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The Doctor is hiding more secrets than you realise...
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00:00Where there's a beloved property, there are fan theories.
00:03And where there are fan theories, there are crazy fan theories
00:06that should not be taken seriously, except when they are.
00:09I'm Will for Who Culture, and here are 8 Doctor Who fan theories that became fact.
00:158. The Doctor's Jacket Wasn't a Mistake
00:18The twisty, turny nature of Stephen Moffat's series arcs
00:22inspired a feverish level of fan debate and speculation.
00:25And this was at its peak during the complex, timey-wimey, universe-destroying shenanigans of Series 5.
00:32In the middle of the series, in the episode Flesh and Stone,
00:35there's a seemingly out-of-place scene where the 11th Doctor shows up
00:38sporting his signature tweed jacket,
00:41despite having lost it to the Weeping Angels literally moments before.
00:45Because the shot seemed to be trying to hide the fact that Smith was wearing a jacket
00:49by using an extreme close-up with his clothing barely visible,
00:52there were cries from within the fanbase that Doctor Who had made a mistake,
00:56and this was simply a continuity error.
00:58However, those who were obsessively trying to figure out Moffat's long-term game plan
01:02theorised that, no, this wasn't a mistake, it was a clue.
01:05And the reason the Doctor magically had his jacket on
01:08was because this Doctor was from the future.
01:11This was an extremely popular theory at the time,
01:13and even though it had a crackpot whiff about it,
01:15those who subscribed to the theory were able to claim their bragging rights at the end of the series.
01:20When the jacket-wearing Doctor travelled back along his own timeline
01:23and ended up in this exact scene from Flesh and Stone.
01:27Seven, the Doctor can regenerate into an animal.
01:30Even though it's been around since the earliest days of the show,
01:33the rules of regeneration have never been explicitly defined.
01:37This has led to the long-running fan theory that, in some rare cases,
01:41Time Lords might actually be capable of regenerating into something different,
01:45something that isn't humanoid.
01:47While the show is never strayed from its Time Lord's look-like-human stance,
01:51there is some slight evidence that supports the notion of a Time Lord to animal regeneration.
01:56Some fans point to the fact that the Doctor usually checks their body when they regenerate,
02:01often appearing relieved that they've got two arms, two legs, two eyes, and other humanoid features.
02:06And then there's the fact that the Master once looked like this,
02:09possibly as far away from a regular human as a Time Lord has ever appeared.
02:13Still, without any sort of official confirmation or acknowledgement,
02:17this idea remained nothing more than a theory, until last year.
02:21Penned by former showrunner Russell T. Davies and featuring the voice of David Tennant,
02:25the 2020 webcast The Secret of Novice Haim confirmed that the Doctor has had hundreds of faces and forms,
02:32including men, women, and animals.
02:35For obvious reasons, we'll probably never see an animal version of the Doctor leading the show,
02:39but this does open the door for the likes of Big Finish and Titan Comics to tell all sorts of
02:44wacky stories.
02:45Six, The Doctor is a copy of the original.
02:48Heaven Sent is one of those episodes that leaves audiences with just the right amount of ambiguity,
02:53most of it revolving around the Doctor's confession dial and how exactly it works.
02:58In the episode, the 12th Doctor is trapped inside said confession dial,
03:01caught in a loop, dying over and over again, and respawning after death.
03:05It's a fascinating plot device, but something that isn't made clear is whether or not the real Doctor was the
03:11first one to die,
03:12making every subsequent version of him nothing more than a clone of the original.
03:17Ever since the episode aired back in 2015, many fans have theorized that this is the case,
03:22and that, after Heaven Sent, the 12th Doctor was actually a copy.
03:26And so, when writer Stephen Moffat joined Twitter for a watch-along of the episode,
03:30this topic was bound to come up, and sure enough, it did.
03:33In response, Moffat pretty much confirmed the clone theory by referring back to a similar event in a 1964 William
03:40Hartnell serial.
03:41Moffat said,
03:42He first teleported in the Key of Marinus.
03:45He's been a copy ever since then.
03:47Deal with it, kid.
03:48Five, The Truth About River Song.
03:50Another Stephen Moffat arc, the mystery of River Song didn't run for a single series.
03:54It ran through series four, five, and six, before the truth about her backstory was finally made clear.
04:00There were so many puzzles surrounding River.
04:02Her true identity, the identity of the man she killed, the full extent of her relationship with the Doctor.
04:07And while all of these question marks did have satisfying payoffs,
04:11there were many theories that accurately predicted these payoffs long before the show itself got to them.
04:16Right from the moment that River met Amy in series five,
04:19a good number of fans speculated that the two characters were somehow related.
04:23A theory that was proven true with the series six revelation that River is Amy's daughter, Melody.
04:28The same thing happened with the slightly more obvious identity of the man River was imprisoned for killing.
04:33In series five, the show strongly telegraphed that this man was the Doctor.
04:38And as a result, pretty much the entire fan base latched on to this theory,
04:42which was again confirmed in the closing episodes of series six.
04:45The speculation that River was secretly the Rani, though, yeah, that one didn't age well.
04:50Four, Gwen is related to Gwyneth.
04:53Actress Eve Miles first stepped into the Hooniverse in the 2005 episode, The Unquiet Dead,
04:58portraying Mr. Sneed's clairvoyant servant Gwyneth.
05:01Then, in 2006, Miles joined the cast of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood as policewoman Gwen Cooper.
05:07Though her second Hooniverse character was wildly different to her first,
05:11fans, for obvious reasons, speculated that they were connected somehow,
05:15despite then-showrunner Russell T. Davis telling Doctor Who magazine that there was definitively
05:19no link between the two characters.
05:21However, it appears that Davis then changed his mind,
05:24or perhaps all the fan theories caught his attention.
05:26Whatever the case, Doctor Who's series four finale explains that Gwen was connected to Gwyneth
05:31with spatial genetic multiplicity, resulting in their physical similarities.
05:36It's also possible that Davis was simply lying about their lack of a connection at first.
05:40After all, being in charge of Doctor Who does mean you have to tell the occasional fib.
05:44Three, humans got the word Doctor from the Doctor.
05:47In the mid-90s, an avid Doctor Who fan took to the then-primitive internet,
05:52eager to share one of their theories on a Doctor Who message board.
05:55The theory that humanity's use of the word Doctor actually came from the Doctor themselves,
06:00due to the Time Lord's many appearances throughout history as a healer and a wise man.
06:04Sounds pretty plausible, right?
06:06Well, that fan's name was none other than Stephen Moffat,
06:09the man who would one day take charge of the show and catapult it to international success.
06:14And when he finally took the reins, he used that opportunity to work his decades-old theory
06:19into the fabric of the show.
06:21Because why not?
06:22In the closing moments of Series 6's A Good Man Goes to War,
06:26River Song shows up and berates the Doctor for his reckless behavior,
06:29reminding him just how powerful his name has become throughout the universe.
06:33In doing so, she tells him where the word Doctor originally came from,
06:37and lo and behold, Moffat actually did it.
06:39She says,
06:40Doctor, the word for healer and wise man throughout the universe.
06:43We get that word from you, you know?
06:46Funnily enough, though, this wouldn't be the last time Moffat weaved his own fan fictions
06:50into the show he loved so much.
06:52Two, the Doctor's name is more than just a secret.
06:55Before he was appointed as Doctor Who's head honcho,
06:58Moffat was one of showrunner Russell T. Davies' most trusted writers,
07:02delivering standout 9th and 10th Doctor stories like The Empty Child and Blink.
07:07The Girl in the Fireplace, his second effort while working under Davies,
07:11sees the 10th Doctor form a special bond with Madame de Pompadour,
07:14with the two characters getting to know each other both physically and mentally.
07:18At one point, the Doctor looks inside her mind in order to procure some information,
07:22but at the same time, she can now see into his mind as well.
07:26She feels just how lonely he was as a child,
07:28before sensing that his real name isn't just a simple moniker,
07:32and it bears a much greater significance.
07:34This was Moffat theorising that the reason why the Doctor never speaks his name
07:38is because of a higher power, a greater reason,
07:41something that makes it important for him to keep his lips sealed.
07:44And you know what?
07:45He worked it into the show five years later.
07:47In the latter stages of Series 7,
07:49we learn that the Doctor's name is the code word that opens the door to his grave,
07:53a dangerous place that must never be discovered.
07:56Then later on, his name becomes the password
07:58that will allow the Time Lords to return to the Prime Universe,
08:01a return which would incite large-scale warfare.
08:05In other words, the Madam's assessment and Moffat's theory were bang on.
08:09One, the Morbius Doctors are canon.
08:11One of the longest-running Doctor Who theories
08:13stems from the 1976 serial The Brain of Morbius,
08:17in which Tom Baker's fourth Doctor engages in a psychic wrestling match
08:21with the titular patchwork creature.
08:23During this scene, the Doctor's previous three faces appear on a nearby screen.
08:27But interestingly, it doesn't stop there.
08:29In fact, we see eight more mystery faces before the Doctor wins the contest.
08:34Though some speculation has argued that these faces are past incarnations of Morbius,
08:39the far more popular theory is that they are past incarnations of the Doctor,
08:43incarnations that came before William Hartnell.
08:46This was also the intent of the production team,
08:48although the theory was never explicitly confirmed within the show.
08:51But in 2020, that changed.
08:53Series 12 finale, The Timeless Children,
08:55revealed that the Doctor isn't just an ordinary Time Lord.
08:58They're a powerful creature from another world,
09:01the first ever being to possess the gift of regeneration.
09:04The episode also informed us that the Doctor has had more lives than we think,
09:08even going so far as to show the Morbius faces during the scene
09:12where the 13th Doctor breaks out of the Matrix.
09:15Some fans even believe that the entire point of the Timeless Child twist
09:19was so that current showrunner Chris Chibnall,
09:21who grew up watching the fourth Doctor,
09:23could make the Morbius Doctors canon.
09:25Whether you subscribe to that notion or not,
09:27that is exactly what he did.
09:29And there you have it, folks.
09:30Eight Doctor Who fan theories that became fact.
09:33Feel free to drop this video a like if you enjoyed it,
09:35and drop me a follow on Twitter at uslidaogu.
09:38I'm Will for WhatCulture.
09:39Thanks for hanging out,
09:40and I'll see you next time.
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