& this from The Doctor’s Wife -
9 Likes
Chibnall/BF would beg to differ! I believe there was something mentioned in one of their publicity things that he told them it was deliberately ambiguous.
4 Likes
This was talked about in the interviews on the Fugitive Doctor set. BF had talked to Chibnall and learned that Chibnall himself didn’t have an exact idea, and so Fugitive’s placement is deliberately ambiguous—she could be pre-Hartnell, 6B a future incarnation, or an alternate universe Doctor.
5 Likes
Tbh, while I thought I’d hate that, I actually kinda like the ambiguity side of it.
4 Likes
Ok fair enough. But I go by the implication of the show itself over comments said after the fact, or what expanded media has done, and to me that implication is pre-Hartnell. How could a Doctor after 2 not know what a sonic screwdriver is? The placement in the matrix flashbacks. The Brendan story.
10 Likes
Actually I do remember statements that she isn’t alternate universe
6 Likes
If I had to guess, I’d say it was originally ambiguous, then they decided that they were going to go with the placement being pre-Hartnell, since all the later stuff wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
After all, there was a point in the story’s development where Ruth wasn’t even the Doctor.
5 Likes
Also, if the show ends up proving me wrong, and decides to say differently in future, I’d accept that.
7 Likes
Well, you know, maybe Kate Herron will become showrunner and the Fugitive Doctor will suddenly become a Variant Doctor…
7 Likes
Becomes part of the MCWho
3 Likes
Just to be clear, I’m absolutely in the pre-Hartnell camp myself. That makes the most sense to me, and I have no problem with it.
7 Likes
It’s only really a headcanon to add a bit on to Shauny’s ideas, but I love the explanation that the comic hunters of the burning stone gives for the unaltering image of the TARDIS as a blue police box. In the story, the eleventh Doctor is shown to have gone back and broken the chameleon circuit himself, so that the image of the tardis can imprint on the collective human consciousness as a symbol of hope and protection. Given the context of the story, it seems implied that the doctor did this when the tardis was in the junkyard, but it’s not stated and it’s ambiguous enough that it absolutely could’ve been earlier, at a time when a pre-Hartnell doctor was using the tardis. And I go with this explanation because it feels right that the Tardis is destined to always look like that throughout all of time as a beacon symbolising the hope that the Doctor stands for as a character. It’s even implied in the comic that the Tardis as a protective image preceded the British police box, the design of which was chosen because of the old image of the tardis resurfacing in our consciousness.
So as Shauny said the Fugitive Doctor’s tardis is faulty, gets repaired, Hartnell steals back the same Tardis. But getting stuck as a police box twice wasn’t a coincidence but a sort of destiny imprinted across time if you will. Hell maybe if you need a more hard scientific answer the Eleventh Doctor had to go back and break the chameleon circuit twice to make sure that the image of the Tardis is consistent across all their travels. I do love that comic so anyone who hasn’t should go read it
7 Likes
I don’t have much of an opinion - I’ve heard the pros and cons, the arguments for and against, etc. but I will chime in to say this… it would’ve been fun, if not as ‘iconic’, to have the lighthouse itself turn out to be Jo Martin’s TARDIS.
11 Likes
But wouldn’t her TARDIS then have been smaller on the inside? 
5 Likes
Nah. The console room and the infinite space was just behind a door inside somewhere 
More seriously, I imagine the interior could shrink as part of a chameleon circuit if it were in hiding (and given the exterior would be working in my scenario, it’d follow that the interior could also be disguised in case people stumbled upon it).
6 Likes
My theory is that when the TARDIS scans the surrounding area using the chameleon circuit to determine the best form to take, she detects several thousand years of TARDISes (ie, the Doctor, several thousand times) all taking the form of a police box, and determines that that’s the best way to blend in on Earth.
6 Likes
I wasn’t complaining — just curious!
5 Likes
Oh I didn’t think you were, seemed like you were just asking an honest question. I just tire of other people who hate the 13 era using it and many other things as part of why Chibnall sucks, and I think some of that frustration possibly came through in this thread.
10 Likes
Honestly, a lot of things have details that can be picked apart. It’s just people focus in on the ones they don’t like…
5 Likes