Lifelong Doctor Who fans can consider ourselves blessed. Unlike those pesky Trekkies or annoying X-Philes, we've been fans of a show that, apart from a few brief hiatuses (and one fairly long one) has been on our screens for half a century now. With that long and expansive a history, there are many other directions the show could have taken. It may seem odd to be considering alternate realities and possibility spaces lurking within the trousers of time, but it's something the show has certainly dealt with before. In the episode Turn Left, the Doctor's companion Donna Noble is offered the chance to see what her life would be like if she had made a different decision. Our speculations won't have the same effects on the universe that Donna's decision did, of course, but that's not to say their not worth thinking about at all. It's not secret that Doctor Who has narrowly escaped damnation over the years, often by a hair's breadth. What if that had actually happened? This article is purely speculative, designed to generate discussion and debate. It also addresses the show from a real-world production point of view, though there may be a plot-related What If here and there. Let us know what moments in Doctor Who history you've similarly wondered about for future lists.
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
