Doctor Who Flux: 10 Huge Questions After Survivors Of The Flux

3. Is The Doctor From Another Universe?

Doctor Who The Timeless Child
BBC Studios

In a strange about-turn, Tecteun offers the Doctor the choice of returning to our universe to try and save it, or staying with her to travel to the next part of the multiverse. She expects the Doctor to pick the latter by making her think the alternative universe could be the one she was born into. But did the Doctor really come from the other side of that wormhole?

The Doctor is unconvinced, despite Tecteun decisively telling her that the Master wasn’t lying. Whichever way the Doctor arrived on that planet, she was abducted by Tecteun, who instead of trying to return the little girl to her home, raised her on Gallifrey as her own.

The abusive relationship was clearly not in the Doctor’s interests and it makes Tecteun an unreliable witness. The answers supposedly lie inside the fob watch, but that too could be all part of Tecteun’s deception, a way of manipulating the Doctor into abandoning the Earth and rejoining the Division.

The exchange opens up the possibility that the Doctor is from our universe after all and although we aren’t likely to see Chibnall completely undo the Timeless Child narrative, the mystery of who the Doctor is will carry over to Russell T Davies.

In the end, will it matter which universe the Doctor is from? Doctor Who Flux seems to be a way of removing that distraction from the Doctor so that it doesn’t overshadow future storylines. She’s already realising that all that matters is her friends in the here and now. The choice between finding out about her past and saving the Earth is a no brainer.

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.