Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Can You Hear Me?
1. What Does The Doctor Have Nightmares About?
The Doctor’s dream is of the Timeless Child, but all she can hear is the Master’s hatred towards the Time Lords. We don’t see anything new here, but it is an important reminder that the Doctor has yet to figure it all out. The time has almost come for her to confront the demons of the past, when she will no doubt take inspiration from the human beings she has so passionately defended against the cynical and unimaginative gods.
As far as we know, the 13th Doctor is the first incarnation to have such nightmares, though there’s a chance this could be retconned into the Doctor’s story in the same way as the sound of drums was retconned into the Master’s. Jon Pertwee’s third Doctor, still haunted by his trip to a ghastly parallel Earth in Inferno, was tormented by fire when the Keller Machine mined his fears. Later the Machine tapped into his memories of various foes such as the Daleks. In the 11th Doctor story, The God Complex, the Doctor’s room 101 (in his case number 11) contained the crack in time and space.
Zellin teases the Doctor that she won’t feel a thing when the Earth burns, which seems unlikely, especially given the Doctor’s reaction to the fiery destruction of the parallel Earth in Inferno. But somewhat curiously, Rakaya adds “yes they will” in the plural. Is she talking about human beings now, or other incarnations of the Doctor, perhaps even the Ruth Doctor?