The Doctor is as much an enigma today as he was 50 years ago when two school teachers stumbled upon his little blue box in a junk yard on Totter's Lane. Throughout his regenerations the Doctor has been consistently evasive and deceptive about his past and while there have been attempts to answer the questions surrounding the Doctor, these efforts have tended to create more questions. Some questions could be chalked up to simple continuity errors or writers choosing to rethink past stories. Other mysteries have been deliberately woven into the fabric of Doctor Who, challenging viewers to speculate and debate their own theories. Books and audio adventures have also tried to fill in the gaps but after 50 years The Doctor continues to confound attempts to discover who he really is. So with that in mind, I've decided to catalogue in detail the unanswered questions surrounding each Doctor. Obviously, there's a SPOILER WARNING apparent.
The First Doctor
50. Doctor Who?
Mystery has surrounded the Doctor's name since day one. When Ian and Barbara first meet the Doctor, they assume his name is Doctor Foreman based on his familial ties to Susan. He appears confused by this and he is the first character in the series to ask "Doctor Who?" Later we learn that he chose his name himself, that his actions throughout time were the source of the etymology of the word doctor and that his real name is hidden and must never be revealed. But why? Despite attempts to portray the Doctor as "more than a Time Lord," there is nothing in his background as described onscreen to mark him as any different from any other man from Gallifrey. So what is it about the Doctor's name that is so special? Based on the reaction to him from people privy to the secret of his name, it would be something immediately recognizable, carries some baggage and one can infer that even his companions would know who he truly is, if the name were revealed to them. He says that the name you choose is a promise. But what was the promise? Do all Time Lords choose names, and if so why? Are all their names hidden and if so, why?
49. Is He Really The First Incarnation Of The Doctor?
In The Brain of Morbius, The Fourth Doctor engages in a psychic battle to the death with the titular villain. Meanwhile a screen flashes brief images of previous incarnations of The Doctor, including the 3rd, 2nd and 1st but suddenly eight more faces appear, implying that Hartnell's incarnation was not the 1st Doctor, just the first that viewers had seen onscreen. Producer Phil Hinchcliffe says that the faces displayed were intended to represent past incarnations of The Doctor but virtually every story since has stressed that the 1st Doctor was the first. What is the truth? The Doctor has recently been forced to reveal the existence of a Doctor never discussed before. Could there be more?