cybermen, UNIT, etc. Reusing an established species or institution isn't the same thing as bringing back a specific character/actor. For instance, Chibnall might very well bring back the Sontarans, but not necessarily Strax (although they might still reuse Dan Starkey).

Of course, I could be wrong. Just because Moffat preferred not to reuse a prior showrunner's characters much, that doesn't mean Chibnall will feel the same way. I'm sure he'd rather focus on developing his own characters and storylines for the most part, as new showrunners usually are, but he might be more willing to fold in pre-existing characters and concepts on occasion.

The Shadow Proclamation and the albino woman who runs it were briefly seen in S9.

She's called the Shadow Architect. Okay, that counts as a reused character, though only a brief use.

We also saw Rose, Martha and Donna in Let's Kill Hitler!

Only as archive footage, not as actual characters with the performers returning. We also saw them and others in the pre-regeneration montage in "The Doctor Falls."

 

[Mr Awe]

A home planet in the distant future, though. Many alien planets in Doctor Who's future have been colonized by humans. That was the original implication, that the Doctor and Susan were far-future humans from a civilization that had mastered travel through space and time, and had developed intelligence and abilities that transcended 20th-century humanity.

In "The Sensorites," the Doctor said that cats "can see better than we humans" at night. Later, a Sensorite referred to him as a human being, though the Doctor wasn't there to confirm or refute it. Similarly, in "The Chase," the Daleks referred to the TARDIS crew as "the four humans," and Brett in "The War Machines" described the Doctor as having a "special human brain." Captain Blade in "The Faceless Ones" called the Doctor human, and the Doctor didn't correct him. The Daleks in "The Evil of the Daleks" referred to the Doctor as "more than human," but attributed it to him being a time traveler. Overall, the writers seemed to assume that the Doctor was human. It wasn't until "The War Games" that he was clearly established as being from an alien race, and not until "Spearhead from Space" that he was established as having two hearts.

While I agree that the showrunners weren't sure about whether he was human or alien, those cases where others refer to him as a human can be a case of jumping to the wrong conclusion based on how he looks--completely indistinguishable from humans. And, indeed, in hind sight where we know he's not human, it turns out they were incorrect in assuming that.

 

[Qonundrum]

True... But I got the impression this time around she actively threw the Doctor out.

The TARDIS' AI sensed fiery explosion and opened the doors to let the lack of atmosphere outside fix the issue.

I'm sure that the anthropomorphizing of the machine, first introduced in "The Doctor's Wife", will find a way for an explanation - the TARDIS ("she") just doesn't want a woman inside of her? And is it possible to drop any more IQ points when postulating this nonsense, which I hope isn't going to be the official reason...

Now if the TARDIS is tired of the Doctor regenerating and the regeneration energy is used like a WMD and destroys everything in a neat little radius, then the TARDIS is bound to consciously kick its occupant out as a self-defense mechanism after a few goes of being physically assaulted... Again, more IQ points are dripping away... at least the classic era (1963-89) wouldn't do drivel like this.

I'd rather they keep it to something more basic - emergency controls in opening the doors to put out the flaming mess, brought about by the regeneration WMD energy and the Doctor is just caught in the middle. It avoids the IQ-dropping arguments entirely.

 

[Christopher]

The TARDIS' AI sensed fiery explosion and opened the doors to let the lack of atmosphere outside fix the issue.

One: The Doctor fell through the clouds. They were pretty high in the atmosphere, so the air outside was thin, but certainly present.

Two: The fireball is the least of the problems involved in an explosion. It's the blast wave that does the real damage; and the more powerful the explosion, the briefer the fireball's duration, because a higher-energy reaction burns through or blows apart the reactants far more quickly. You can't "blow out" an explosion as you would a candle; on the contrary, explosions are what are used to blow out oilwell fires, because they eat up all the oxygen in a fraction of a second. (Film and TV use very low-energy explosions because they have slow, impressive-looking fireballs that are not very dangerous at all. High-powered explosives have such brief fireballs that you need a high-speed camera to capture them.)

In this case, we saw the time rotor literally blow apart; its destruction was the source of the subsequent fireball. Putting the fire out wouldn't un-explode the time rotor any more than muting the sound of the blast would do it. They're both aftereffects, not causes.

I'm sure that the anthropomorphizing of the machine, first introduced in "The Doctor's Wife"

Oh, hardly. The idea that the TARDIS has its own intelligence was established way back in the third storyline, "The Edge of Destruction," in 1963. Certainly the idea is emphasized more heavily in the new series than in the old, but it's been there pretty much from the beginning.

Indeed, the idea Neil Gaiman suggested in "The Doctor's Wife" -- that the TARDIS took the Doctor where he needed to be rather than where he wanted to go -- was a popular fan theory for decades before then, to rationalize why the Doctor's seemingly random wandering through the universe inevitably plopped him down in the middle of world-threatening crises. I came up with it myself in the '90s, and I eventually learned I was one of many fans to concoct the same explanation -- along with Gaiman, as it turned out.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

One: The Doctor fell through the clouds. They were pretty high in the atmosphere, so the air outside was thin, but certainly present.

Two: The fireball is the least of the problems involved in an explosion. It's the blast wave that does the real damage; and the more powerful the explosion, the briefer the fireball's duration, because a higher-energy reaction burns through or blows apart the reactants far more quickly. You can't "blow out" an explosion as you would a candle; on the contrary, explosions are what are used to blow out oilwell fires, because they eat up all the oxygen in a fraction of a second. (Film and TV use very low-energy explosions because they have slow, impressive-looking fireballs that are not very dangerous at all. High-powered explosives have such brief fireballs that you need a high-speed camera to capture them.)

In this case, we saw the time rotor literally blow apart; its destruction was the source of the subsequent fireball. Putting the fire out wouldn't un-explode the time rotor any more than muting the sound of the blast would do it. They're both aftereffects, not causes.




Oh, hardly. The idea that the TARDIS has its own intelligence was established way back in the third storyline, "The Edge of Destruction," in 1963. Certainly the idea is emphasized more heavily in the new series than in the old, but it's been there pretty much from the beginning.

Indeed, the idea Neil Gaiman suggested in "The Doctor's Wife" -- that the TARDIS took the Doctor where he needed to be rather than where he wanted to go -- was a popular fan theory for decades before then, to rationalize why the Doctor's seemingly random wandering through the universe inevitably plopped him down in the middle of world-threatening crises. I came up with it myself in the '90s, and I eventually learned I was one of many fans to concoct the same explanation -- along with Gaiman, as it turned out.

Same here and I came up with that in the 80s before the internets.. LOL

Actually growing up in the 80s I had a manual typewriter and wrote lots of Dr Who related stories. I wish I had kept them, I even wrote a sequel to "Image of the Fendahl" with most of the same characters.

I have never seen much of the old series I'll have to look up "The Edge Of Destruction" one day to see what they had to say about the old girl.

 

[UncleRogi]

Here's an interesting hypothetical:

So, The TARDIS watches as the Doctor regenerates into a woman, then goes into
its own cycle, and goes off to wherever it goes at these times. What if the TARDIS decides
assume a "male" persona this time, in response to the Doctors regen?

I wonder what the fan reaction would be like...

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Here's an interesting hypothetical:

So, The TARDIS watches as the Doctor regenerates into a woman, then goes into
its own cycle, and goes off to wherever it goes at these times. What if the TARDIS decides
assume a "male" persona this time, in response to the Doctors regen?

I wonder what the fan reaction would be like...

Interesting idea but not sure how that would work. Would its design change?

 

[Christopher]

Here's an interesting hypothetical:

So, The TARDIS watches as the Doctor regenerates into a woman, then goes into
its own cycle, and goes off to wherever it goes at these times. What if the TARDIS decides
assume a "male" persona this time, in response to the Doctors regen?

Why has fandom fallen so quickly into this belief that it's normal for the TARDIS to "regenerate" at the same time the Doctor does, when it's only ever happened once before out of a dozen or so instances, and clearly in response to the damage the TARDIS sustained at the time? Like I've said already, it's undoubtedly the exception, not the rule.


I still say that an entity as alien as the TARDIS wouldn't even notice the superficial variances in anatomy between a humanoid male and female. Okay, so the Doctor's shorter now, the voice is higher, the body's less hairy, this bit is slightly more bulgey, and that bit's an innie instead of an outie (assuming the TARDIS can even tell that through the Doctor's clothes). But the Doctor's had different heights and voices before, different hair colors and textures, different eye colors, sometimes a bulgier nose or chin, sometimes a more protruding belly, etc. For us, gender differences stand out relative to other anatomical variations because we're biologically and socially conditioned to notice them, but a nonhumanoid intelligence would probably see them as comparatively minor.

In "The Doctor's Wife," when the TARDIS was able to speak through Idris, she did correctly refer to Amy as a girl and got gender pronouns right, but on the other hand, she couldn't tell Amy and Rory apart ("Which one's Amy? The pretty one?", by which she meant Rory). So whatever understanding of humanoid gender identity the TARDIS has is tentative at best.

 

[UncleRogi]

Interesting idea but not sure how that would work. Would its design change?

Well, we only have the one example: Idris. And is the TARDIS inherently female, or just the Doctors
perception? I don't think the TARDIS has a gender. Idris was female, the Doctor calls her "old girl"
and "Sexy", so is it just conforming to that bias?

 

[Photoman15]

Of course. Between each pair of roundels will be an elongated cylinder

 

[Christopher]

Well, we only have the one example: Idris. And is the TARDIS inherently female, or just the Doctors
perception? I don't think the TARDIS has a gender. Idris was female, the Doctor calls her "old girl"
and "Sexy", so is it just conforming to that bias?

The TARDIS was put into Idris by House, so her gender did not reflect the TARDIS's own choice. In-story, it was just the luck of the draw that it was a female body.

The Doctor calling the TARDIS "she" or "old girl" just reflects the traditional tendency of sailors to refer to vessels as female.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Of course. Between each pair of roundels will be an elongated cylinder

You'd never get rid of River then....or Jack for that matter.