The Doctor's Past on Gallifrey

This article is part of my Doctor Who Guide.

This is a discussion on the Doctor's past, as established in the TV series (both classic and new). Though some of the novels tried to fill in some of his back story, those won't be given great attention here since several of them do not fit into the cannon established by the new TV series.

EARLY CHILDHOOD

In "The Time Monster", the Doctor told his companion Jo Grant that as a child he had lived in a house high up on a hill. In that story, and in "State of Decay" (TV story 113), he mentioned that a monk lived in this same area, a monk who told him ghost stories and taught him to open his mind to the beauty of nature and reality. Years later, the Doctor met this same monk again on Earth when the other Time Lord was living in the guise of a simple Tibetan monk called K'anpo.

In "State of Decay", the Doctor described the area of his childhood as having been in the Southern mountains of Gallifrey.

In the TV-movie, also known as "The Enemy Within", the Doctor mentioned watching a meteor storm on a warm night with his father. He described the meteor storm as "purple, green, brilliant yellow."

In the same TV-movie, the Doctor remarked that he was half-human on his mother's side, but this remark has been considered a joke by fans and writers/producers of the new series who consider him to be completely an alien. Likewise, nothing before the TV-movie ever implied that he had human heritage.

It seems that the Doctor had once had a brother. In "Smith and Jones", when he was asked if he had a brother, the Doctor remarked "No, not anymore."

Time Lords are immune to certain types of radiation and in "Smith and Jones" the Doctor mentioned having played with Roentgen bricks as a child.

In "The Empty Child", the Doctor saw what seemed to be a child shunned by his peers and remarked "never easy being the only child left out in the cold, y'know." When someone glibly said, "I suppose you'd know," the Doctor answered, quite seriously, "I do, actually, yes."

This is not the only indication of the Doctor having a sad and lonely childhood. When he was telepathically linked to a woman in "The Girl in the Fireplace", the woman remarked that the Doctor's memories revealed him to be "such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now." She also remarked that the Doctor's hidden name was "more than just a secret."

SCHOOL DAYS

In "The Five Doctors" (TV story 130), it was revealed that the Doctor could read and write Old High Gallifreyan, an unusual skill among modern Time Lords. It is uncertain if he learned this on his own as a child or when he attended the Time Lord Academy.

In "The Armageddon Factor", a man named Drax who had been a former classmate of the Doctor's referred to him as "Theta Sigma", also calling him "Thete" for short. In the Seventh Doctor TV story "The Happiness Patrol", the Doctor remarked "Theta Sigma was my nickname in college." By "college", he naturally meant the Time Lord Academy, where he had met Drax.

It is known that the Doctor and his arch-enemy the Master attended the Academy together and that the Master achieved a greater degree in "cosmic science" (which the Doctor dismissed, saying he had simply been a "late developer"). This was established in "Terror of the Autons" and "The Mind of Evil", which also confirmed that the two had once been very good friends and that neither had felt as comfortable with other students or Time Lords around them.

Considering how often the Master has attempted to recruit the Doctor rather than fight him, and how often the two have remarked on their previous friendship, it is obvious they were certainly very close to each other for some time before their lives took them down different paths.

On that same note, it has been stated several times that the Doctor was not among the best students at the Academy. In "The Deadly Assassin" (TV story 88) and "The Invasion of Time" (TV story 97), his old teacher Borusa commented on how the Doctor had been very difficult and never took to certain lessons. In "The Shakespeare Code", the Doctor admitted he had failed his test on how to properly pilot a TARDIS. In "The Ribos Operation", it was revealed that the Doctor had only passed his final exams on the second try, and then just barely.

In "The Invasion of Time", it was established that Cardinal Borusa had taught the Doctor how to use his telepathy during his days at the Academy. In "Terror of the Zygons", he mentioned learning hypnosis from a Tibetan monk. This may have been a reference to K'anpo.

LATER FAMILY

In the very first TV-story of Doctor Who in 1963, "An Unearthly Child", the Doctor was seen traveling with his granddaughter Susan. So we know he was a father and a grandfather before he left Gallifrey and became a renegade. If you are one of those people who try to think otherwise and prefer to book explanation that Susan wasn't really his granddaughter in any direct fashion, then I don't understand you. Even if the two hadn't made it clear that they were family and from the same planet, the Doctor has commented twice in the new series that he has been a father (in "Fear Her" and "The Doctor's Daughter").

In the Seventh Doctor TV story "The Curse of Fenric" (TV story 158), the Doctor was asked what had become of his family and he admitted that he didn't know. Years later, in the episode "The Empty Child", a physician told the Ninth Doctor that before WW II began he had been a father and a grandfather, adding "Now I'm neither, but I'm still a doctor." The Doctor remarked, "Yeah, I know the feeling." This not only confirms he was a grandfather but also implies that his family, including Susan, did not survive into the new series. He likewise mentioned in "Father's Day" and "Gridlock" that his whole family was now gone.

A question comes up as to whether or not the Doctor was ever married. When speaking to a couple about to be married in the TV story "Father's Day", he remarked that he had never had an experience of romance like the one they had shared when they had met and that had led them to fall in love. In one of the Ninth Doctor novels (which are canon), the Doctor made a remark to his companion Rose that getting married was not what it was cracked up to be but wouldn't go into detail about whether or not he knew this from personal experience. Perhaps then the Doctor had been married but not for love?

Interestingly, in the audio play "The Marian Conspiracy", the Doctor was asked if he was married and he stated no, adding that he thought doctors should be like Catholic priests who did not marry but dedicated themselves to the service of others.

EARLY EXPERIENCES

In "Silver Nemesis", it was implied that before we met him, the Doctor had journeyed into the forbidden "Old Time", the early days of the Time Lords, before they even had mastered time technology.

In "The Celestial Toymaker", we learned that the Doctor had made an enemy of the cosmic being known as the Celestial Toymaker, possibly while he'd still been an official Time Lord of Gallifrey.

When the First Doctor first battled the Cybermen in "The Tenth Planet", he seemed to recognize them quickly. This may have been because he was simply familiar with their history, being a Time Lord, or it may be that he had met them before in some unchronicled early adventure.

In "The Stolen Earth", the Doctor mentioned that he had visited the Medusa Cascade, a rift in space and time, when he was a young man of 90 years, which means he would have still been an Academy student at the time. At some later point in history, he apparently closed the Medusa Cascade. A remark made in "Last of the Time Lords" implied that the Master may have accompanied the Doctor during this event.

In "The Fires of Pompeii", an oracle said that the Doctor's secret birth name was burned into the stars of the Medusa Cascade. Whether this was literal or a metaphor referencing the Doctor's ties with the rift was not made clear.

LEAVING GALLIFREY

The circumstances of the Doctor's departure are somewhat cloudy. In"The War Games", he claimed that he left because he was bored and that this made him a fugitive and, as he said in"An Unearthly Child", an "exile" from his people.

In "Logopolis", the Doctor admitted to his young companion Adric that his old, rundown TARDIS was not actually his. Rather, he had taken it in a "kind of finder's-keeper's" way (meaning he stole it) from a repair shop on Gallifrey. The fact that it might not have been fully repaired when the Doctor took it, and the fact that he may have had to override certain security protocols in order to hotwire the ship, could help explain why the TARDIS is such an unreliable machine at times.

We know, of course, that Susan accompanied the Doctor in his exile, tagging along on his adventures, apparently out of simple love/loyalty and because she was under the belief that he needed her to look after him (which was certainly true, to an extent). But in"The Edge of Destruction"(TV story 03), the Doctor was knocked out and later, as he regained consciousness, he was dazed and seemingly delirious for a few moments, at which time he said "I can't take you back, Susan! I can't!"

What did this remark mean? Was it simple delirium? Did Susan join the Doctor and later reconsider leaving her own home and parents behind (assuming her parents were alive)? Or had the Doctor perhaps kidnapped his own granddaughter so she wouldn't live under the thumb of the Time Lords as he'd been forced to?

When the Doctor briefly returned to Gallifrey during the events of "The Deadly Assassin", an old Time Lord acquaintance recognized him and remarked that he had been involved in some "scandal" in the past. Was he talking about the Doctor stealing a TARDIS and leaving? Was he talking about some event that happened before the Doctor had left, a scandal that perhaps led to the Doctor deciding it would be better to be a fugitive and a renegade (perhaps involving an unauthorized trip into the "Old Time", as implied in "Silver Nemesis")? Or was he talking about a completely unrelated scandal, some affair that the Doctor was involved in before he even began considering that it was time to leave his home and his people behind?

Who knows ...

That about wraps it up, folks. Cheers!