20 Things Doctor Who Wants You To Forget

4. The One Who Cannot Be Named Or Numbered

Doctor Who Forget
BBC Studios

As secrets go, this one had to be the Doctor’s darkest. A version of himself that the Time Lord completely disowned on account of his involvement in the Time War, the War Doctor was supposed to have been irredeemably lost. But by the end of The Day of the Doctor, all is forgiven after he meets his Tenth and Eleventh selves. He discovers again what it means to be the Doctor as between the three of them, with a little bit of help from Clara and the conscience of the Moment (In the form of Billie Piper as bad wolf), they find a way to save Gallifrey.

In reality, the War Doctor shouldn’t have been blamed in the first place, it was the decision of the Eighth Doctor to trade being a Doctor for a Warrior, so really he is the one the others should have disowned. There was however, of course, the thorny issue of how to number the Doctors, and discounting this never-before-the-Doctor didn’t mess up the established BBC numbering.

Now that the War Doctor has been redeemed, why shouldn’t he count as Doctor number 9? Certainly his escapades in those dark days are well and truly out of the bag, in officially licensed Big Finish audio adventures, in George Mann’s official Engines of War novel and the fan-made charity anthology, Seasons of War.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.