Doctor Who: Are There Other Past Incarnations of the Doctor?
By David Hill
During the 50th Anniversary Special, we saw the War Doctor introduced as an incarnation between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. Could there be other incarnations from the Doctor’s past that we have yet to meet?
Over the history of Doctor Who, it could reasonably be argued that there have been 14 incarnations of the Doctor. This would include the Meta-Crisis Doctor and John Hurt’s War Doctor. Other than these two, however, there have been many more incarnations of the Doctor if you consider such things as Scream of the Shalka and the audio adventures. How many are canonical to the show proper? Answers vary widely depending on whom you ask. Most fans would agree that Peter Cushing‘s Doctor is outside of the main canon. Most other examples are not so clear.
Perhaps the biggest question to come from those incarnations is whether or not there are other past Doctors out there whom we have not met. It may seem to be an odd concept, given that we have seen most of the Doctor’s regenerations at this point, but that does not mean that these are the only ones to have travelled across time and space. Keep in mind that even River Song’s wallet photos in ‘The Husbands of River Song’ did not include Peter Capaldi’s Doctor.
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For instance, is William Hartnell’s Doctor — whom we know as the First Doctor — really the first incarnation? While he may be the one who set the entire series in motion, stealing the TARDIS and landing on Earth with Susan, that does not mean that was the first true incarnation. As he had lost his entire family, aside from his granddaughter, it is possible that the Doctor needed to regenerate before we first met him back in 1963.
Yes, there had previously been limits on the amount of regenerations that the Doctor could have. As we have seen since the revival of Doctor Who, however, those limits do not matter. When it became necessary for the Doctor to get more regenerations, it happened. Now, no one knows how many regenerations the Doctor has, or if he will ever run out of those lives.
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As the Doctor travels through time and space, his timeline can get thoroughly confusing. Past incarnations run into one another during their travels, and the different eras on Earth do not mean anything when it comes to what Doctor falls where on our timeline. We know that there is at least one from his future, as we have already met the Curator, who is a retired incarnation of the Doctor. Any further incarnations from his past have yet to be determined.
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