10 Doctor Who Questions Not Even Fans Know The Answer To
7. Why Does The Time Vortex Never Look The Same?
In all the Doctor’s travels, the time vortex is one of the few constants. So how come it never looks the same from era to era?
In NuWho alone the vortex is blue or red from Series 1 to 4, cloudy and fiery from Series 5 to 7A, stock images in Series 7B, pink-purple in RTD2, and a blue wormhole-style design in Twice Upon a Time, to name a few.
There’s an obvious behind the scenes rationale in that the vortex is refreshed every few years to give each era its own visual identity.
But in-universe this has never even been acknowledged. So how do we square it?
Perhaps what we’re seeing are different regions of the vortex, with different Doctors venturing into a different one. Or perhaps it’s a natural process, where the vortex is constantly morphing and evolving, in true wibbly-wobbly fashion.
It could even be linked to regeneration. Is the Doctor such a big, complicated space-time event that the very act of them changing their appearance means the vortex does too? That would explain why changes of vortex tend to line up with changes of Doctor.
They're never going to explain what is essentially just a branding decision but there are quite a few fascinating ways for this to be head-canoned. The vortex is such an unknowable, mystical space that it does make sense for it to constantly shift and evolve.