Clearing up the confusion surrounding Doctor Who's biggest misconceptions.
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00:00 Doctor Who is like a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly,
00:03 timey-wimey stuff.
00:04 It's been running for so long that tons of myths,
00:07 misconceptions, and urban legends have sprung around it,
00:10 like a massive game of Chinese Whispers that has been
00:13 running for almost 60 years at this point.
00:15 With that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture, here with
00:18 10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Doctor Who.
00:22 Number 10. Jenny regenerated in The Doctor's Daughter
00:27 The Doctor's Daughter was designed to challenge the Doctor
00:31 in a unique way.
00:32 It paired him with a character who, for all intents and
00:34 purposes, was his daughter, but gave her a military mindset
00:38 that was very much at odds with the Doctor's values.
00:40 Despite this, the two characters came to understand one
00:43 another over the course of the episode.
00:45 So it was a particularly cruel twist of fate when Jenny was
00:48 killed via gunshot by the rather insensitive General Cobb.
00:52 Believing her to be gone for good, the Doctor took his
00:55 TARDIS and left, only for Jenny to spring back to life in a
00:58 final pre-credits tag with a stream of golden energy
01:01 emitting from her mouth.
01:02 Because Jenny was created from the Doctor's DNA, some people
01:06 believed that this was her regenerating, just like any
01:09 Time Lord would after succumbing to a bullet wound.
01:11 That golden energy, which looks similar to regeneration
01:14 energy, would seem to back up this train of thought.
01:16 But that's not actually what's going on here.
01:19 Rather, it's energy from the Source, the terraforming device
01:22 that the humans and the Hath are fighting over, that brings
01:25 Jenny back to life.
01:26 The Source's green-tinted energy is the same stuff that
01:29 emits from Jenny's mouth, and considering that it has the
01:31 power to rejuvenate an entire planet's ecosystem, bringing
01:34 someone back from the dead would be child's play for it.
01:37 Number 9 - All Gallifreyans are Time Lords
01:41 The descriptors Time Lord and Gallifreyan are thrown around
01:45 interchangeably by fans and non-fans alike.
01:48 To be completely fair, though, Doctor Who hasn't done the
01:50 best job of making the differences between the two clear.
01:53 While all Time Lords are Gallifreyan, not all Gallifreyans
01:57 are Time Lords.
01:58 The Time Lords are a super-duper special group that wears
02:01 funny hats and does all the talking.
02:03 They're basically Gallifrey's government officials.
02:05 According to the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums, they're
02:08 ordinary Gallifreyan children who were taken from their
02:11 families at a young age and entered into the Time Lord
02:14 Academy.
02:14 Here, they gazed into the untempered schism, which showed
02:17 them the power of the Time Vortex.
02:20 According to the version of events depicted in The Timeless
02:22 Children, Gallifrey's indigenous people are the Shebogans, a
02:26 group of whom renamed themselves Time Lords after the
02:29 Timeless Child's DNA granted them the ability to regenerate.
02:32 In a nutshell, people on Gallifrey aren't automatically
02:35 Time Lords from birth.
02:36 There are ordinary Gallifreyans in one camp, and then those
02:39 who go on to become Time Lords in another.
02:41 We've even seen some of these ordinary Gallifreyans in the
02:44 show, such as the young boy in Heaven Sent or the Outsiders
02:47 in The Invasion of Time.
02:48 Number 8. The Daleks Couldn't Levitate Until 2005
02:54 That iconic scene in Series 1's Dalek, where the main villain
02:57 levitates up a flight of stairs, has on occasion been called
03:01 the first time the Daleks flew.
03:02 Understandably, their ability to conquer the universe was
03:05 questionable if they needed an elevator to reach the second
03:08 floor, but this moment put that doubt to rest.
03:11 Except, it had already been put to rest in 1988's Remembrance
03:15 of the Daleks, with a Dalek defeating some stairs with
03:17 apparent ease.
03:18 And 23 years before that, a Dalek levitated out of some sand
03:22 in the first Doctor Serial, The Chase, in a scene that served
03:25 as the cliffhanger of Episode 1.
03:27 We also see a Dalek hovering in 1985's Revelation of the Daleks.
03:31 This is something that's been reinforced throughout New Who,
03:34 where it's been shown that Daleks can actually properly fly.
03:37 See that epic Daleks vs Cybermen street battle in Doomsday,
03:41 or the reconnaissance scout swooping down to fight the human
03:44 army in Resolution.
03:45 So, we won't hear any more slander about the Daleks not being
03:49 able to climb stairs, okay?
03:51 Number 7, Chris Chibnall had a five-year plan
03:55 The Timeless Child twist cemented the Chris Chibnall era as
03:58 the most divisive time in modern Who.
04:01 But interestingly, the decision to shake up the Doctor's
04:03 backstory was something that the BBC supported him on from
04:06 the very beginning.
04:07 "I knew from the start," Chibnall told Radio Times in 2020,
04:11 adding that the Timeless Child concept was included in his
04:14 initial pitches to BBC execs.
04:16 It's quotes like this that fuel a myth that began right at the
04:19 beginning of Chibnall's tenure, with fans often bringing up his
04:22 supposed five-year plan for the show, even though there's zero
04:26 evidence that Chibnall said such a thing in the first place.
04:29 And that's because he didn't, with the five-year myth actually
04:31 stemming from a 2017 quote by James Strong, who directed
04:35 several Doctor Who episodes under Russell T Davies, and also
04:38 collaborated with Chibnall on Torchwood and Broadchurch.
04:41 Strong, who was clearly just speaking in broad strokes, said
04:44 that Chibnall's Doctor Who undertaking was a five-year
04:47 project, which was then spun by various outlets and fans as
04:50 "Chris Chibnall has a five-year plan."
04:52 And thus, the myth was born.
04:54 6. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space
04:58 There are several iconic pop culture quotes that many people
05:02 get wrong.
05:03 Darth Vader actually says "No, I am your father" rather than
05:07 "Luke, I am your father."
05:08 And no, it isn't "mirror, mirror on the wall."
05:10 It's actually "magic mirror on the wall."
05:13 Rookie mistake.
05:14 Doctor Who also has one of these, and it involves the way
05:17 that many fans wrongly remember the TARDIS's full name.
05:21 Towards the end of Doctor Who's very first episode, Susan
05:24 Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter, claims that she was
05:26 the one who came up with the TARDIS acronym by taking the
05:29 initials from the phrase "Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
05:33 Despite that singular dimension being used not just by Susan,
05:37 but by the fifth Doctor in Frontiers, the eighth Doctor in
05:39 the TV movie, and the tenth Doctor in Smith and Jones, among
05:42 many other examples, fans usually remember it as the plural
05:46 "dimensions" instead.
05:47 Probably because it rolls off the tongue a little bit easier.
05:50 To be fair, "dimensions" has also been used in the show.
05:53 Adrick in Fort Doomsday, the seventh Doctor in Delta, and
05:57 the Bannerman.
05:57 But with the singular version of the word being not just the
06:00 original, but the more prolific, it's "Time and Relative
06:03 Dimension in Space."
06:05 That's the correct version of the two.
06:07 Number 5, Prisoner Zero runs past the window in Amy's house.
06:12 Just past the 15-minute mark in Matt Smith's debut episode,
06:16 the eleventh Doctor accidentally leaves young Amelia Pond behind
06:20 for a whopping 12 years, despite promising her he'd only be
06:23 five minutes.
06:24 Not cool.
06:25 With Amelia sat waiting in her garden, the camera pulls back
06:28 inside her dark, eerie house, and a mysterious figure darts
06:32 past the window.
06:33 This figure is never identified or explained, but considering
06:36 that we just learned about the threat of Prisoner Zero, and
06:39 with Amelia's landing door having opened of its own accord
06:42 mere seconds before, it's understandable why a lot of viewers
06:45 thought that it was Prisoner Zero who was lurking at the
06:47 window.
06:48 However, as confirmed by writer Stephen Moffat on the episode's
06:51 commentary track, the original plan was to reveal that this
06:54 figure was a future version of the eleventh Doctor, the same
06:57 eleventh Doctor who travels back along his own time stream
07:00 in the series finale, The Big Bang.
07:02 In fact, the very same shot of Eleven darting past the window
07:05 was intended to be used again in The Big Bang, but was removed
07:08 because Moffat felt that it didn't edit in very well.
07:10 Number 4, Doctor Who aired on the same night as the Kennedy
07:15 assassination.
07:16 It can't be overstated how insane it is that Doctor Who has
07:20 been on the air for 59 years.
07:23 Most TV shows are lucky to get four or five, and yet here we
07:26 are, about to celebrate the Doctor's 60th anniversary.
07:29 And let's hope there's another 60 to come.
07:31 Because 59 years is such a long time, those early days of the
07:35 show are almost mythic by this point, and certain factoids
07:38 about them have become twisted.
07:40 There's the one about Ridley Scott being the designer of the
07:42 Daleks.
07:43 He wasn't.
07:44 And it's often forgotten that Ron Greiner wasn't the sole
07:47 creator of that iconic theme tune.
07:49 Delia Derbyshire also shares in that credit, having provided
07:52 the unforgettable sounds that formed its basis.
07:55 Another prominent misconception involves the date on which the
07:58 first ever Doctor Who episode was beamed into British homes,
08:01 with an unearthly child famously airing on the exact same
08:04 weekend as the Kennedy assassination in November 1963.
08:08 You'll often find people saying that both of these events also
08:11 happened on the exact same day.
08:13 In reality, though, the assassination happened on the 22nd
08:16 of November, while the world was introduced to William Hartnell's
08:19 first Doctor on the following day.
08:21 Of course, this unfortunate timing meant that Doctor Who was
08:24 greatly overshadowed.
08:25 The death of a US president dominated the public
08:27 consciousness more so than the debut of a quaint British sci-fi
08:30 show.
08:30 But there was, nonetheless, an entire day separating these
08:34 events.
08:34 Number 3.
08:36 Tasha Lem was supposed to be River Song
08:39 Tasha Lem's debut in 2013's Christmas special The Time of
08:43 the Doctor brought with it immediate, understandable
08:45 comparisons to River Song.
08:47 With both characters having a history with the Doctor, both
08:50 having the same fun, flirty relationship with him, and both
08:53 being capable of flying the TARDIS, there was enough evidence
08:56 to suggest that Tasha might have been an incarnation of River.
08:59 Or, as some fans believe, was originally meant to be River,
09:03 only for the character to be changed as the episode entered
09:05 production.
09:06 Despite the belief that Tasha is River, or was supposed to be
09:09 River being raised on various forums over the years, it simply
09:13 isn't true.
09:14 Stephen Moffat has said that he was aiming for a different kind
09:16 of relationship with Tasha and the Doctor, though he did also
09:19 admit that he perhaps went a bit too River Song.
09:22 He said, "What I was looking for was, it was like the Doctor
09:25 meeting his first girlfriend.
09:26 So they have a certain knowledge of each other, but it's from a
09:28 long time ago, and they're at ease.
09:30 I think it went a bit too River Song, because everyone loved
09:33 River, so they sort of made her into another River."
09:35 All of the evidence in the episode can be easily explained
09:39 away, and though it's a cool theory, Moffat's comment
09:42 strongly indicates that Tasha, though admittedly similar to
09:45 River in some ways, was always intended to be her own
09:47 character.
09:48 Number 2 - Michael Grade cancelled Doctor Who
09:52 There are some who believe that the Daleks or the Cybermen are
09:56 the Doctor's greatest villain.
09:57 To others, it's the Master, or even the Weeping Angels.
10:00 But to fans who were watching the show in the mid-to-late
10:03 80s, it's probably Michael Grade.
10:05 Grade was the controller of BBC One around that time, and was
10:08 responsible for putting Doctor Who on hiatus in 1985, as well
10:13 as firing sick Doctor Colin Baker the year after.
10:16 He infamously hated the show, even going so far as to call
10:19 it garbage.
10:20 Clearly, he wasn't the type of fella to have a TARDIS mug in
10:23 his cupboard.
10:24 Because of Grade's well-documented hatred of the show, a lot
10:26 of fans also associate him with its cancellation in 1989, which
10:31 is an understandable connection to make.
10:33 But in reality, Grade wasn't even at the BBC when that
10:36 decision was made.
10:37 He was succeeded as BBC One's controller by Jonathan Powell
10:40 in 1987, and it was he who was responsible for Doctor Who
10:44 disappearing from our screens.
10:46 Sharing in that responsibility was head of series Peter Krugin,
10:49 who even called himself the person who cancelled Doctor Who
10:52 in the 2007 documentary Doctor Who Endgame.
10:56 Grade's lack of faith in the show can't have helped matters,
10:58 though, so he does shoulder some of the blame.
11:01 Number 1 - The Twelfth Doctor ran around naked in Heaven Sent
11:06 Series 9's Heaven Sent is an incredibly complex episode that
11:10 leaves just as many questions as it answers.
11:13 How does the Doctor unlock a wooden door with the power of
11:16 his thoughts?
11:16 If the castle resets after each cycle, then why doesn't the
11:19 diamond wall do the same?
11:20 And who the hell left those spare clothes by the fireplace?
11:24 Early on, the Doctor escapes the sinister veil by diving out
11:27 of a window, falling straight into the water below.
11:30 Shortly after, he finds a dry, spare outfit that he quickly
11:33 swaps for his wet one, but the episode never reveals who
11:36 those clothes originally belonged to.
11:38 To some, however, the truth was hilariously obvious.
11:40 With the Doctor dying and respawning over and over again
11:44 in a seemingly endless loop, the clothes must have belonged
11:46 to him.
11:47 On his very first run through the castle, he'd simply left
11:50 them there to dry, opting to run around naked for a bit before
11:53 the veil eventually caught him.
11:55 Though the thought of Twelve navigating the castle in his
11:57 birthday suit is a funny one, Stephen Moffat has confirmed
12:00 that's not what happened.
12:02 He said, "No, of course there wasn't a naked Doctor.
12:05 I sort of wrote that moment to force you to think that the
12:07 first time round the castle, the first of many times, wasn't
12:10 the same as the version we saw."
12:12 In other words, the first cycle didn't require the Doctor
12:14 to strip off.
12:15 Still, good luck getting that image out of your head.
12:17 And that concludes our list.
12:21 If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the
12:23 comments below.
12:24 And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe
12:26 and tap that notification bell so you never miss a WhoCulture
12:29 video.
12:30 I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of Riversong
12:33 herself, "Goodbye, sweeties."
12:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]