Tag: this is like that post where shrek came up w his name on the spot bc no one had ever asked before

nowwearealltom:

In the first serial of Doctor Who, Ian has some hazy recollection that Susan Foreman’s grandfather is “a doctor, isn’t he?” and so he addresses him at first as “Doctor Foreman” and the Doctor doesn’t answer to it so Ian just starts calling him “Doctor” instead. Nobody ever asks the Doctor what he wants to be called, and he never introduces himself, so Ian just decides to start calling him “Doctor” and he just happens to answer to it.

In the entire first season the Doctor never says that his name is a secret and he never tells people that he is “The Doctor” or even a doctor, with only a single exception–in part two of The Aztecs he tells Cameca “No, no, they call me the Doctor. I am a scientist, an engineer. I’m a builder of things.” In which case “they” might well mean a general nonspecific “they” or it might mean his companions specifically; it’s not clear from context.

This is not easy to reconcile with later stories in which the Time Lords know The Doctor as “The Doctor”, but I’m a big fan of understanding earlier eras of Doctor Who on their own terms first, treating later continuity developments as a secondary concern, and so when watching sixties Doctor Who I like to think of “The Doctor” as just a nickname Ian came up with that happened to stick, to the point where eventually he just calls himself that.