How far does the Doctor’s memory problem go? When Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor regenerated into Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor one of the first things he said was, “Do you know how to fly this thing?” at the end of the episode. Now, 12 isn’t the first Doctor to have memory issues after regeneration. It has been shown before, but usually is wrapped up by the end of the episode. With 12, it was shown during his first spoken lines that the memory issue is back.
Once we started getting official announcements about other characters, one that jumped out to me was Danny Pink. The official announcement and photo didn’t really do anything, but what really got me was when I saw a photo of him taken during the filming of an episode.
How weird that a guy by the name of Danny Pink was wearing a pink shirt. That made me think back to the “…how do you fly this thing?” comment by 12. I wondered if this Doctor was going to have a memory issue that lasted longer than the first episode? If so, then perhaps Danny Pink is just what the Doctor will call him due to him wearing a pink shirt. Hmmmm.
Jump forward to the first episode of Series 8. The Doctor arrives in the TARDIS and calls Strax Grumpy, then refers to Vastra as “the green one” and Jenny as the “not green one”. Clara catches the brunt of this because he calls her “thingy”, the “not me one” and the “asking questions one” and then suggests everyone wear name tags because names are not his area. Finally, he calls her “handles” then he mixes up her and Strax because they are about the same height. That’s all in the first five minutes and memory issues creep up the rest of the episode.
This weekend we have “Into The Dalek”, the 2nd episode of Series 8. The preview has two more indications of ongoing memory problems. He calls one lady Gun Girl because “she’s a girl and has a gun”, further leading me to believe my Danny Pink theory will be accurate. Then he struggles with what to call Clara. She calls herself his “carer” because, as he says, “she cares so that I don’t have to”. So that brings up another theory. Obviously the Doctor is having a memory situation, but I wonder if he is also just not concerning himself with remembering peoples names because he doesn’t care. There are more important things for him to think about. In “A Christmas Carol”, 11 says that “..in nine hundred years of time and space…I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before”. That would seem to contradict this theory, but 12 isn’t 11 is he?
Okay, so let’s say these two theories are true, or at least plausible, why is it different for 12? Could having a new set of regenerations have caused a total reboot? Is this really the same Doctor that we have always known? Perhaps having a new set of regenerations caused a merging of some sort. We have all the previous Doctors, and now we have another set of regenerations gifted to the Doctor from the Time Lords. Is it possible that with new regenerations, we get a new person? There are remnants, ghosts if you will, of his previous versions, but perhaps they are not all playing nice together anymore. Perhaps he isn’t just the same Doctor with a new face, but something different. Should we really be asking the question Doctor….Who?
A possibility or am I just nuts? Do you have a different theory? I would love to know what the Police Box Paradox Nation thinks.
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