Reverse the polarity of the spoiler circulation! Proceed with warning if you happen to’re but to observe the brand new “Physician Who” episode “The Story & the Engine”.
In “The Story & the Engine”, the Physician stops off for a haircut in Lagos, Nigeria, and finally ends up with a bit of greater than a brief again and sides. A mysterious barber (Ariyon Bakare) is on the hunt for tales to energy his scheme to topple the gods, and no person has extra memorable tales to share than Gallifrey’s most well-known export.
The episode references a lot of the Physician’s acquainted faces from their many adventures by way of house and time, together with one other, less-talked-about incarnation from a earlier life. Here is how the so-called Fugitive Physician suits into “Physician Who” lore.
The Fifteenth Physician briefly has a distinct face in Omo’s barbershop in “The Story & the Engine”. Who’s she?
That is truly a flashback to a earlier regeneration of the Physician, performed by British actor Jo Martin. Referred to as the “Fugitive Physician”, she made her first look within the collection 12 episode “Fugitive of the Judoon” (2020) and returned just a few extra instances throughout Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Physician period.
It was this incarnation that Abena (Michelle Asante) remembers. The daughter of the trickster god Anansi, Abena spent her whole life terrified that her dad would lose her in a wager, and nonetheless bears a grudge that the Physician could not take her away.
“I used to be a fugitive again then,” explains the Fugitive Physician. “Anansi was flawed to supply that wager. And albeit, darling, I used to be busy in a distinct story that may be completed at some point.”
Hold on, have we missed one thing? We do not bear in mind Jo Martin being the lead in any earlier seasons of “Physician Who”.
That is appropriate, she’s by no means been the lead Physician in any of “Physician Who”‘s 62 years on TV. The Fugitive Physician suits into the Time Lord’s timeline earlier than William Hartnell’s First Physician began the character’s televised run of regenerations.
Are another Docs lacking from ‘Who”s conventional numerical sequence?
Sure, the long-standing numbering system has been extraordinarily complicated for the reason that fiftieth anniversary particular “The Day of the Physician” launched the Conflict Physician (performed by John Harm). This model slots in between the Eighth Physician (Paul McGann) and the Ninth Physician (Christopher Eccleston), which means that David Tennant’s Tenth Physician ought to extra precisely be described because the Eleventh Physician.
An additional complication comes from the actual fact the Fourteenth Physician was additionally performed by Tennant till he regenerated — or, technically, bi-generated — into Gatwa’s Fifteenth Physician. There’s additionally the Richard E Grant model who appeared in 1999 Comedian Aid particular “The Curse of Deadly Loss of life” and have become a part of canon when the Physician confirmed off some earlier incarnations in final 12 months’s “Rogue“. And that is earlier than you have introduced the Fugitive Physician into the equation.
That mentioned, it is value remembering that this numbering system is extra for the advantage of followers than for characters inside the “Physician Who” universe. No matter their look, the Physician is the Physician.
Why had no person talked in regards to the Fugitive Physician earlier than “Fugitive of the Physician”?
As a result of all recollections of that pre-First Physician life had been erased. Certainly, when the Thirteenth Physician meets the Fugitive Physician for the primary time, each are confused as a result of neither has any recollection of the opposite.
Why is the Fugitive Physician so controversial inside fandom?
Jo Martin’s efficiency has been extensively praised, however the Fugitive Physician’s existence essentially modifications the ‘Who’ canon. TL;DR model: The Fugitive Physician is on the coronary heart of one of many greatest, and most divisive, retcons within the present’s six-decade historical past.
Sequence 12 finale “The Timeless Kids” revealed that the Physician was by no means simply an extraordinary Time Lord who stole a TARDIS. As an alternative, they began out as a mysterious alien child found on an alien world by a scientist named Tecteun. Tecteun was a Shobogan (the earlier residents of the Time Lord homeworld, Gallifrey), and she or he realised that this “Timeless Baby”‘s capacity to regenerate may very well be grafted onto her personal species. This subsequently gave start to the Time Lords, making the Physician integral to the origin delusion of a whole civilisation.
The Physician was subsequently recruited to work for the Division, the shadowy Gallifreyan spy outfit that the Fugitive model is attempting to stop when she first encounters the Thirteenth Physician. It is subsequently secure to imagine there are a lot of different earlier variations of the Physician that we have not met but.
Many followers had hoped this tectonic shift in “Who” mythology could be quietly forgotten within the present’s newest iteration — a lot as no person actually talks in regards to the 1996 TV film’s revelation that the Physician is “half human on my mom’s aspect”. It is nonetheless, nevertheless, very a lot a part of canon. The Physician referenced being deserted by his mother and father in final 12 months’s “Area Infants“, and likewise mentioned being an orphan with Ruby Sunday.
Does the Fifteenth Physician now recall his adventures because the Fugitive Physician?
That is an intriguing query. In “The Vanquishers” (the finale of collection 13, aka “Flux”), the Physician is given a fob watch that appears so much just like the Chameleon Arch the Tenth Physician used to masquerade as a human instructor in traditional two-parter “Human Nature”/”The Household of Blood”. It incorporates all the Time Lord’s forgotten recollections, however she opts to cover it away, telling the TARDIS to “Maintain this secure, someplace I can by no means discover it.”
Nevertheless, the truth that the Fifteenth Physician recollects his earlier encounter with Abena in “The Story & the Engine” means that he is since downloaded these recollections into his mind. Perhaps he is additionally hoping for the Fugitive Physician’s story to be “completed at some point”.
New episodes of “Physician Who” stream on BBC iPlayer within the UK and Disney+ within the US each Saturday. The Fugitive Physician’s earlier appearances can be found on BBC iPlayer within the UK and Max within the US.
