However, all of this is small beans compared to having a
legend like Peter Cushing in the role.
Can they be canon?
First, the Doctor’s name is Doctor Who. Missy says so at the beginning of ‘World Enough and Time‘. Sure, maybe you think the Doctor’s arch-nemesis is an unreliable source, but that seems like a pretty weird thing to make up to me.
As for being human, the Doctor’s been human at least twice,
or even three times depending on if your canon includes the Virgin New
Adventures books. Surely another won’t hurt. And there’s always been ambiguity
over whether the Doctor “stole” or “invented” the TARDIS.
It’s a bit awkward the films depict such similar events to
the ones seen in William Hartnell’s adventures, but I’m sure there’s a
timey-wimey explanation for that.
In fact, the biggest obstacle to Peter Cushing’s canonical status is that he’s already in there. In Steven Moffat’s novelisation of ‘The Day of the Doctor’, the Doctor mentions knowing Peter Cushing, and that Cushing made some (inaccurate) movies about some of his adventures. The novel also mentions that Peter Cushing’s friendship with the Doctor is also how he managed to appear in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story years after his death.
The “Curse of the Fatal Death” Doctor(s)
Played by: Rowan Atkinson, Richard E Grant (again),
Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Joanna Lumley
Who are they?
Filmed as a “parody” for Comic Relief, again, like all Doctor Who parodies, this was an audition tape-but not for the actors this time. The story, written by one Steven Moffat, featured a timey-wimey plotline, the Doctor getting married, the Doctor using up all of their regenerations, and then turning into a woman. You might recognise this as a greatest hits list of Moffat’s actual time running the show.
Can they be canon?
While Rowan Atkinson is supposed to be yet another “Ninth”
Doctor, the only clue to this in the plot is how many regenerations he has
left. And by the same token, the Doctor thinking they’ve run out of regenerations
only to get a new one is something that’s already happened before (Who knows
how many times the Time Lords pulled this trick on them?). We’ve got Daleks,
and we’ve got the Master, but you can make it fit if you want.
The “Web of Caves” Doctor
Played by: Mark Gatiss
Who are they?
A four-minute sketch produced for BBC Two’s Doctor Who night in 1999, this features Mark Gatiss’s Doctor being menaced by some pretty useless aliens. Again, all parodies are audition tapes. It’s in black and white, which really I think all pre-Hartnell Doctors should be, but there’s no other clue to say which Doctor this is.
Can they be canon?
The aliens mention a couple of plans, hollowing out the Earth’s core, draining the sea into the Earth’s molten core, which the Doctor says have been “done”, referencing post-‘Unearthly Child’ episodes of the show. But it’s hard coming up with original evil plans, so I wouldn’t be surprised if these weren’t new ideas when our run of Doctors foiled them.
And honestly, I think Gatiss wants in more than any of the
other Doctors on this list so far, so let’s let him have it.
The “Nth” Doctor
Played by: Nicholas Briggs
Who are they?
You might know Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Daleks in the new series. Or you might know him as the executive producer of the Big Finish audio dramas. But before any of that, he was making unlicensed fan audios, starring himself as the mysterious “Nth” Doctor.
These audios proved very successful among fans, and at one
point the Eighth Doctor comics caused outrage by having the Doctor “regenerate”
into Nicholas Briggs’s incarnation (only for it to later turn out that another
Time Lord had faked a regeneration to take the Eighth Doctor’s place).
Can they be canon?
Daleks again, but otherwise it’s kept intentionally vague
exactly which Doctor this one is supposed to be, especially as the audios
themselves are hard to find now.
The “Unbound” Doctors
Played by: Geoffrey Bayldon, David Warner, David
Collings, Arabella Weir
Who are they?
One of the things Doctor Who fans have missed out on as a result of the vast, intricate, all-encompassing and distinctly timey-wimey continuity of the franchise, is the reboots and elseworld stories every other sci-fi franchise seems to get. But an exception to that is the Unbound stories.
Produced by Big Finish, these plays featured new actors in the role of the Doctor and stories that could never, ever take place in existing continuity. The Doctor never leaves Gallifrey, the Doctor escapes the justice of the Time Lords, the Doctor is captured by the Time Lords only to be exiled to Earth 30 years later than he was in the main continuity, meaning he lands on an Earth ravaged by multiple alien invasions. There are great stories here, and great actors in the role, even if some of them have dated poorly (Arabella Weir gives a great turn as an alcoholic, fugitive Third Doctor with a job in Sainsbury’s, even if the discussion around “sex change Time Lords” is, well, they could have done a lot better there).
Can they be canon?
Some of the stories might be able to made to fit into the
pre-Hartnell era with careful fudging, and amusingly, Arabella Weir’s previous
incarnation is played by Nicholas Briggs. David Warner’s Doctor, a more tired,
cynical version of our own (who can get pretty darn tired and cynical
sometimes) has even broken into the mainstream universe thanks to some
adventures with Bernice Summerfield.
So the answer is, yes, but maybe not in the way you were expecting…
Pre-order Chris’ official Doctor Who Joke Book ‘Knock Knock! Who’s There?’ here.