10 Doctor Who Questions That Always Confused You
7. What Is The Valeyard?
In the final stages of The Trial of a Timelord, it is revealed that the Doctor's prosecutor, the Valeyard, is actually an evil version of the Doctor himself. A distillation of the Doctor's darker impulses from somewhere between the Doctor's twelfth and thirteenth lives. But what does that mean exactly?
The Master's description of the Valeyard is more of a metaphorical concept, so how did it gain a physical form? No answers are forthcoming in the Trial's notoriously troubled final two episodes, which descends into a chase across the Matrix. A chase, or the writers Pip and Jane Baker running away, full-pelt from trying to explain the concept teed up by Valeyard creator Robert Holmes?
Fans have tried to answer this question through spin-off novels, short stories and audio adventures. Yet these muddy the waters even more! One story states that he's a villainous version of the Doctor, plucked from the multiverse. One audio suggests the Valeyard was a by-product of an experiment by the Doctor to break the twelve regeneration limit. Awkwardly this was released the week before the Eleventh Doctor was granted a new regeneration cycle!
All of this confusion could have been avoided if it had just turned out that the Valeyard was the Master in disguise. After all, aren't they the real "Dark Doctor"?