The Six (B) Doctors

I had developed this theory to explain the previously unknown John Hurt Doctor. Of course, with the release of the Night of the Doctor my idea completely falls apart. So instead I present it as a possible scenario for the game.

My idea was that John Hurt was definitely the Ninth Doctor, but the product of the Season 6B timeline.

Season 6B is that bit of continuity wiggle room in between the Second Doctor's last appearance in War Games, and the Third Doctor's first appearance in Spearhead from Space. Instead of exile on Earth as the Time Lords had decreed, the Doctor became their agent dealing with secret missions for the Time Lords. That apparently lasts quite a long time for the Second Doctor, who is visibly aged when he's seen in The Two Doctors alongside a much older Jamie McCrimmon.  Though eventually the Second Doctor either died in action, or failed the Time Lords in some manner. Either way they follow through with their decreed fate for him and he becomes the Third Doctor we see in Spearhead.

What if that was not the case?

Instead, the Doctor regenerates into a completely different person. This Other Third Doctor is forced to remain in the service of the Time Lords as an agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency. The Doctor has proven himself far too valuable, and the Time Lords are getting rumblings of dangerous things happening through time. They have already foreseen the threat the Daleks pose to the universe, and the Doctor is the most logical agent to try and deal with this.

So we have a series of adventures with a Doctor working  (if not necessarily willingly) directly for the Time Lords through the Celestial Intervention Agency.

It could be the Time War may have already begun. It might be the adversaries in War Games may have been part of the larger machinations of various parties in the Time War to raise an army that could fight against the Daleks. The Doctor realizes what is at stake and remains part of the Time War, and in the process giving up a number of lives in the name of trying to stop the Daleks.

For a Time War themed campaign, this does give you the option of recruiting any of the classic Doctors into the War. Or you could create a new alternate Doctor tailored to your campaign, and still claim continuity.

John Connor: Temporal War Criminal

Future John Connor from Terminator 2

The basic conceit of the Terminator franchise is that John Connor, leader of the human resistance is this great hero who is protecting humanity from Skynet. Even going as far as sending agents back in time to try and alter events to keep the Terminators from existing.


But is John Connor truly this great leader?  At least that's what the loyal resistance fighters of the future say about him. They have lived in a world of total war for years and John Connor seems to be the only glimmer of hope they have. As a result they are fanatically loyal and more than willing to lay down their lives for him. Kyle Reese's devotion to him is quite evident in his numerous monologues in the first Terminator movie.

All we have really ever seen of John Connor is younger man who finds himself propelled steadily closer to his eventual future. By a large degree, it is John Connor's future self that is manipulating events though his proxies in the first two movies. Even worse, in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chrocnicles it's clear the manipulations of both Skynet and the Resistance extend much farther than just John's existence. Both sides are engaging in a time active war against each other and it seems the more both sides change the past the more inevitable Judgement Day becomes.


By sending Reese and the second Terminator back in time, he pretty much ensures the very future of blood soaked death and destruction through predestined paradox. Without Kyle to impregnate Sarah, there is no John Connor, who never becomes the resistance leader Skynet must seek out before he is born, and thus their Terminator never falls into the hands of Cyberndyne Systems and the technology that creates Skynet never exists. The John Connor of the future must be aware of these facts when he arrives at the point where he must send Reese off to become his father.

Yet he chooses this path, and the world suffers for his decision. The war can be prevented by John Connor, if he chose to sacrifice his existence which was never meant to be.  More than a few writers have made Christ comparisons to John Connor,  but his future actions make it clear he is no savior of mankind. He is it's damnation by fire, and it is clearly a conscious action on the his part since he did it repeatedly.

10 Characters on other TV shows that would make Great and/or Terrible Companions

I ran across a couple posts on WhatCulture arguing about what characters on other TV shows would make great companions and which ones would be terrible.

I don't think either list is very good, but the supposedly "Great Companion" list is by far worse.  At the number one spot is Sheldon Cooper , whom I have already done a write-up (along with the rest of the BBT cast) over at the DWAITAS message board. Regardless of what that blog thinks, Sheldon would be terrible in the TARDIS. Considering that his entire self image (hell his whole reality!) is based around the idea that he is the smartest person in the room. Any time he's confronted by someone who could truly challenge him intellectually, he's either reverts to downright childish behavior (like when he's verbally sparred with Leslie Winkle) or completely shuts down, uncertain how to react (worst case being when Stephen Hawking pointed out a math error in his paper and he fainted.) The Doctor, in his usual show-offy manner, would have Sheldon turned into a puddle within minutes of meeting him, and the second a monster showed up, it would be a pretty good guess that Sheldon's Mother really would need to have him tested again.

Of the other choices on the "Great Companions" list, I'd say the kid from Touch, Chandler from Friends, and Hiro Nakamura from Heroes, are the equally bad for different reasons. Chandler is just an idiot, has nothing resembling useful skills,  and unless the Daleks do us all a favor and exterminate him on sight he would be a total waste. The Kid and Hiro are pretty much on the opposite end of things, with too much power. Hiro's space-time bending and the kid's numerical clairvoyance would end up being power upgrades for deus ex machina that the Doctor often is.

As for the "Terrible Companions" list,  I just think the writer just threw out some names and didn't really try. Personally, I think most of them would work not as Companions, but as potential antagonists and villains. Take Mr. Bean for example, what if he was some kind of temporal anomaly that acted as a kind of anti-Doctor.  Popping up throughout history and wreaking havoc through his incompetent bumbling? Maybe he was chosen by the Black Guardian as his ultimate champion? What better instrument of Chaos and Disorder than someone who fully embodies such traits?

I could see situations where B.A. Baracus and the rest of the A-Team might find themselves in conflict with the TARDIS crew. It's not uncommon for Doctor Who stories to revolve around wealthy, powerful, and unscrupulous people.  Henry Van Statten , Luke Rattigan, or Joshua Naismith are all the kind of men that will trample over as many backs needed to achieve their goals. This is exactly the kind of situation the A-Team would often be called in to rectify. Considering the standard operating procedure for the A-Team includes them storming their enemy's stronghold and delivering an ultimatum, it might be really bad timing they show up right as the bad guy starts up some big plot and things go awry due to their interference.

Wesley Crusher of course, was the child prodigy of Star Trek that ended up gaining some kind of Vortex manipulation powers from his friend the Traveler. And all of this happened (relatively speaking) before the Last Great Time War. It might be the Traveler's people found themselves involved in the Time War, and Wesley might have ended up on the front lines. Much like the Doctor, he ends up sacrificing much to save reality, maybe finding himself trapped in strange alternate universe where nothing of his future exists. The once bright and hopeful Starfleet officer is now a damaged war survivor with an agenda, to return home, whatever it takes. He's probably had to break a lot of the rules Starfleet and the Traveler instilled into him just to survive, and now he's willing to burn worlds just to go back to where he belongs.

They do list BBC's Sherlock on the "Terrible" list. Like some of the other characters, he would not be an outright villain, but someone who starts out on the opposite side of the TARDIS crew. If they are trying to keep a secret and Sherlock is hellbound determined to uncover it, that would provide quite a bit of conflict for an adventure without him actually being a straight off bad guy.

Now Ted Mosby from "How I Met Your Mother" is clearly an outright villain*. I suspect he's a memory changing entity like Adam Smith, and this intricate tale he's telling these kids is an attempt to make them believe he is their father and belongs in their lives.

Since I go by the belief that all of the Hitchhiker's books exist within the same reality as Doctor Who, I would assume the Doctor has run into Zaphod Beeblebrox on a few occasions. They would definitely be antagonistic in a long standing rivalry of one-upsmanship and juvenile pranksertism. I could definitely see their last drinking binge together ended with the Doctor waking up with a hell of a hangover and in the First Queen Elizabeth's bed.

 It's unavoidable that everyone would have their own ideas for what character would be a great companion and which ones would be rubbish. The concept of the show lends itself so well to crossovers it's no surprise fans come up with ideas like this, and even less of a surprise fans comment incessantly about it:)







*And so is his actor, I mean, it's obvious the guy playing him is also some kind of experiment by the Silence to create a human with their abilities. Seriously, go look up his IMDB page and five minutes later, try remembering what his name is!