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Clearing up the confusion surrounding Doctor Who's biggest misconceptions.
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00:00Doctor Who is like a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
00:04It's been running for so long that tons of myths, misconceptions, and urban legends have sprung around it.
00:10Like a massive game of Chinese whispers that has been running for almost 60 years at this point.
00:16With that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture here with 10 things everyone always gets wrong about Doctor Who.
00:23Number 10. Jenny Regenerated in The Doctor's Daughter.
00:27The Doctor's Daughter was designed to challenge the Doctor in a unique way.
00:32It paired him with a character who, for all intents and purposes, was his daughter,
00:36but gave her a military mindset that was very much at odds with the Doctor's values.
00:41Despite this, the two characters came to understand one another over the course of the episode.
00:45So it was a particularly cruel twist of fate when Jenny was killed via gunshot by the rather insensitive General Cobb.
00:52Believing her to be gone for good, the Doctor took his TARDIS and left,
00:56only for Jenny to spring back to life in a final pre-credits tag with a stream of golden energy emitting from her mouth.
01:02Because Jenny was created from the Doctor's DNA, some people believed that this was her regenerating,
01:08just like any Time Lord would after succumbing to a bullet wound.
01:11That golden energy, which looks similar to regeneration energy, would seem to back up this train of thought.
01:16But that's not actually what's going on here.
01:19Rather, it's energy from the Source, the terraforming device that the humans and the Hath are fighting over,
01:24that brings Jenny back to life.
01:26The Source's green-tinted energy is the same stuff that emits from Jenny's mouth,
01:30and considering that it has the power to rejuvenate an entire planet's ecosystem,
01:34bringing someone back from the dead would be child's play for it.
01:37Number 9. All Gallifreyans are Time Lords
01:41The descriptors Time Lord and Gallifreyan are thrown around interchangeably by fans and non-fans alike.
01:48To be completely fair, though, Doctor Who hasn't done the best job of making the differences between the two clear.
01:54While all Time Lords are Gallifreyan, not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords.
01:58The Time Lords are a super-duper special group that wears funny hats and does all the talking.
02:03They're basically Gallifrey's government officials.
02:05According to the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums,
02:08they're ordinary Gallifreyan children who were taken from their families at a young age
02:12and entered into the Time Lord Academy.
02:15Here, they gazed into the untempered schism which showed them the power of the Time Vortex.
02:20According to the version of events depicted in the Timeless Children,
02:23Gallifrey's indigenous people are the Shabogans,
02:26a group of whom renamed themselves Time Lords after the Timeless Child's DNA granted them the ability to regenerate.
02:32In a nutshell, people on Gallifrey aren't automatically Time Lords from birth.
02:36There are ordinary Gallifreyans in one camp and then those who go on to become Time Lords in another.
02:41We've even seen some of these ordinary Gallifreyans in the show,
02:44such as the young boy in Heaven Sent or the outsiders in The Invasion of Time.
02:48Number 8. The Daleks Couldn't Levitate Until 2005
02:53That iconic scene in Series 1's Dalek, where the main villain levitates up a flight of stairs,
02:59has on occasion been called the first time the Daleks flew.
03:03Understandably, their ability to conquer the universe was questionable if they needed an elevator to reach the second floor,
03:09but this moment put that doubt to rest.
03:11Except, it had already been put to rest in 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks,
03:16with a Dalek defeating some stairs with apparent ease.
03:19And 23 years before that, a Dalek levitated out of some sand in the first Doctor serial The Chase,
03:24in a scene that served as the cliffhanger of episode 1.
03:27We also see a Dalek hovering in 1985's Revelation of the Daleks.
03:32This is something that's been reinforced throughout New Who,
03:34where it's been shown that the Daleks can actually properly fly.
03:37See that epic Daleks vs Cybermen street battle in Doomsday,
03:41or the reconnaissance scout swooping down to fight the human army in Resolution.
03:45So we won't hear any more slander about the Daleks not being able to climb stairs, okay?
03:52Number 7. Chris Chibnall Had a Five-Year Plan
03:55The Timeless Child twist cemented the Chris Chibnall era as the most divisive time in modern Who.
04:01But interestingly, the decision to shake up the Doctor's backstory
04:04was something that the BBC supported him on from the very beginning.
04:08I knew from the start, Chibnall told Radio Times in 2020,
04:11adding that the Timeless Child concept was included in his initial pitches to BBC execs.
04:16It's quotes like this that fuel a myth that began right at the beginning of Chibnall's tenure,
04:21with fans often bringing up his supposed five-year plan for the show,
04:25even though there's zero evidence that Chibnall said such a thing in the first place.
04:29And that's because he didn't, with the five-year myth actually stemming from a 2017 quote by James Strong,
04:34who directed several Doctor Who episodes under Russell T. Davies,
04:38and also collaborated with Chibnall on Torchwood and Broadchurch.
04:41Strong, who was clearly just speaking in broad strokes,
04:44said that Chibnall's Doctor Who undertaking was a five-year project,
04:47which was then spun by various outlets and fans as,
04:50Chris Chibnall has a five-year plan.
04:52And thus, the myth was born.
04:55Number 6. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space
04:58There are several iconic pop culture quotes that many people get wrong.
05:03Darth Vader actually says,
05:05No, I am your father, rather than,
05:07Luke, I am your father.
05:08And no, it isn't mirror, mirror on the wall,
05:10it's actually magic mirror on the wall.
05:13Rookie mistake.
05:14Doctor Who also has one of these,
05:16and it involves the way that many fans wrongly remember the TARDIS' full name.
05:21Towards the end of Doctor Who's very first episode,
05:23Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter,
05:25claims that she was the one who came up with the TARDIS acronym,
05:29by taking the initials from the phrase,
05:31Time and Relative Dimension in Space.
05:33Despite that singular dimension being used not just by Susan,
05:37but by the fifth Doctor in Frontios,
05:39the eighth Doctor in a TV movie,
05:40and the tenth Doctor in Smith and Jones,
05:42among many other examples,
05:44fans usually remember it as the plural,
05:46Dimensions, instead.
05:48Probably because it rolls off the tongue a little bit easier.
05:50To be fair, Dimensions has also been used in the show.
05:53Adric in Four to Doomsday,
05:55the seventh Doctor in Delta and the Bannermen.
05:57But with the singular version of the word being not just the original,
06:01but the more prolific,
06:02it's Time and Relative Dimension in Space.
06:05That's the correct version of the two.
06:08Number five.
06:09Prisoner Zero runs past the window in Amy's house.
06:13Just past the 15-minute mark in Matt Smith's debut episode,
06:16the 11th Doctor accidentally leaves young Amelia Pond behind for a whopping 12 years,
06:21despite promising her he'd only be five minutes.
06:24Not cool.
06:25With Amelia sat waiting in her garden,
06:27the camera pulls back inside her dark, eerie house,
06:30and a mysterious figure darts past the window.
06:33This figure is never identified or explained,
06:35but considering that we'd just learned about the threat of Prisoner Zero,
06:39and with Amelia's landing door having opened of its own accord mere seconds before,
06:43it's understandable why a lot of viewers thought that it was Prisoner Zero who was lurking at the window.
06:48However, as confirmed by writer Stephen Moffat on the episode's commentary track,
06:52the original plan was to reveal that this figure was a future version of the 11th Doctor,
06:57the same 11th Doctor who travels back along his own time stream in the series finale, The Big Bang.
07:02In fact, the very same shot of Eleven darting past the window was intended to be used again in The Big Bang,
07:07but was removed because Moffat felt that it didn't edit in very well.
07:114. Doctor Who aired on the same night as the Kennedy assassination
07:16It can't be overstated how insane it is that Doctor Who has been on the air for 59 years.
07:23Most TV shows are lucky to get four or five,
07:25and yet here we are about to celebrate the Doctor's 60th anniversary,
07:29and let's hope there's another 60 to come.
07:32Because 59 years is such a long time,
07:34those early days of the show are almost mythic by this point,
07:37and certain factoids about them have become twisted.
07:40There's the one about Ridley Scott being the designer of the Daleks.
07:43He wasn't.
07:44And it's often forgotten that Ron Greiner wasn't the sole creator of that iconic theme tune.
07:49Delia Derbyshire also shares in that credit,
07:52having provided the unforgettable sounds that formed its basis.
07:55Another prominent misconception involves the date
07:57on which the first ever Doctor Who episode was beamed into British homes.
08:01With an unearthly child famously airing on the exact same weekend
08:05as the Kennedy assassination in November 1963,
08:08you'll often find people saying that both of these events also happened on the exact same day.
08:13In reality, though, the assassination happened on the 22nd of November,
08:17while the world was introduced to William Hartnell's first Doctor on the following day.
08:21Of course, this unfortunate timing meant that Doctor Who was greatly overshadowed.
08:25The death of a US president dominated the public consciousness
08:28more so than the debut of a quaint British sci-fi show.
08:31But there was, nonetheless, an entire day separating these events.
08:35Number 3.
08:36Tasha Lem was supposed to be River Song.
08:39Tasha Lem's debut in 2013's Christmas special The Time of the Doctor
08:43brought with it immediate, understandable comparisons to River Song.
08:47With both characters having a history with the Doctor,
08:50both having the same fun, flirty relationship with him,
08:52and both being capable of flying the TARDIS,
08:55there was enough evidence to suggest that Tasha might have been an incarnation of River,
08:59or, as some fans believe, was originally meant to be River,
09:03only for the character to be changed as the episode entered production.
09:06Despite the belief that Tasha is River, or was supposed to be River,
09:10being raised on various forums over the years, it simply isn't true.
09:14Steven Moffat has said that he was aiming for a different kind of relationship with Tasha and the Doctor,
09:19though he did also admit that he perhaps went a bit too River Song.
09:22He said,
09:23What I was looking for was, it was like the Doctor meeting his first girlfriend,
09:26so they have a certain knowledge of each other,
09:28but it's from a long time ago, and they're at ease.
09:30I think it went a bit too River Song,
09:32because everyone loved River, so they sort of made her into another River.
09:36All of the evidence in the episode can be easily explained away,
09:39and though it's a cool theory, Moffat's comment strongly indicates that Tasha,
09:43though admittedly similar to River in some ways, was always intended to be her own character.
09:49Number 2. Michael Grade cancelled Doctor Who
09:52There are some who believe that the Daleks or the Cybermen are the Doctor's greatest villain.
09:57To others, it's the Master, or even the Weeping Angels,
10:00but to fans who were watching the show in the mid to late 80s, it's probably Michael Grade.
10:05Grade was the controller of BBC One around that time,
10:08and was responsible for putting Doctor Who on hiatus in 1985,
10:12as well as firing sixth Doctor Colin Baker the year after.
10:16He infamously hated the show, even going so far as to call it garbage.
10:20Clearly, he wasn't the type of fella to have a TARDIS mug in his cupboard.
10:23Because of Grade's well-documented hatred of the show, a lot of fans also associate him with its
10:29cancellation in 1989, which is an understandable connection to make. But in reality, Grade wasn't
10:34even at the BBC when that decision was made. He was succeeded as BBC One's controller by
10:39Jonathan Powell in 1987, and it was he who was responsible for Doctor Who disappearing from our
10:45screens. Sharing in that responsibility was head of series Peter Krugin, who even called himself the
10:51person who cancelled Doctor Who in the 2007 documentary Doctor Who Endgame. Grade's lack
10:56of faith in the show can't have helped matters, though, so he does shoulder some of the blame.
11:021. The Twelfth Doctor Ran Around Naked in Heaven Sent
11:06Series 9's Heaven Sent is an incredibly complex episode that leaves just as many questions as
11:12it answers. How does the Doctor unlock a wooden door with the power of his thoughts? If the castle
11:17resets after each cycle, then why doesn't the diamond wall do the same? And who the hell left
11:22those spare clothes by the fireplace? Early on, the Doctor escapes the sinister veil by diving out
11:27of a window, falling straight into the water below. Shortly after, he finds a dry, spare outfit that
11:32he quickly swaps for his wet one, but the episode never reveals who those clothes originally belonged
11:37to. To some, however, the truth was hilariously obvious. With the Doctor dying and respawning over
11:43and over again in a seemingly endless loop, the clothes must have belonged to him. On his very
11:48first run through the castle, he'd simply left them there to dry, opting to run around naked for a bit
11:53before the veil eventually caught him. Though the thought of Twelfth navigating the castle in his
11:57birthday suit is a funny one, Stephen Moffat has confirmed that's not what happened. He said,
12:02no, of course, there wasn't a naked Doctor. I sort of wrote that moment to force you to think that
12:07the first time round the castle, the first of many times, wasn't the same as the version we saw.
12:12In other words, the first cycle didn't require the Doctor to strip off. Still, good luck getting
12:16that image out of your head. And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let
12:22us know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
12:27notification bell so you never miss a Who Culture video. I've been Ellie with Who Culture and in the
12:32words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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