‘Doctor Who’: History Making Twist Reveals Jo Martin Is Playing [SPOILER]

Spoilers for Doctor Who Season 12, Episode 6, “Fugitive of the Judoon” past this point.

When this week’s episode of Doctor Who starting with what seemed like a fairly typical aliens invade Earth, The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) drives them out with a few well placed phrases plot, there was no way we could have seen a massive, literally game-changing twist coming: actress Jo Martin has been revealed as the first ever black, female Doctor.

…Let’s take a few steps back here, because it’s a lot to process. And, as is clear from the end of the episode, there’s still a lot that needs to be explained about how Martin’s Doctor even exists.

In the episode, Martin is first introduced as Ruth Clayton, a tour guide from Gloucester looking forward to celebrating her birthday with her husband. Unfortunately, that’s all upended when the rhino-like alien police force for hire the Judoon descend on the sleepy community. It seems like they’re after Martin’s husband, who is connected to a mysterious villain named Gat (Ritu Arya). But in fact, Gat and the Judoon are after Ruth.

After a trigger phrase from her husband (right before Gat disintegrates him), Ruth starts going full Nikita and kicking Judoon butt. She also remembers her childhood home, so she and The Doctor head there. Once at the house, The Doctor discovers an empty grave, just as Ruth breaks some glass in the house, releasing what sure looks to me like the same time energy The Doctor releases when he/she regenerates. And in fact, as Ruth remembers who she truly is, The Doctor digs up the empty grave to reveal… The TARDIS, her ship. And Ruth comes out to introduce herself as none other than… The Doctor.

Past this point, we get a crazy amount of information that doesn’t quite add up. Gat isn’t some random villain, she’s actually a Time Lord from Gallifrey, the home planet of The Doctor. And unlike the current timeline of The Doctor, where Gallifrey has been completely obliterated by The Master (Sacha Dhawan), Gat comes from a fully functioning planet. Jo Doctor (we’ll call her that for simplicity) doesn’t know anything about Jodie Doctor, nor does she have any idea why The Doctor would be using a sonic screwdriver. Jodie Doctor realizes that somehow, some way Jo Doctor is from her past. But why doesn’t Jodie Doctor remember any of this happening? How have none of the regenerations we’ve seen throughout the history of the series know about a version of him/her that used guns, worked for the Time Lords of Gallifrey… Where did those memories go?

There are a lot more mysteries piled on here — we didn’t even talk about the return of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), or what’s up with the mysterious Lone Cyberman he mentions — but chances are they’re all connected, right? Everything from the return of The Master, to the tease of whatever the Timeless Child is are probably all wrapped up in this missing time The Doctor is experiencing.

And if you’re wondering: yes, Jo Martin is The Doctor. She’s very specifically credited that way in the closing credits. So they could back it up and reverse it somehow, but chances are this is the real deal, and Jo Martin is playing the first female Doctor in continuity (since she comes before Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor), and the first Doctor of color, ever. The way she’s been retconned in isn’t even unprecedented for the show… Think the introduction of John Hurt’s “War Doctor,” another version of the character that was specifically and purposefully forgotten; though that was a choice on The Doctor’s part, not an actual missing memory. In fact, the answer to this is probably given in the episode: Jo Doctor used the Chamelon arch tech that the David Tennant used to forget he was the Doctor in a two-part episode. It’s entirely possible that tech was used again, but to erase the memory of Jo Doctor entirely.

If that’s the case, something very important to fans will be what number Doctor Martin is… In continuity, it’s implied that the first Doctor, played by William Hartnell, stole the TARDIS and got it stuck in the shape of a police box. Given the outside of Jo Doctor’s TARDIS is a police box, one could assume that she exists some time after that, versus being the first version of The Doctor (which would make more sense). But at the same time, could you retcon her into being the first Doctor? For sure.

It’s also possible that we might be dealing with alternate Earths. In the first episode of this season we saw a plan by the mysterious race known as the Kasavin, who are definitely not Cyberman, that seemed to suggest they existed on multiple Earths. Later it was revealed these were actually multiple timelines, not alternate Earths… But that idea is out there, and would certainly explain why Martin’s Doctor seems so vastly different from Whittaker’s Doctor.

Regardless, it’s definitely not the last time we’ve seen her, and a massive shift for the franchise. Now, Jodie Whittaker isn’t the only female Doctor in history: she’s part of a legacy. Let’s hope that however this storyline continues, it lives up to that incredible set up.

Doctor Who airs Sundays at 8/7c on BBC America.

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