Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Panecea]

I have just recently purchased the Doctor Who: The Begininng boxset and have been watching the epsiodes in my spare time. I just finished watching The Daleks and noticed the in the final part of that episode he mentioned to Eledin that he was a pioneer, but never elaborates on this idea. Any thoughts on this?

[Greg]

Well... who can say for certain?

Way back when The Daleks was originally made, it probably meant time travel. In the previous story, Susan claims to have made up the word TARDIS from its initials, implying it was new. In the partial remake of the story as Dr Who and the Daleks, the big screen Doctor did invent his time machine. However, as the TV series progressed and we learnt about the Doctor's people (who weren't a part of the TV series' original premise...), the prospect of him being a time travel pioneer seems very unlikely. All the Time Lords' time machines are called TARDIS, and it appears they have been travelling in time for many generations - so much so that the Time Lords who pioneered Time Travel, like the stellar engineer Omega, are revered historical figures.

In Carnival of Monsters, we learn that the Doctor was instrumental in getting the Time Lords to ban minisopes as a crime against sentient beings. So was he a pioneer in getting the Time Lords to interact with other races, a pioneer in humanitarian causes?

When we eventually get to Remembrance of the Daleks, the Doctor makes a comment on the Hand of Omega, saying 'And didn't we have trouble with the prototype...', implying that he was somehow involved in pioneering time travel after all. Maybe.

This discrepancy is given a solution in the novel Lungbarrow, where the Doctor's origins, and those of Susan, are explored, and it is explained that the Doctor both is and isn't one of the Gallifreyan time travel pioneers, just as he both is and isn't Susan's grandfather. Confused? The novel is available for free at the BBC website (click here).

Be interesting to hear others' views on what the Doctor pioneered...

[Davros]

delete me....