SUMMARY
- Doctor Who characters like The Doctor’s parents and Susan’s mother remain unexplained, adding to the show’s mysteries.
- The Valeyard, Watchers, & The Woman at the End of Time are intriguing characters with little backstory, making their roles unclear.
- Jenny, The Curator, & The Reapers are dealt with sporadically, with hopes for future explanations in the series’ narrative.
Doctor Who is a series that is built around mystery, but some characters have left viewers with more questions than answers and have yet to be explained. Doctor Who first began airing in 1963 on the BBC, and in the 60 years since it’s release, there have been hundreds of episodes. The show follows an alien who travels through time and space along with a few special companions who help him on his adventures. However, despite the Doctor’s vast knowledge, some things in the show remain a mystery.
The Doctor has a detailed knowledge of many events and locations throughout all of time and space. This, of course, includes many well-known figures across the galaxy, but the show has featured several characters who were never explained. While it is possible for any of these characters to return in a future adventure and have their story finally revealed, it’s also possible that they will forever remain a mystery lost in time.
Who Raised The Time Lord?
Doctor Who is one of the longest running TV shows of all time, but the Doctor’s personal history remains a mystery, including his lineage. The Doctor has made very few references to his own parents, but there have been a few conflicting accounts about his origins. The Doctor has mentioned having Time Lord parents, being raised in an academy, and being in a noble family among the Time Lords on Gallifrey. In addition, the show has also recently included a storyline where the Doctor was revealed to be a “Timeless Child” from a mysterious universe.
And considering Doctor Who’s history of leaving some things as a mystery, it may never be.
However, with Russell T Davies’ 60th Anniversary episodes featuring the Celestial Toymaker, it appears that this narrative has been rolled into a larger mythology. Whether the Doctor was a mystery child from outside of the universe who suddenly appeared on Gallifrey and was experimented on by Tecteun, or their origins are a little less outside of the box has yet to be fully explained. And considering Doctor Who’s history of leaving some things as a mystery, it may never be.
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7Susan’s Mother
A Family Mystery On Gallifrey
Susan Foreman was the Doctor’s first companion on the series when the show began in 1963. In addition, she was one of the few companions he had who was also a Time Lord, and the only one who was a direct descendant. In the pilot episode, “An Unearthly Child,” and subsequent stories, the fact that Susan is the Doctor’s granddaughter is made clear. While some official books refer to Susan’s father being a cardinal on Gallifrey, her mother is more mysterious.
It has never been fully clarified which of Susan’s parents is the Doctor’s child. The Doctor has made several references to being a father throughout the show, in both the classic series and since the revival in 2005. However, since Susan left the TARDIS crew, there had been no more information shared about her parents, even when she returned on two separate occasions during the classic era. With nothing to go on, and the series keeping the Doctor’s family relationships vague, it’s unlikely that more information about Susan’s mother will ever be revealed.
6The Valeyard
Friend, Foe, or figment of the Doctor’s past?
In 1986, when the Sixth Doctor was put on trial on Gallifrey during the serial, “The Trial of a Time Lord,” the Doctor is being prosecuted by a Time Lord referred to as the Valeyard. While many other Time Lords have come and gone during the series, the Valeyard remains a particular mystery. During the episode, the Master reveals that the Valeyard is actually a future version of the Doctor. This was a shocking idea, that the Doctor was being put on trial and actively fighting a version of himself, but the details about how or why this was remained minimal.
Apparently, the Valeyard was actually a combined version of the Doctor’s darker sides from a point in his future timeline. However, nothing else is ever seen of the Valeyard after appearing in the short set of episodes he featured in. With the destruction of the Time Lord’s just a few regenerations later, it is unclear where and when this version of the Doctor could have been created, or how he was created.
Guardians of the Web of Time
Watchers are another mystery within the Doctor Who universe that have only appeared once in the show. Ahead of the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration in “Logopolis,” he encounters his own Watcher, and was able to speak with them. Watchers are potential regenerations of Time Lords, in a state that appears to be stuck between the previous version and the next. It’s rare for a Watcher to arrive, and much less converse with a Time Lord, so the information about the anomaly or why they appear is extremely limited.
Why these beings exist and appear sometimes is a mystery.
When a Watcher does appear, it is usually around the time that a Time Lord will regenerate, and they sometimes merge with the Time Lord during the regeneration process. Why these beings exist and appear sometimes is a mystery. As is why they are not present for every regeneration. There has been much speculation that the Valeyard is a Watcher, although, his appearance and his ability to self-sustain and exist outside of the moment of a regeneration may debunk this thought.
4The Woman At The End Of Time
A Harbinger of Doom or a Distant Echo?
During RTD’s first tenure as showrunner, he introduced several characters and ideas that became a part of Doctor Who lore. However, some of these characters slipped through the cracks and were never mentioned again after their first appearance. One such character that had a seemingly important role during David Tennant’s stint as the Tenth Doctor was the mystery woman who kept appearing ahead of Tennant’s regeneration. Her final appearance came in the episode “The End of Time,” where she locks eyes with the Tenth Doctor, but no words are exchanged.
When the episode was filmed, RTD told the actress that her role was to be the position of mother of the Doctor (via The Telegraph), the show never officially confirmed this. There are other theories about the identity of the woman, suggesting she could be Susan, Romana, or any other Time Lady from the Doctor’s past. Regardless of her exact identity, it was clear that she had a connection with the Doctor.
The Doctor’s (Sort Of) Daughter – A Genetic Anomaly?
Technically speaking, the origins behind Jenny and who she is are made perfectly clear when she appears in “The Doctor’s Daughter.” On the planet Messaline, the Doctor and Martha are introduced to two races of aliens who have been at war for generations. Despite the fact that generations have been born and killed, the entire of this ongoing war has happened in the space of a few days. This was made possible by the use of a special technology used by both species to create genetic descendants almost instantaneously.
The machine used some of the Doctor’s DNA in order to create a new person, and what came out the other side, was Jenny. Jenny has striking similarities to the Doctor in terms of her personality and values, and later in the episode, it’s revealed that she possesses at least some of his regenerative properties as well. However, the mystery comes from where Jenny disappears. After that single episode, she never returns. Considering RTD was the showrunner at the time, hopefully, Jenny will return in a future episode and the mystery revealed.
2The Curator
The Doctor’s Future, a Past Incarnation, or Something Else Entirely?
The Curator made his debut in Doctor Who during the 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor.” While the character may appear slightly eccentric and may not immediately stand out to modern era viewers, the character is played by one of the most popular Doctor’s of the classic era, Tom Baker. In addition, the character displayed several striking similarities to the Fourth Doctor, whom Baker played, offering the Doctor a jelly baby and talking in a similar cadence and tone to the previous incarnation.
The Curator remains a mystery, however, considering the character was clearly a much older version of the Fourth Doctor than had ever appeared on the show. RTD has suggested that with recent developments like the bigeneration of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctor, this could offer an explanation for the Curator’s existence as some sort of alternate version of the Fourth, but this is purely musings by RTD rather than canon in the show.
Enigmatic Enforcers of Time – Balancing the Scales or Something More Sinister?
The giant flying monsters that ate the Doctor in this episode have never been seen or referenced again.
The Reapers are another creation of RTD’s which appeared in the very first season of the revived show in 2005, during the episode “Father’s Day.” The Reapers appear when Rose Tyler goes back in time to meet her father, Pete, and decides to change history by saving Pete’s life. In the episode, they are explained as being creatures that feed on temporal paradoxes. However, the giant flying monsters that ate the Doctor in this episode have never been seen or referenced again.
The Doctor has had several more instances where paradoxes have been introduced, with only a few offering some sort of explanation about how they can be sustained. Yet, in every other occurrence, the Reapers have never been seen again. The reason for their appearance around Rose’s saving of her father and their lack of appearing in any other episode is confounding, but it remains a mystery of Doctor Who to this present moment, despite the paradox that not having them return also creates.
