Doctor Who's Surprise Cameo Teases Massive Unanswered Canon Questions
What does the Doctor remember about their secret past?
Five years ago, in one of the most memorable episodes of Jodie Whittaker’s era of Doctor Who, the Doctor encountered a version of herself from a past that Who fans had never really understood. And now, in the latest episode of Doctor Who, “The Story & the Engine,” written by Inua Ellams, Ncuti Gatwa’s 13th Doctor revisits that exact same storyline. In a unique episode full of big ideas, Doctor Who makes a casual assertion about the unfolding — and sometimes contradictory —nature of the Doctor’s past.
So, what did this cameo mean? And how does it change our knowledge of the Doctor’s secret lives? Let’s talk about the wibbly-wobbly retroactive canon of the various Doctors before the existence of Doctor Who.
Spoilers ahead for Doctor Who’s “The Story & the Engine.”
The Barber (Ariyon Bakare) The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) Omo Akiyemi (Sule Rimi) in 'The Story & the Engine.”
Of all the episodes of the Ncuti Gatwa era, “The Story & the Engine” might be the one that is most focused on the character of the Doctor. Here, we learn that because the 15th Doctor has regenerated as a Black man, he’s found solace in a barber shop in Lagos. But the barber shop is not what it seems, as we learn that people are being held captive there, and being forced to tell stories in order to fuel the engine of a spider-like spacecraft. The person keeping everyone captive, the Barber (Ariyon Bakare), eventually reveals he’s working with Abena (Michelle Asante). The Doctor realizes he knows Abena, and that’s because she’s one of the daughters of Anansi, the mythical trickster-spider god from African folklore.
But the reason why the Doctor knows Abena isn’t something we’ve seen depicted onscreen in any previous incarnation. Instead, we learn that the version of the Doctor who met Abena and Anansi was the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin). In a surprising cameo, Martin appears as the Doctor in the present tense, talking to Abena about her memory and about how the Doctor was a “fugitive” during the encounter with Anansi.
In the context of “The Story & the Engine,” this further establishes that the Doctor has known creatures whom we might think of as gods. He even jokes about having watched Marvel movies with the Norse goddess Saga. But, in the broader context of Who canon, the reappearance of the Fugitive Doctor seems to hint that the 15th Doctor is starting to regain more memories from all the lives that were repressed by the Time Lords.
Jodie Whittaker and Jo Martin in "The Fugitive of the Judoon" back in 2020.
In the brief cameo, the Fugitive Doctor says to Abena, “Frankly, darling, I was busy in a different story, that might be finished one day.”
This references the idea that prior to the 1st Doctor (William Hartnell), there are several versions of the Doctor that aren’t fully explained or chronicled. This is because in the 2020 episode “The Timeless Children,” we learned that the earliest version of the Doctor had their memories erased, specifically during an era in which they worked for an organization called the Division. This retcon accounted for the mysterious faces of the Doctor in “The Brain of Morbius” in 1976, and established a new ongoing mystery in the Who canon: What else happened to all those other Doctors? At the end of the 2021 episode “The Vanquishers,” the 13th Doctor dropped a fob watch containing all the memories of previous, secret Doctors deep into the TARDIS. This implied, at the time, that the Doctor wasn’t ready to know all the details of those hidden stories.
But now, with the 15th Doctor remembering specific moments from the Fugitive Doctor’s life, it seems possible that more of these untold tales aren’t a secret anymore. In fact, this is the second time in two years that Doctor Who has not-so-subtly implied that the 15th Doctor knows more about past lives than any other Doctor before. In 2024’s “Rogue,” when the Doctor revealed he was a Time Lord, we got one new face in the parade of past Doctors: An unknown incarnation played by Richard E. Grant.
So, does the 15th Doctor have full knowledge of all of the hidden incarnations of the Doctor? Has he cracked open that fob watch? Right now, we don’t know. But if Doctor Who is playing a long game, it seems very possible that some of the greatest adventures in the life of this Time Lord have already happened, a long time ago, in a TARDIS far, far away.
