Headscratchers / Doctor Who 2022 CEN "The Power of the Doctor"

Click here to go back to the main page.

Warning! Spoilers on Headscratchers page are unmarked.

• Why is the Master posing as Rasputin? Is it just to get the palace as the base of his operations? And why is he in 1916 of all times?
  • In the BBC script, there are some deleted scenes indicating that the Master caused the Tunguska event while he was creating and/or testing out the Cyber planet and that he spent eight years fixing it after that. So from the authors' point of view, he has to be in Russia in the early 1900s because that's where and when the Tunguska event happened. From his point of view, he was probably looking for a time and place where the Doctor wouldn't find him while he was working. Siberia has very few people, the early twentieth century doesn't have a lot of global surveillance, and he was probably planning to either leave before WWI or thought it would make a good distraction.
  • Intriguingly, the original script clearly establishes that the Master is the historical Rasputin, by having a scene in which Prince Yusupov dumps the Master, aka Rasputin, into a sack which is then thrown into a river. With this scene not making it to the final episode, it is now more ambiguous as to whether the Master is Rasputin or is simply masquerading as him.
  • It honestly wouldn't be out of character for him to set up the entire charade just to be able to pull off that dance number.
• Ace had her jacket placed in the secret floor compartment with weapons, right where she'd need it? Why?
• How did Tegan survive the fall?
  • Since we never see her land, it's possible she either landed on something soft enough to cushion her from obvious injury or she landed in a way that prevented her from getting too badly hurt.
  • The original script had Tegan more seriously injured following the fall (walking with a limp).
• Why did the Master clone Ashad rather than just have a normal cyber leader? It seems like it was just done for the trailer.
  • Probably because Cyberleaders are boring. Ashad, in contrast, has enough of a personality for the Master to get a kick out of being his abusive boss.
• The Master's TCE/teleport was in the cell with him the whole time? Why was it there rather than with Ashad to give it to him and how was it put there?
  • That's easy—after escaping he went back in time to when the new UNIT headquarters was being built and put it there as insurance in case the Cybermen betrayed him and never showed up.
• Why should anyone believe that some random man doing bad things is the Doctor? They are well known for doing good deeds and anyone seeing the footage is going to doubt it. The Master gives them to believe that he is anything more than someone out to tarnish the Doctor's name—which he is!
  • Addressing both this question and the next, presumably the Master "regenerating into the Doctor" would lead to his biodata being read as the Doctor's, if he got to the point of being accosted and having his biodata assessed.
• What is the difference between the Master regenerating into the Doctor's body and the Master cosplaying as the Doctor? He goes to such a lot of effort to achieve the same effect as simply dressing up as her.
  • Part of it is that he isn't just dressing up as her, he's killing her and dressing up as her. The Doctor is about as good as the Master at surviving certain death; by stealing her body, he severely limits her ability to still secretly be alive somewhere where he can't see her.
  • The Doctor is the Timeless Child and has possibly infinite, and probably more than twelve, regenerations. The Master has put a lot of time, pain, and effort into staying alive despite his Timelord-standard regeneration cap. Stealing the infinitely regenerating body is absolutely a thing the Classic Series Master would do. (This does bring with it the assumption that if you were to shoot the Master!Doctor in the head, he would then regenerate into another Master rather than into David Tennant—or at least, that's what the Master thinks would happen.)
    • A running theme in The Timeless Children is that the Doctor is special and the Master resents her for it. If he becomes the Doctor, then he is the special one.
  • Alternatively, (content note:suicidal ideation) in The Timeless Children, the Master pretty clearly wants to die, either from his murder of Ashad triggering the Death Particle or the Doctor blowing him up—but for whatever reason, doesn't want to either kill himself or let Ko Sharmus do it. So maybe this is just an elaborate and slow form of suicide where he lives through one more regeneration as himself, then dies and regenerates as David Tennant and poof, Master erased. (Not even "one more regeneration as himself", if he can convince himself that he's the Doctor—this is why he's so desperate to convince an objective witness like Yaz of that.)
    • Or Murder-Suicide. He was planning to refuse to regenerate, as he did in "Last of the Time Lords", but without the Disciples of Saxon to bring him back. No more Master, no more Doctor.
  • Alternatively-alternatively, if you think that Missy's reform has left the Master capable of feeling guilt but without any particularly good coping mechanisms for it, if he turns into the Doctor, then suddenly he isn't actually responsible for any of the terrible things the Master has done. Back in The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People in Series 6, the ganger!Doctor has the same memories and personality as the original Doctor, but he knows that he's not actually the one who did all the things the Doctor regrets, with the result that the ganger!Doctor is much nicer and happier than the original Doctor. The Master might think that his forced regeneration plan might let him feel the same way. (This doesn't even need the Master to really be the Doctor in any objective sense—just to believe himself to be so.)
• The new UNIT headquarters, a stone skyscraper in the middle of London, is destroyed and not only is there very little damage or dust cloud of collateral damage but no one seems to bat an eyelid at it.
  • They're British. They're too polite to comment on anything like that. As for the lack of collateral damage, no doubt the self-destruct was precisely calibrated by UNIT.
• Why is Mel on Earth when she was last seen in deep space, time period unspecified, with Glitz?
  • In the Classic Series Season 26 collection announcement minisode '24 Karot', Langford reprises her role as Mel, revealing the character now heads up an interstellar recruitment drive for potential investments. At the end of the minisode, she is reunited with the Seventh Doctor and once again becomes his companion, heading out into the galaxy aboard the TARDIS. It's entirely possible she is dropped back on Earth at the close of these unseen new adventures. However, like all expanded Who media, the canonicity of this minisode is debatable.
  • In the 60th Anniversary Special The Giggle, Mel explicitly addresses this. Apparently, she actually stayed with Glitz until his death at the ripe old age of 101. She then got a lift from a Zingo and returned to Earth. It is unclear what a Zingo is, and knowing RTD, it is unlikely we'll ever know; RTD likes to name-drop funny/cool-sounding technobabble without elaborating.
• How does Ace manage to beat up a Dalek with an ordinary baseball bat? The baseball bat was only effective in Remembrance of the Daleks because it had been powered by the Hand of Omega, an extraordinary piece of Gallifreyan technology.
  • The baseball bat appears to have only broken off the Dalek's eye stalk, unlike the total destruction of the Dalek's casing with a hit of the Hand-of-Omega-powered baseball bat in Remembrance of the Daleks. The Dalek was finally done in with the explosive Nitro-999.
  • Isn't it the same baseball bat? Presumably it never lost all its mojo from the Hand.
    • The super-charged baseball bat was broken when the Doctor used it to smash the Dalek transmat system in the Coal Hill School basement.
• What's the point of the Daleks and the Cybermen working together? The Cybermen are going to convert everyone on Earth... while the Daleks are going to destroy Earth by setting off every volcano?
  • The Cybermen aren't very fond of Earth, so they wouldn't have many qualms with its destruction. Presumably the plan is for the Daleks to destroy Earth after the Cybermen have converted everyone/as many people as possible.
  • The idea seems to be the Cyber-Moon will cyber-convert the entire planet back in 1916, then when the Cybermen have finished making use of Earth's resources the Daleks will finish the job by destroying Earth in 2022.
• What is the impact on Earth's tectonics of the magma/lava of every volcano being converted into frozen steel?
  • Presumably it just 'plugged' the erupting magma rather than turning the Earth's core into steel.
  • Steel melts at a lower temperature than rock. The plugs shouldn't hold up for long enough to impede normal volcanic activity in future, they just stopped this round of eruptions.
• Why didn't the train people shoot the CyberMasters mid-regeneration? It is known that killing a Time Lord mid-regeneration kills them for good.
  • Perhaps they didn't know that killing a Time Lord mid-regeneration kills them for good? The Universe is a big place.
    • Or maybe they did, but they were uncertain about whether this applies to a regenerating Cyberman as much as it does to a Time Lord.
  • They were probably too shocked by the sight of a regenerating Cyberman to really act further.