On the sofa

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

Hi, my name is DenValdron.  Longtime Doctor Who fan.  Anyway, it’s a bit of a cheat, my being here, and I apologize to anyone who might be offended.  Basically, I came up with what I thought was an interesting little theory to integrate the Peter Cushing Doctor from the movies into the overall series Canon/Continuity, and having spent a bit of time working on it, I wanted to share it with someone.

So I figured, hey, fellow fans!  Why not?  I don’t know how this will go over, or if it will offend people.  Sometimes people get their backs up.   There are a handful of semi-canonical or pseudo-canonical explanations, mostly stressing that the moview were some kind of illusion or hallucination or retelling – ie, manipulation by the Celestial Toymaker forcing the Hartnell doctor to relive his adventures in distorted form and distorted identity,  or someone making an actual movie of the Hartnell Doctor’s adventures, getting details wrong and hiring actors.  I don’t feel that any of those are really satisfactory or particularly respectful.

All right, for what it’s worth, here’s my Nerd Theory to incorporate the Peter Cushing Doctor into the Doctor Who continuity.  All I ask is patience, respectful discussion, and please feel free to circulate it around to any fan that might be interested….

The first thing we have to do is understand and accept the limitations of the Cushing Doctor’s backstory.

– We are told very explicitly that this Doctor is human, and an earthman. His Surname is ‘Who.’ He is definitely not a timelord.

– That he has two granddaughters Barbara and Susan. Between the two movies, Barbara is lost or abandoned, but the Doctor suddenly acquires a niece, Louise. The Timelord Doctor, of course has a single grandaughter, Susan, no nieces, but travelled with a schoolteacher named Barbara.

– And most importantly, that he claims he has invented the TARDIS himself, a device which not only travels through time and space but which plays with dimensional space.

– The Doctor’s adventures closely parallel, but do not exactly match, two adventures of the original Doctor. There’s a third, unchronicled adventure, hinted at the end of the first movie when, upon leaving Skaro, the Tardis materializes on a roman era battlefield.

All right, this whole thing poses questions for the dedicated Nerd. The rest of the Doctor is, has always been, and always will be a time lord. We can’t reconcile a human doctor with the Time Lord continuity of the series. It’s just not the same guy. Not only is the Cushing Doctor an Earth guy, but he’s got way more family than the Hartnell Doctor, or any other. The whole Cushing Doctor being human is a major deal breaker!

Yet, there’s a lot of evidence which points to the fact that it is the same guy – the fact that he’s got a Tardis, the fact that its in the shape of a police box, bigger on the inside than the outside, that it can go to different planets and times. His enemies, the Daleks, are the Daleks. So it’s the same guy, but it can’t be the same guy.

The Tardis itself in these movies is a conundrum. There’s no indication that this is a period piece, so this Doctor, working with apparently nothing more substantial than 1960’s technology, little or nothing in the way of outside help, and no more resources than would be available to a moderately wealthy englishman… has built a Freaking Time and Space machine.

 

But this Doctor is not a 60’s version of Tony Stark, except for his claim to have built the thing, he doesn’t show any spectactular technological aptitude or intelligence. Put it simply, the notion that some old guy built a super-machine is a pretty big pill to swallow. Of course, in Three Stooges Meet Hercules, another old guy builds a time machine, and in George Pal’s ‘Time Machine’ it’s done again. So… 50/50 on that one. It’s kind of a ludicrous proposition, but its one that we were frequently asked to accept.

 

Although it’s pretty identical on the outside, and bigger on the inside, in the first movie, the Tardis interior is different. No familiar control room, but rather, the place looks like a junkyard with wires and cables hanging off everywhere. Between the two movies, he’s obviously been making improvements since the interior is now considerably more polished, but still not quite resembling the Time Lord version.

 
Finally, there’s the paralleling of the Cushing Doctor’s adventures with a couple of the Hartnell adventures. Are the Cushing Doctor’s adventures a parallel universe sequence? Or are the Cushing Doctor’s adventures a distorted retelling or replaying of the Hartnell adventures? Who knows.

Okay, now let’s take a look at a few bits of information from the current series which come into play.

1) Is that Time Lords don’t always have to be Time Lords. They can downgrade, using the “Chameleon Arch” to devolve to mere human and being stripped of most or all of their memories, and their time lord essence, which is concealed or contained in a handy receptacle. Handily, it also provides a set of false memories. The The Tenant Doctor does this to escape or hide from his enemies in the Tenant two-parter “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood”

 

It’s discovered that the Master used the same Chameleon Arch shtick in “Utopia.” The Master may have used a similar trick in the “End of Time” to resurrect himself.

 

There’s a second occasion where the Tenant Doctor goes human. In Journey’s End, a wounded Tenant Doctor forces himself into a partial regeneration to heal. This works unexpectedly well, when the combination of regeneration energy and Donna Noble cause the severed hand of the Doctor to regenerate into a brand new, but human, Tenant Doctor.

 

Well, gee whiz! There you go! The biggest obstacle to the Cushing Doctor being in the continuity is out the window. It is entirely possible that the Cushing Doctor has been written down to mere human, had his Time Lord knowledge and heritage removed, and has been implanted with a set of false memories…

Well, all right. But voluntarily or involuntarily? Who would do such a thing and when and where? Did the Doctor do it to himself? If so, why? If someone else did it to the Doctor, then whom, and why, and all the rest…

2) Time War – The Time War is the big barrier between the original series up to Doctor 8, and the current series, chronicling 9 through 11. The Time War happened, Gallifrey went tits up, the Daleks were almost wiped out, whole races and civilizations vanished into the void, lots of weird bad shit went down. The major combatants seem to have been the Time Lords and the Daleks.

However, there’s some indication that the Tremors of the Time War were being felt, in hindsight, even during the original series. Consider the Tom Baker Doctor serial “Genesis of the Daleks” where the Time Lords send the Doctor back to Skaro to try and abort the emergence of the Dalek race.

 

The Pertwee Doctor gets sent up against the Daleks early in their history in Planet of the Daleks. This is very similar to both the Hartnell and Baker’s journeys to the early history of the Daleks. Hartnell’s Doctor seems to have stumbled upon them, Pertwee and Baker are deliberately sent.

On the other side of the coin, the Dalek side…. There’s the Hartnell Doctor episode, ‘The Chase’ which features the Dalek’s as time travellers, hunting the Doctor through time and space, capabilities that they didn’t show in most of the original series events. The Pertwee Doctor also goes up against time travelling Daleks in ‘Day of the Daleks.’ Now that’s interesting, in most of the Dalek episodes, they don’t seem to be time travellers. The Doctor shows up through the Dalek’s history, going as far back as when they required electrified ramps or broadcast power to travel. There’s a lot of variability in the Dalek mojo, in different adventures. Which makes sense if we assume that the Daleks are building up over thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of years as they evolve. Early Daleks are quite tosh, end-time Daleks are tough mofo.

 

Time Travelling Daleks are almost certain to be from around the particular era of the Time War… or at least leading up to it. Therefore the fact that Time Travelling Daleks reach as far back as the first Doctor to chase him across time may be very significant.

 

In the new series, there’s a very telling bit of information that proves that the Time War reaches into the Doctor’s entire Timeline and beyond…to the Master’s. In the Tenant Doctor episode ‘The End of Time’ part II, Rassilon from the very depths of the Time War reaches across time to place the sound of Drums in the Master’s ear when he’s eight years old, a force which then warps the boy’s life into the villain we know. The Master and the Doctor were both children and youths on Gallifrey at about the same time. So this tells us that skirmishes or sorties from the heart of the Time War, deep deep maneuvers precede and can take place through the Doctor’s entire history.

 
How does this relate? Well, very simple, on to the next point —-

3) Time Lords are dicks. The Time Lords don’t make an appearance at all in the Hartnell Doctor’s adventures, though I think it’s clear he’s on the run. They only show up at the end of the Troughton adventures, when he finally gives up and calls them in.

However, once they do get their hands on the Doctor, they show a decided penchant for manipulating or attempting to manipulate him. Canonically, they trap the Pirtwee Doctor on Earth, in Spearhead From Space, and keep him under thumbs until the Three Doctors. He’s specifically sent on a mission to retrieve a Doomsday Weapon in Colony in Space, jerked around by them in the Mutants, sent up against early Daleks in Planet of the Daleks. The Time Lords specifically jerk around the Baker Doctor in Genesis of the Daleks and Brain of Morbius.

 

I could go on, but it’s pretty clear that the Time Lords are frequently manipulating several of the Doctors. For instance the Shalka Doctor complains very loudly that the Time Lords (or someone) are jerking him about. The Davison Doctor’s TARDIS appears to be hijacked in Frontios, sending him to confront the Resurrection of the Daleks. The Colin Baker Doctor has to face a Trial of the Time Lord. I can go over all the canonical stuff, but it’s pretty clear that the Time Lords are squeezing the Doctor under their collective thumb every chance they get.

It appears that the Time Lords are very interested in the Doctor, in crippling his ability to travel during the Pertwee era and in controlling where he goes. Significantly, on at least three occasions, the Time Lords send different versions of the Doctor head on against the Daleks, and on two of these, its trips to the early Dalek history. So not only are they jerks, but there’s a pattern of using or attempting to use the Doctor as a foil for actions which seem to connect back to the time war.

4) Fixed Points in Time – the new series shows us definitely that there are fixed and unchangeable points in time. Well, pretty tough to change. In the Waters of Mars, the Tenant Doctor confronts a fixed point in time and says ‘screw it all, I’m not a Time Lord, I’m ‘THE TIME LORD’. The Ecclestone Doctor confronts what may be a fixed point, or simply a paradox in ‘Father’s Day.’ The consequences of randomly screwing with a fixed point in time are shown with the Smith Doctor in ‘The Wedding of River Song’ in which a temporary parallel earth is created where time is floopy, and the whole universe is in danger of going vorp!

All of this goes towards explaining or clarifying what’s going on in the background.

So, here’s my theory:

At the end of War Games, the Troughton Doctor blows the whistle on the renegade Time Lord called the War Leader, resulting in his own capture and confinement. In the hands of the Time Lords, he is put on trial – the long and the short of it, is that they strip him of his companions, strip him of the knowledge or ability to use the Tardis and exile him to earth, and force him to regenerate…

Spearhead from Space, the next season, opens up with a regenerated Doctor stumbling onto earth.

Now, there’s a few glitches here. The Pertwee Doctor in his first appearance has gadgets and stuff that the Troughton Doctor didn’t, and vice versa. The clothes don’t quite match up from Troughton’s disappearance to Pertwee’s appearance. And the Troughton Doctor, when he shows up in the Five Doctors, seems to have knowledge and experiences from after the War Games.

This has lead fans to speculate a season 6B – ie, that the War Games did not lead directly into Spearhead from Space, but that there was an intervening period of unknown duration, prior to the apparent regeneration and appearance of the Pertwee Doctor.

This is where the Cushing Doctor comes in. I think that instead of just booting him to Pertwee, the Time Lords were much more insidious. They devolved him to human with the Chameleon Arch, taking his memories of being a Time Lord away from him entirely, and planting a set of false memories, and at the same time, assigning to him a set of knowing or unknowing babysitters in the form of false Granddaughters, Susan and Barbara, just close enough to the real people to divert any recollection into the false channels.

 

Of course, the Cushing Doctor resembles neither the original Hartnell Doctor, nor the Troughton Doctor, nor the Pertwee Doctor. Is this a hole in the theory? After all, the human versions of the Master and the Tenant Doctor looked just like their Time Lord selves.

 

However, if you look to the end of the War Games, it’s clear that the Doctor is being forcibly regenerated against his will and is trying to hold on. So if in fact the Cushing Doctor is between Troughton and Pertwee in sequence, then clearly, he must be a regenerated or partially regenerated Doctor. The Cushing Doctor could have been an intermediate form on the way to Pertwee, frozen temporarily in process (Romana’s regeneration during the Tom Baker years suggests that the Time Lord’s during the regeneration process could express a variety of forms before they settled on the new version). Or he could have been a full regeneration.

Or he could be a chameleon arch imposed regeneration which would open the door to the question – if and when the arch fails would he snap back to Troughton, albeit an aged and worn Troughton, or would he leap to Pertwee? Remember that Troughton was resisting the process, so if he managed to assert himself, he might well have gone back to his prior identity/form temporarily, which might go to explaining the anomalies in the Troughton Doctor in the Five Doctors and Two Doctors.

 

But am I talking through my hat here? Is there anything, even a tiny bit of evidence in the canonical series to suggest even the remotest possibility that somewhere in the Doctor’s Timeline, there’s a lingering trace of a ‘Human’ Doctor?

 

Actually, yes there is. Consider the McGann Doctor’s TV movie. There’s a scene in which the Master breaks into the Doctor’s Tardis, starts poking around, and then announces triumphantly that he’s discovered the Doctor’s secret! He claims that the Doctor is ‘half human! On his mother’s side!’

 

That one little line has caused a lot of consternation in fandom. Most people just hate it, want it evicted from the canon, and just don’t want to deal with it. There hasn’t been anything in any of the previous seven incarnations of the Doctor and all his adventures to support it.

 

But it’s there. Well, bear with me. But supposing that the Doctor was at one point regressed or devolved to mere human, that he became the Cushing Doctor and spent time as such, a forgotten and blocked episode of the Doctor’s life. Wouldn’t that have left enough of a signature on the Doctor’s timeline and on the Tardis that the Master might have detected it? Maybe the Master found the right information, but simply drew the wrong conclusion. Maybe what the Master found was the buried signature of the Cushing Doctor?

 

The Cushing Doctor’s family, or some of them may be Time Lords, or human agents of Time Lords. Or perhaps they’re just innocent humans who have had their memories tinkered with so that they really do believe that they’re the family. Or maybe they’re innocent humans with implanted post-hypnotic suggestions for use upon certain conditions. No way to tell really.

 

This version of Susan is much younger than the one the Hartnell Doctor is travelling with. Twelve and thirteen years old in the two movies. That’s very suggestive. This may be an effort to trap the Cushing Doctor, by giving him an earlier version of Susan from before his flight from Gallifrey. The Hartnell Doctor eventually had to lose Susan, and the Troughton Doctor continues to mourn the loss. So having a Susan around would give the Doctor a reason to cling to the human identity, recovering the rest of his memory would only leave with with the pain of loss.

 

However, Susan’s the only character who sticks with the Cushing Doctor through all his adventures. The fake grandaughter, Barbara, disappears sometime after the first movie, as does the boyfriend, Ian. By the second movie, a fake niece, Louise appears.

 

So if anyone is an actual agent, it’s most likely Susan. But who is this Susan? It’s possible that she’s the real Susan, merely plucked from time on Gallifrey at an earlier age, to accompany the Cushing Doctor. Perhaps her misuse is what provokes the Hartnell Doctor to go renegade? Do I have anything to back that up? Nope, sheer audacity.

 

Or it’s possible that Susan is actually another Time Lord, regenerated into a younger form. Romana perhaps. She does seem overly familiar with the Tom Baker Doctor when she joins him. Again, I can’t back it up. It’s an audacious conjecture.

 

Whatever Susan is or isn’t, she’s clearly not an ordinary little girl. In the first movie, she shows unusual knowledge and intelligence, and she’s actively helping the Cushing Doctor to build or repair his Tardis.

Speaking of which: The Cushing Doctor did not build his Tardis. That’s just a false memory that he was implanted with to explain the fact that he’s got a blue police box which has unusual properties. Even stripping him down to human, the Time Lords can’t sever the connection between the Doctor and his Tardis. The never could, through all the incarnations of the Doctor. The best they can do is cripple it a little bit by keeping it from flying off, or occasionally direct it where they want to go. But they can’t take it away from him, or him from it. This seems to be mutual, as we see in the Smith Doctor episode “The Doctor’s Wife.” Well, if they can’t take the damned thing away from him, or they can’t get rid of it, then the only real way to manage the situation is to plant a set of false memories about it in him. Otherwise, the whole tissue of false memories will start to fall apart steadily.

 

So what’s he and Susan doing puttering around in the Tardis? Take a look at the interior. There’s no Tardis Console, just a junk room gone mad with hanging wires, levers and odds and ends. What’s going on? The Time Lords have disabled the Tardis by removing or sealing the Doctor off from the console room. So he’s unconsciously jury rigging an alternate set of controls. By the second movie, he’s refined the controls considerably.

 
Why would the Time Lords do this to the Doctor? Well… they’re Dicks! haven’t I made that point? Provided sufficient examples?

Ah, but there may have been a deeper agenda. See, even as early as Pertwee and Baker, the Time Lords were trying to use them to screw Dalek history. The Baker effort was intended to foreclose the entire existence of the Daleks – a mixed failure – since the Baker Doctor seems to have introduced enough randomness into the Dalek mix to arguably paralyze them with several civil wars. Pertwee had gone far enough back in time that the Daleks were still fighting the Thals, their original enemies.

So here’s the deal. The Time Lords really just want to put paid to the Daleks, unmake them once and for all, because they’re becoming a bigger and bigger headache… particularly the time travelling ones, and that’s leading to the Time War. But the Daleks are protected by ‘fixed points in time.’ So a direct assault to rewrite them out of history would simply unravel the universe.

Failing that, the Time Lords have to be sneaky. So the Pertwee and Baker missions are along the lines of trying to skirt around the edges, small low level incursions, long shots designed to unmake or at least weaken them without unravelling reality.

Now, here’s the thing, the Hartnell Doctor had several encounters with the Daleks when he was running around free and out of control. At least a couple of those were at early or perhaps pivotal times in Dalek history.

So, what if they can just go back and meddle with that? Send out something less than a full Time Lord to the same points, create a small parallel or pocket reality reality, that you might be able to use as a temporal patch or bypass, a better parallel reality where the Daleks don’t come out so well. You could then excise a portion of the original timeline, suture in the alternative reality, avoid a paradox or fixed point in time issue… and screw the Daleks.

It’s a gamble. The parallel reality they create may not be materially better than the original reality, in which case they don’t need it. Or it may be worse, in which case they just pull the plug. But there’s a chance that having two realities to choose from will give them some options. And because this is a neutered ‘Human’ Doctor they’re sending in, there’s a lot less risk of time static with the Time Lord version.

So the Cushing Doctor, with some handpicked minders, and a head full of implanted memories that should make him easier to manipulate, gets sent back to the same point where the Hartnell Doctor. The two Doctors and two Tardises appear at the same point in space, but because one of the Doctors is human, they don’t have a paradox. Instead, the human Doctor shunts off to the temporary parallel reality, and the adventure proceeds from there.

Now, what happens at the end is interesting. The Cushing Doctor ends up in Rome. No big deal, several of the Doctors seem to have ended up in Rome, and both the Hartnell and Tenant Doctor had adventures there. On the other hand, Rome is out of sequence for the Hartnell Doctor. He doesn’t go to Rome until the second season, several adventures after the first and even second encounters with the Daleks. And when the Hartnell Doctor goes there, he goes for a vacation. He doesn’t materialize on a battlefield.

What does this tell us? It implies very strongly that the Cushing Doctor has at least one, and possibly several unrecorded adventures between the two movies. Enough goes on that he loses one of his fake granddaughters and their boyfriend, and picks up a fake niece.

The fact that the Cushing Doctor is running free, albeit under supervision, suggests that whatever game the Time Lords were playing was working, or at least still in play. Because at some point, they send him up against the Daleks in another temporary parallel reality adventure, with the Invasion Earth movie.

At this point, or perhaps sometime after this, they decide to pull the plug. Maybe it just hasn’t produced the results they were hoping. Or more likely, the Doctor is breaking free of the Chameleon Arch. He’s figured it out, or found the key, or whatever, and he’s reverting back to his time lord self.

 

What’s the most likely point for the Cushing Doctor to start breaking free? The events of the end of the second movie. Because this adventure was when the Hartnell Doctor had to give up Susan. This was undoubtedly a painful and traumatic experience for the Time Lord Doctor. This is the original memory that’s most likely to start breaking through the the false memories implanted by the Chameleon Arch. He remembers losing Susan, and at that point the rest of the memories after that will come…. and the anger at what’s been done to him, that will come too.

 

The Time Lords, in desperation crash land him on Earth, locking him and the Tardis there, and they use the energies released by the unravelling chameleon Arch to trigger or complete the Doctor’s regeneration, blocking the memories of the Cushing Doctor, until they figure out what to do next.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

Just run that by me again. 🙂

It’s an interesting theory and it all hangs together pretty well. I don’t think they’ll try and integrate the Cushing movies in with the main show. I could be wrong but it’s confusing enough as it is.

Of course if they do, then, with the new potential Doc, that would putt Matt Smith as the 13th incarnation.

Not sure whether this:

Time Lords are dicks.

or this:

Gallifrey went tits up

is my favourite line though. Be interesting to try and sneak those lines into a script.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

Well, you’ll excuse my casual use of idiom.  I’m a small town back country boy, so I don’t even know if these idioms actually have any currency outside my immediate neighborhood.

I don’t actually expect that anyone connected with the series would make any use of the theory whatsoever.  I can imagine they have a trillion better things to do than wrestle with peculiar bits of deep trivia.

This is a fan theory, first, last and always, and the best I can hope is for people to go  “Hmmm… that does make sense.. and its kind of fun!.”  And to take a modest place in the pantheon of fan theories that float around in fandom.

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

Well, you’ll excuse my casual use of idiom

No need – I actually like it a great deal. From what you’ve said (and the time you’ve posted) I would guess you’re from the US. But yes, both those expressions are well known and understood in the UK.

The majority of posters on here try and work their theories into the TV show, so I was approaching it from that angle. My mistake. It wasn’t my intention to belittle what you wrote, so apologies if you thought that the case.

One of the things I like about DW is that it inspires people to be creative.  Have you considered expanding this to a full story? I’m sure it would generate interest.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

Unless someone has Steven Moffat’s or Paul Cornell’s phone number, or something equivalent, I wouldn’t hold much hope out for working the theory into the show.   And even so, television production simply doesn’t work like that.  I was peripherally involved with the LEXX television series, at one point I was selected or approved to write the book about it.  The book never came to anything, but I got a pretty good look into the whole production process.  I can analogize from that experience into some insight into the Doctor Who production.

I have no expectation at all that the production crew sits around thinking ‘Hmm, how do we integrate the Rowan Atkinson Doctor into continuity.’   That seems silly to me, they have ten thousand other things to do.  The reality is that a lot of fan theory is about trying to  explain or reconcile gaps in the story which are products of the production process, from those ten thousand real world decisions involved in getting the show done and on the air…. for an episode, a season, or thirty seasons.  Fan theory is a game, a bit of verbal or intellectual cleverness exploiting the original text.  I’m good with that.

As for writing it up as  a full story.  Well if you google my name, you’ll find that I have quite a sparkling sub-mediocre career as a writer.  Enough to show that I’ve got the chops, and at one point had aspirations of breaking through to the professional realm.  But writing fiction is a lot of work.   Frankly, if I was chasing a book deal or audio deal with one of the publishers… sure, it would be cool.  But I don’t think anyone’s going to knock on my door, and I don’t feel like putting the time and energy into a work of Doctor Who fiction for the simple fun of it.

Nah, ultimately, I think it’s a cool theory.  It fits neatly within all the available evidence, doesn’t leave too many holes.  It requires a few leaps and assumptions, but not really big ones.   And I think it’s significantly better and more satisfying than any of the current theories.  So all I want is for it to circulate and get some discussion.

And hey, if it leads people to dig out and take a second look at the Cushing Doctor adventures, that’s a good thing. If it gets people taking a second look at episodes, that’s a good thing.  If it changes the way we look at a few things, or adds to our perspective and appreciation…. well, that’s a good thing.

Maybe sometime I’ll work on a theory to integrate the two versions of the Richard E. Grant Doctor (Shalka and Curse of Fatal Death), with Richard E. Grant’s performance and role as the Great Intelligence.  That might be a fun project.  I think I might wait a couple more episodes before I try that though, just to see what comes about.

PS:   I’m Canadian.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

PS:   I’m Canadian

Guessed wrong, darn it! Apologies. Again.

When I said working their theories into the show, I didn’t mean actually having them incorporated on screen. As you said, it’s very difficult to break into TV generally and DW even more so, I imagine. Plus, I think if any of us did manage to get anywhere near the DW team, the authorities would be called in.

No, this forum is full of weird and wonderful theories which try to explain what’s happening in DW and what may happen. Usually no-one manages to come up with exactly the correct explanation but it’s mainly the journey that counts. Like you say it’s fun and generates some discussion.

I did Google you and found my way to the ERB site. I’ve not taken a proper look yet – I will do when I get a bit more time. I’m not at all familiar with Lexx but there are some members on here who probably are. Wait until the day shift (ie the UK contingent) arrive.

Don’t let my random musings put you off – it’s a nice site here and I’m sure you’ll find much to enjoy.

BTW if you put the @username in your posts then the associated person receives an email saying they’ve been mentioned.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

Meant to ask: was it the Cushing movies that first got you interested in DW?

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

Nah, it was Tom Baker, particularly ‘Nightmare on Eden’ the one with the Lalla Ward Romana, the two spaceships warped together, wandering monsters, extinct species and drugs.  It was a potent cocktail of weirdness.  I ran across it in Fredericton, at the Student Union Building while I was going to University, sat down and was hooked.   I think Tom was gone by that time, but the stories were still running on the Public Broadcasting Service.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@whohar

Ahh, I see what you mean.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@whohar

Re – Canadian.  I don’t really stand on nationalism per se.  Life is too short to get worked up about stuff like that.  Basically, people who walk around with a chip on their shoulder can always find things to be offended by.  Me, the weight throws off my balance, I’ll do without the chip.  No apologies necessary.

Unless you did something like setting fire to my dog.  That would probably require an apology.  That sort of category of thing.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

Good old PBS.

If you feel the urge to expand your thoughts on the “potent cocktail of weirdness”, you could put your thoughts on Faces of the Doctor or the Doctor Who Memories forums.

Welcome, btw.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

Unless you did something like setting fire to my dog.

Don’t worry, my dog-torching days are long over.

 

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@whohar

I dunno.  I’m kind of an Uber-nerd.  I have no social skills, and not a lot of interest, so it works out nicely.  I’m interested in ideas.  Show me a fiendishly clever Doctor Who fan theory, I’m totally there. If I come up with a fiendishly clever Doctor Who fan theory, I want to share it.   Conversation?  I dunno.  If I really wanted all that touchy feely sharing stuff, I think I’d just get a dog or something…  or maybe a cat…  or a goldfish…  or a cactus…  or maybe a pleasant looking rock, something with the right level of engagement or interactivity.  I appreciate the sentiment and the whole  ‘welcome to our community’ thing, that’s very nice, but mostly I would just end up standing uncomfortably near a cyber wall, suffering quietly, while deep in my head dissecting design discontinuities in Sonic Screwdrivers or something like that which would make normal peoples eyeballs bleed.  I’m really dull, and I have no interesting thoughts per se.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@whohar

Don’t worry, my dog-torching days are long over.

I’m glad to hear that.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@denvaldron

And welcome to our community <evil laugh mwuhuhuhuh>

That’s an amazingly detailed theory you have there – kudos to you for the research and I can see how it can be made to work.

However, and this is just my own personal view, one of the things I love most about NotD, with the GI jumping into the Dr’s timestream, is that it can be used to completely retcon all the sorry attempts at Who films into non-existence 🙂 OK, you can leave the McGann one, but the line about the Dr being human is obviously the GI stirring it (while in the Dr’s timestream) 😈 and should be given no credence whatsoever.

😀

OTOH I am delighted to present you with the award for possibly the longest post EVER on this site 😀

(Please forgive my own personal prejudices in this.  But I still remember the bitter outrage of my child-self when I first came across the Cushing films. Being now able to retcon them completely out of existance, in canon so to speak, gives me no small measure of satisfaction!)

PS Lexx was a cool programme, lots of great ideas

[WhoHar @whohar]

@denvaldron

Re: post #10472

No pressure – just post if you want to or just lurk. Nice talking to you either way.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@denvaldron

PS Sorry if the above post sounded snarky, wasn’t intended. (just think of me as bitter and twisted 🙂 )

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Just munching a quick sandwich.

@danmartinuk has his next “Before Gap” series review up. It’s “Genesis of the Daleks”, and can be found at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/may/23/genesis-of-the-daleks-doctor-who

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@scaryb

No worries.  The part of my brain which detects snark was lost in a tragic typewriter accident.  So everything is cool.

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Quick wave at everyone here and looking down on us from cyber-space in your TARDISes 🙂

There is so much happening in our marvellous and organic space that I can’t keep up right now!

See you all soon sweeties

I’ll be in and out  regularly even if I can’t read everything – I am suffering under work deadlines.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@scaryb

Well, in respect of the Cushing Doctor, I can pretty easily admit that it has not aged well.  But that’s par for the course.  Even the most diehard who fan has to admit the flaws and foibles of what we have of the Hartnell and Troughton productions.  Even John Pertwee, Tom Baker and Colin Baker seem appallingly tosh when compared to the production values and overall standards of the modern series.  It’s as much nostalgia that preserves these Doctors for us as much as anything else.

If you look at the Cushing Doctor in context, he holds up better.  The Cushing Doctor’s adventures appeared in 1965 and 1966.   They were in full colour with that gorgeous 60’s saturated colour that the British were using at that time, the movies actually had a cinematic production budget (admittedly at that time – cinematic productions were not that huge, particularly for British movies) which shows in terms of the scope and dressing of sets, large numbers of extras, and quite effective special effects for the time, and widescreen.   And a film release, even a general audience release suitable for children, was a bit more liberal in showing violence and action than television was allowed to be.   The second movie, for instance – Invasion Earth 2150,  features a desperate car chase across a road filled with Daleks.  That simply wasn’t in the budget or production capacity of a setbound TV series.  In the first movie, there are a number of sets of the ruined planet that are genuinely eerie.

And unlike the TV series, where there was so little care for the episodes that many of them would end up getting erased, the Cushing movies were considered valuable properties, available for release and re-release theatrically.  During the first five to ten years of the series, they would have held up extremely well, would have shown up in the theatres from time to time, and would have been probably the best Doctor Who viewing experience available.  Hell, during the days of VHS and Beta, they were among the first Doctor Who released.

Ironically,  somewhere along the way, Doctor Who became a package where we can get access to it repeatedly. Ironically, that wasn’t an original advantage, but one that evolved, and it was an evolution that left the Cushing Doctor in the lurch. PBS would run its BBC Doctor Who Catalogue for years and years and years on end, but for Amicus, Doctor Who were only two modestly successful movies in a larger and diverse catalologue, Amicus would go out of business and that catalogue would float.   The Cushing Doctor was orphaned by the same circumstance that would inflate the BBC Doctors.

The Cushing Doctor falls down  in a couple of ways.  One is the reliance or over-reliance on Daleks, which overshadows the Cushing Doctor.  At times, particularly in the second movie, he’s almost a supporting character in his own movie.  But Dalekmania is a historical fact, and we have to note that the film makers went with that.  They picked the two most seminal and cinematic Dalek stories.

The Cushing Doctor, it can be argued, is relatively colourless as Doctor’s go.  Nowadays we associate the Doctor with ‘go big or go home eccentricity.’ –  Matt Smith, David Tenant, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy – all of them over the top eccentrics.  But in contrast, the McGann and Davison Doctors were relatively restrained.  The Hartnell Doctor was less eccentric, and more ambiguous.  The Cushing Doctor comes in an era where he couldn’t look back on a handful of Doctor’s and backstory to flesh out his own character.  He was working with Hartnell as a model and trying to put his own cinema friendly spin on the character, and I suppose dealing with the reality of Cushing as a ‘star’ – ie, an identifiable cinematic personality that carried through different movies.  I can give the Cushing Doctor low marks, but then again, I can’t really hold it against him.

Finally, there’s storytelling.  One of the things that really worked for me for the old series was its willingness to invest in complicated and unpredictable plots and depth of characterizations.  This in turn was a product of a serial format where literally, you had to have a series of interlocking plot arches for individual episodes, groups of episodes and the serial as a whole, an open format where budget and the need to fill time meant that people had to act up a storm.  This strength of Doctor Who, and it was a huge strength to those who would discover the series in later years, was so compelling that the episodic hour long modern series would try to ape the format in various ways.  But it was an inadvertent strength, one that came out of the production process.

In contrast, the Cushing Doctor was designed as a movie, and followed conventional movie narrative structures.  So it just doesn’t have that quality of complexity and depth, except to the extent it borrows some of it from the original stories it adapts.  But you know what?   This exact criticism is available to the McGann movie.

I think that the huge problem of the Cushing Doctor for most Who fans is simply this:   He’s not “our” Doctor!  We all have our favourite Doctors, usually the one who introduced us to the series – for me it was Tom Baker, although I came to be fond of many others (Pertwee, Davison, Tenant, Smith, Eccleston, sometimes Colin Baker).   For others it can be Hartnell, or Troughton or McCoy.    Well, I suspect that the potential fandom of the Cushing Doctor is restricted to those who saw he theatrical movies in the theatre in England when they were at the right age, which implies there’s not many of them in comparison

Nevertheless, he’s a Doctor, or a version of the Doctor, and while he may be no one’s favourite, its worth a bit of effort to try and integrate him into the fold.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@denvaldron

In contrast, the Cushing Doctor was designed as a movie, and followed conventional movie narrative structures.  So it just doesn’t have that quality of complexity and depth, except to the extent it borrows some of it from the original stories it adapts.  But you know what?   This exact criticism is available to the McGann movie.

I think that the huge problem of the Cushing Doctor for most Who fans is simply this:   He’s not “our” Doctor!

My problem is exactly that – he’s not “our” Dr, he’s not even “a” Dr!  And yes I would apply exactly the same criteria to the McGann movie for the same reasons. 🙂  An Earthling/human Dr is immediately emasculated and limited. The massive imaginative universe in which the Dr is set suddenly has fences set around it.

While I’m with @htpbdet in generally seeing discrepancies and continuity errors as challenges rather than problems, I have no intentions of even trying to retcon the Cushing “Dr” into canon.  McGann, OK, but not his movie either 🙂

Everyone else is of course entitled to their own views. Me, I”m going to wash my brain out now, to get rid of those movie memories which have stirring creepily, and hopefully never think of them again.

PS “Not aged well…” I remember when it came out and it didn’t start well either! Hated by the series fans and too dull to appeal to the mainstream, they were seen as being a blatant cashing in on the series success

 

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@scaryb

Yet, there was quite a tradition back then of ‘disposeable’ television serials, which were made into relatively faithful movies.   The entire Quatermass series – the Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II and Five Million Miles to Earth were originally television serials reproduced and refilmed as movies.   Adaptations are always a risky proposition.  I can’t really blame Amicus for trying hard and not quite hitting the mark.

Please keep in mind that the vast imaginative universe of Doctor Who largely did not exist in 1965 or 1966.   This was still the Hartnell area, and there simply wasn’t much established.  The Time Lords as a race did not exist and had not been named, the details of their society, their meddling with the Doctor, Gallifrey itself was all far in the future.   The Cybermen hadn’t come on the scene yet, the Master was still a decade away.  The Ice Warriors, the Silurians, the Great Intelligence, none of it had shown up yet.    None of it was even being imagined by the series creators, who were simply busy trying to get a show up and throwing whatever they could at the wall.

You had the Daleks who were the only running thread in the series apart from the Doctor and Tardis itself.  You had some journey’s into  history, an unclassifiable adventure like the Planet of Giants, and a handful of unconnected adventures set on different planets.  Apart from the Daleks, whose situation and whose abilities changed from one serial to the next, there wasn’t any kind of continuity or mythos.

I don’t know that the Doctor was even established as an alien or non-human until the encounter with the Meddling Monk,  which told us just about nothing about what the Doctor was, except that there were other time travellers out there.  Nor could the Meddling Monk be a landmark, there was also the Celestial Toymaker.  The series could have gone off strongly in either direction, but for the most part, both initiatives died on the vine.

Even the Doctor’s personality during the Hartnell area was not fixed.  He’s aloof and ruthless up to Marco Polo, where he gets friendlier and more approachable.

We can talk in hindsight about the great big massive imaginative universe structure of Doctor Who, but it took time for that to evolve, and most of it was not established or available for the Cushing Doctor.

I don’t see the Cushing Doctor as emasculating that universe, and certainly, that universe did not exist in that form in Cushing’s time.  Rather, I see that great big massive imaginative universe as having finally grown big enough and clever enough to absorb and incorporate the Cushing Doctor.   I’m good with that.

[7thdoctor @7thdoctor]

real quick sorry to bring it off subject ,but  hello, you can call me the 7th doctor nice to get all of your aquaintences and btw the cushing idea ,as far as ive read, would be pretty cool , out there, but pretty cool in my opinion

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@denvaldron

I don’t know that the Doctor was even established as an alien or non-human until the encounter with the Meddling Monk,

There are probably only 2 things that were established about the Dr in Ep 1 (An Unearthly Child)

1 He’s not from Earth

2 We don’t know his name or much  about his backstory, except that it is heavily hinted he’s running/escaping from something. And he is travelling with his grand-daughter

You’re right, the TimeLords came along later, as did regeneration, introduced as required, but the Dr was always, specifically, an alien.

As a viewer since 1963 (and on and off from mid 70s), there’s not much they could change that would make me decide never to watch it again – discovering a human heritage would be one of them! 😛

[7thdoctor @7thdoctor]

okay there in one question ive had and i thought maybe i missed through the bit i ve seen, his grandaughter , what happens to her, and where are her parents i know i might be an idiot for asking but i cant find much of the original series anywhere

[ScaryB @scaryb]

<waves hurriedly @7thdoctor>

re his grandaughter – she leaves at the end of Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) – falls in love with earth man. History after that and current whereabouts unknown

[Anonymous @]

@7thdoctor – hello!  It’s nice to have new commenters here, theorising away.  I’m a post-2005 Who viewer myself but this site has improved my knowledge of the pre-2005* Who programme enormously.  I heartily recommend that you look at ‘The Faces of the Doctor’ thread, well really all of the non-episode threads – including, especially, the blogs – to bone up on what we’ve missed.

There’s apparently no material information via the TV programme about Susan’s parents, and nothing spoken of her after her time in the Tardis.  Lots of theories here, though, especially in light of the 50th anniversary show which Steven Moffat has promised will celebrate the past whilst pushing the show firmly into its future.

* It’s been posited that we use PG (Pre-Gap, i.e., between McGann and Ecclestone) and AG (After-Gap) but it’s not quite caught on universally yet.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@scaryb   I suppose then that you’re not a big fan of ‘Human Nature’ or ‘Family of Blood’ or ‘Journey’s End’ all of which produce ‘Human’ Doctors?

[7thdoctor @7thdoctor]

@scaryb

Waves back to ScaryB

@Shazzbot

And thanks for the info i too and post  05, but weve seen some hella good stories since then also , my wife just was brought into it and has absolutely fell in love with matt smith.

 

[Anonymous @]

@denvaldron (re @scaryb) – Well, the Human Nature two-parter wasn’t about a ‘human Doctor’ – it was about a Chameleon-Arched Doctor.  Which also describes Derek Jacobi’s character at the end of Martha’s run (I’m not so great with whipping out episode names, sorry!).  They weren’t human; they were TimeLords hiding in a human body due to TL tech.

The ‘human-TL metacrisis’ which produced 10.5 (or 10.1, or 10.x, whatever it’s been decided to call him) didn’t produce a human Doctor either – he had only one heart, and would age with Rose synchronously in her (their) timeline.  Granted, it was stated that he retained all of his memories as a TL which is problematic – Donna’s mind almost burst with having TL memories and she had to be purged of them (albeit, with a safety catch which was released when John Simm’s Master was about to take over the human race).

I think the 10.5 Doctor was RTD at his most sentimental, giving Rose her beloved Doctor to live a full, real life with, without sacrificing The Doctor as a character who is completely alien, completely Time Lord, and as evidenced by that final beachside scene, unable to express human emotion.

Speaking of which, what I think that last scene with River Song in TNotD was about, was not the Doctor expressing human emotion – it was a Time Lord, speaking to another (sort of) Time Lord, expressing emotion that he has learnt from his travels with humans, and knowing he was speaking to someone who began life sort-of as a human.

All of which means I go back to my ‘cerebral sentimentality’ line about the DW programme – most of it is logical; all of it is bound up with the sentiment we humans who watch the programme can identify with.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@shazzbot

But this is my point.  The big problem with the Cushing Doctor has always been the fact that he was apparently human.  The invention of the Chameleon Arch as a plot device allows us to reconcile the Cushing Doctor with the rest of the series, and in a way that is aesthetically satisfying.  This is the fun idea that engages me.

Sadly, a reply that ‘well, the Cushing Doctor sucks and I hate him’ while a perfectly valid statement of an emotional framework…  doesn’t really engage me or add or subtract from the idea.   I go  “Uhmmm yeah… whatever.”   I can discuss clinically the merits and handicaps of the Cushing Doctor.  But really, I just don’t have any useful social skills in this context.

[Anonymous @]

Sorry, @denvaldron – I know nothing of the ‘Cushing Doctor’, but I know that there is general fan disgruntlement with the McGann Doctor apparently because he was described as part-human (which negated all TV programme ‘canon’ to that point).  I’m new to the series since Ecclestone and have learnt much about the preceding history of the programme through the wonderfully knowledgeable commentors on this site; and also reading the Doctor, Companion, and episode pages on the BBC site.

But … and I don’t want to sound utterly stupid if I’m wrong … but the Chameleon Arch describes why the Tardis looks like a 1950’s British police box, correct?  Are you certain that it, as a plot device, is solely related to reconciling the Cushing Doctor as being (part-?) human?

Have you been watching the TV programme since the beginning?  If not, when did you enter its timestream?   🙂   Other knowledgeable commenters on this site came in at later dates, albeit with magazine stories which re-told the TV programmes, and others simply started with ‘their’ Doctor and moved on from there.  All of us (except the mighty @htpbdet !) have gaps in our knowledge.  As @scaryb pointed out before, the Doctor has been an alien since the very first programme in 1963, which it seems you didn’t know – at what point did you yourself slip into the Whoniverse?

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@Shazzbot.

The Chameleon Circuit is responsible for the Tardis’ ability (or other peoples Tardis’ ability) to disguise itself to blend in with the environment.

The Chameleon Arch was a macguffin introduced in Paul Cornell’s episode ‘Human Nature’ and ‘Family of Blood’, to tell a vary poignant story.  This was episode 8 and 9 of the third season of the new series under David Tenant.

This Chameleon Arch was later used (possibly its use for this purpose was planned, or possibly once established it was a handy plot device to solve that particular problem) to bring back the Master in the third new season episode ‘Utopia’ – after it had previously been established that the Doctor was the last time lord and ‘he could tell.’  Given that ‘Utopia’  is the eleventh episode of this season, almost certainly they had it in mind as their multi-purpose mcguffin.

Interestingly, as a plot device, the ‘Chameleon Arch’ (not its name then) was used as a Plot McGuffin to turn the Doctor Human in the 1995 Paul Cornell ‘Doctor Who’ novel, “Human Nature” which was adapted and incorporated into the series.   So as a plot device, it was semi canonical in 1995, and officially canonical in 2007.

But here’s the point with McGuffins, once they’re introduced,  you can pick them up and play with them all sorts of ways.   It’s ironic and kind of fun, but continuity in Doctor Who is retroactive.   Stuff that is added in later series doesn’t become valid only after that point, but essentially applies to the whole of the series.   Take ‘regeneration’ – originally, not even in there at all.  Introduced but not named for Hartnell and Troughton, since then a major plot point.

So I’m pretty sure that it didn’t occur to Cornell in 1995 to use it to reconcile the stupid reference in the McGann movie (not possible, the movie came out in 1996), or the Cushing Doctor.  It was just a fun bit of business to tell the story.   I’m also pretty sure that the producers and writers in 2007 didn’t contemplate the ‘Chameleon Arch’ being used for any other purpose. But once they’d brought it out, it becomes a part of the canon, and hypothetically available to be used in future stories, if needed.

Well, all I’m doing is using an established plot device retroactively, to explain the ‘Human’ attributes primarily of the Cushing Doctor, but also of the McGann Doctor.  I’m spackling up a few disconnects and holes is all.  perfectly legitimate.

Personally, I like to nose about in all the tiny forgotten corners of Doctor Whovia.

 

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@Shazzbot

I was born in the year Unearthly Child came out, so you’ll forgive me for missing a detail or two.  I got into Doctor Who in my university days.  Came across Unearthly Child a few years later, was broadly unimpressed with Hartnell, so its been a while.  Not that I think it matters.   I can probably track it down and watch it again.   If I had to comment, I’d say that the presentation of the Doctor’s ‘alien’ nature in Unearthly Child wasn’t terribly significant to me when I watched it.  I don’t think it really affects anything I’ve said in a significant way.

[Anonymous @]

@denvaldron – I’m actually pretty au fait with the AG (After-Gap, i.e., post the McGann –> Ecclestone years in which the TV programme didn’t air on British TV).  Not that I remember every detail, mind, because I only entered the world of bonkers theorising last year.  I might not remember the actual episode titles, but I do remember the plot points.  (I’d remember more had I joined the dark side of bonkers theorising earlier — it’s amazing what all that jacuzzi-like action from multiple theories and previously unnoticed details can do to enhance one’s memory.  🙂  )

Can I ask what you’re still doing here ‘on the sofa’?  You have theories informed by your watching of the TV programme which probably should be on the episode threads, to give them a wider audience.  Or perhaps you should ask our Webmaster @craig for a separate blog all about the Cushing Doctor, and all its / his implications for the current series of Doctor Who? (and beyond)

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@Shazzbot.

You did get the part about having no social skills whatsoever?   I came up with a nifty theory, went looking for a place to put it.   Ended up here.  Not more complicated than that.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@denvaldron

On the contrary, I loved the whole Chameleon Arch plot, thought it was handled really well and Human Nature in particular is very strong. But it plays with the idea of the Dr being human, it doesn’t ultimately make him so.

You want to retcon the films? Easy – they were made as a result of the GI’s dastardly interference and have now been wiped from existence by Clara’s fix.

😆

You on the other hand (and everyone else!) are free to retcon them whatever way you like 😀 Apart from the basic premise being wrong, for me, they are just not good enough as films to worry about. (And I’m not going anywhere near the debate about whether the books, Big Finish etc are canon or not 😉 )

Just for info, I recommend a recent blog post on here, a very personal account which eloquently sums up the magic of Dr Who for a kid watching it, growing up in the 60s. The mad (alien!) man in the magic box who could one day (or starry night) drop from the sky and change your world. There’s also some interesting reflections on how it was made to last all week, without the benefit of videos, iplayer, youtube etc.  It’s very difficult to capture the same magic watching them in 2013, but hopefully post 2005 works the same sort of magic for kids today.

[Anonymous @]

@denvaldron – I’m sorry, I think I said my last comment badly.  By asking what you’re doing ‘on the sofa’, I meant, in this particular thread on this website, since there are many threads here which would net you a wider audience (not everyone comes to this thread, especially the more-established commenters – it’s advertised as someplace new commenters can come to introduce themselves).

And you have details and theories about the Cushing Doctor which I have not yet seen on this website – granted, I haven’t yet visited every corner; it’s suddenly growing like the universe after the big bang! – but you have obviously thought these theories through and have related them to other series / individual episodes.  Which means, for deeper discussion of your viewpoints it would behove you to ask @craig if you can have a blog, which will allow you to air your theories and have individual replies to them which you can discuss.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@Shazzbot   No offense taken.

@scaryb   There’s a wide range of products and production even within the series.  Some of it is genuinely crap which doesn’t come up to the level of the Cushing films, some of it is absolutely sublime.  I think that we have to take things as a whole.  The idea I put forward explains why the Cushing Doctor is apparently human and sets him in an interesting context regarding the series.   I’m not sure about your Great Intelligence notion, but if you’d like to work it up into a full fledged argument, I would be happy to look at it.  I fing myself doubting that you would pursue it.   Your consistent underlying thesis is that the movies suck and  you don’t care about them.  Maybe its my lack of social grace, but if you’re indifferent and contemptuous of the very subject…. why are we even talking?  How exactly am I pissing in your cornflakes?

@craig –  Regarding what Shazzbot said, what do you think?  Is this worth it?

You know, I’ve said my first sight of Doctor Who was Tom Baker.  I’m not wholly sure though.  I remember the first time I watched the Peter Cushing Doctor Who, I was struck with a recurrent sense of powerful deja vu, scene after scene.  The strange wasteland on Skaros, the scary robots, the thals.  I think I might have seen it originally as a young boy.  Down at the local theatre there were saturday matinees, I’d go down with my brother and we’d watch whatever was playing.  This would have been late 60’s, early 70’s.   It would have been around the right time for the movies to make the 2nd run theatre circuit, and saturday matinees.  It’s quite possible that I saw it, forgot it, and was kindly disposed when I finally came across the Tom Baker series, and began to watch other Doctors, including digging up Cushing.  Maybe that’s why I’m disposed to be sympathetic to the Cushing Doctor.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@denvaldron

No problem at all.

your consistent underlying thesis is that the movies suck and  you don’t care about them.

Spot on! But please don’t take it personally, if you hadn’t raised a bit of interest with your extremely detailed original post I wouldn’t have interacted. The beauty of the show  is that there’s been 50 years of it (and I’m the last person to suggest it’s all been perfect) – that’s several generations, and a lifetime in terms of how TV itself has grown, never mind society.  Everyone’s take is different – it’s a big enough concept to accommodate many different perceptions of it. I’m sure you’ll find others in here who’ll be happy to discuss Cushing with you. And I’m happy to discuss anything else 🙂

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@scaryb    I lack the social intuition to take things personally.  Is all cool.

[rtlloyd98 @rtlloyd98]

@scaryb Couldn’t agree more. My dad was 8 when Tom Baker was present, as I was when Eccelston appeared on the screen. The history made me intrigued about the series and I spent a lot of time thinking what “The Time War” was like and where Gallifrey was. Also, it was filmed in Wales, written by a Welshman and I loved Captain Jack. My generation and will never be convinced that the Eccelston/Tennant can be beaten in my heart

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@denvaldron I have made you an author. Look forward to your thoughts.

You can make a blog post by hovering over the +New button in the top bar and clicking on Post. You just have to give it a Title and post your content in the main box. Choose a category on the right, or I can choose one for you afterwards, and then hit Publish.

Re categories I’d suggest either “The Doctors” or “SIDRAT” which was made up by one of our contributors and stands for “Some Idiosyncratic Diverse Ramblings About TARDIStimes” i.e. general Doctor Who thoughts.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

Oh.  Thanks.   So I should just repeat.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@denvaldron Feel free to repeat, or rewrite if you feel it necessary or if you think it will provoke more debate. People worry about duplicate content on websites for SEO reasons. Not me 😀

[Whisht @whisht]

Hi @denvaldron – I love your retcon of Cushing! For me it works.

And its not like I’ve been tossing and turning about whether he’s been misunderstood or that his films were terrible.

They exist, I saw them (or at least one) and erm, well, that’s it.

But, I completely get the Chameleon Arch retcon and get that it works!

Now, you also happen to fold in about 13 other *big ideas* into your first post, so I’ll have to go back and work out if I’m with them as well, but thanks so much for diving in – its a pleasure to read your thoughts!

[clears throat overly audibly]

I propose that we include Cushing in the Faces of the Doctor thread!

And I do that as I love your theory and also (mischievously) know that it’ll throw others here into floops of flunder (i’ve just made that up) as they’ll hate it, not know what to do with it, won’t add up properly and won’t know which month to sandwich it into!

but…… don’t care – maybe a leap month for Cushing and Harndel?

thanks again (and don’t care if you don’t care that I liked it!)

;¬)

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@whisht    Thanks.  Love to hear your thoughts on the other ideas running wild in there.   Cushing did have two movies, that’s one more than McGann.  And McGann only had a TV movie, while Cushing had a theatrical release both times.

[Whisht @whisht]

@denvaldron
woah! – tall order to reply properly to your original post, which was obviously well thought through.

However, never let an outrageous request go unanswered.

So….

[ahem]

1) Chameleon Arch’d Doctor Cushing – yep
2) Time War – “Gallifrey went tits up” – yep
3) “Time Lords are dicks” – hell yep
4) Fixed points in time… ok….
5) ‘War Games’ leads to regeneration to Cushing – ok, yep….
6) Explains “you’re half-human” – erm… oooooookkkaayyyyy
7) Susan as agent to keep him from remembering – annnnnd back to solid ground!
8) Disabled Control Room – hmm… yep, ok
9) “Time Lords are dicks” – yep!
10) Time Lords screwing with Daleks – yep
11) Send not-quite-Gallifreyan-Doctor to mess with Daleks – hmm? erm.. oookaaaayy….
12) Cushing is off-roading with adventures – ermm…….
13) Cushing collapses his false reality due to Susan crisis at end of 2nd movie – Yep! great crisis point! yesyes!
14) Sorry, there is no 14 – end of canon.

;¬o

so, mainly yes, its late (for me) and I kinda had to hmm during some bits in the middle, but overall all it all holds together magnificently and – and this is *important – its fun and logically coherent.

.

.

*importance for me was fun – logic was a boon!!

Also, perhaps more importantly, I like a real affection for a doctor (and I know you don’t think he’s perfect but simply a character of his time) but I now am beginning to get an affection for Cushing…

jeez I might even rewatch the films!

thankyou!

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

There might be a couple of additional alternate explanation for the ‘half human comment.’

2nd Theory:   See, n the “Doctor’s Wife,” Idris the human manifestation of the Tardis, or the human repository of the Tardis soul several times seems to remark that time is simultaneous, not linear for her, or that she experiences it differently.   In one remark, for instance, Idris says she has the plans for all 40 Tardis control rooms, but Smith says there haven’t been 40 rooms, and she says ‘not yet.’  Something like that.

Okay, but follow through that implication.

The Master is inside the Tardis, mucking about with the settings and trying to get it to activate by fudging with the Doctor’s signature.  Lo and behold, he discovers he can’t.  Why?  Because there’s a human signature mixed in there with the Doctor’s Time Lord signature.

“Oh ho!”  says the Master, “this obviously proves that the Doctor is half human and his mother was a chick!”

Ahh but is he reading the signal properly?  If the Tardis ‘line’ exists forwards as well as backwards, if the whole of the timeline is simultaneous to the Tardis, then maybe the master is actually picking up echoes of future developments.  Now, DNA, and likely the underlyling Time Lord DNA, don’t change much over a lifetime.   So normally, if the Master is looking at it, it shouldn’t matter if there’s a wiggle in the past or future, it should be the same.

But wait.  The Doctor’s future, in the Tenant era, contains a coupl of very big wiggles where he goes ‘Human’.  There’s the ‘Human  Spell’ of the Chameleon Arch in “Human Nature” and “Family of Blood.”   There’s also that whole bit with the partial regeneration, which affects Donna Noble (the Doctor Donna) and causes the hand to grow into a mostly human 2nd Tenant Doctor.   That’s got to throw a wiffle into the readings?   If in fact the Tardis readings are simultaneous, the Master will get some very strange things showing up, and he’ll reach for the easiest, most obvious, but wrong answer!

3rd Theory:   Possibly the very best theory.   “In the Name of the Doctor”,   Matt Smith’s most recent wonderfest, we discover that Clara Oswald has jumped into the Doctor’s Timestream, along with the Great Intelligence, and is now fractured into a zillion replicas of herself, linked to the Doctor and existing through every point in the Doctor’s life, and linked to his signature.   This is what the Master picks up, and of course… he just guesses wrong!

Why is this the very best theory?  Because it might explain something else:   In the David Tenant, fourth series, six episode, “The Doctor’s Daughter” , the Tenant Doctor is forced to stick his hand in a ‘Progenation machine’  which pops out a …  GURL!  Derived from the Doctor, she’s a sort of clone or descendant, or something such.   But why a GURL! ?   Possibly because his line is linked to Clara Oswald.  The female side of Oswald, linked to the Doctor’s timeline at every moment, is what selects the sex of the Doctor’s … daughter.

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