Full spoilers follow for the “Fugitive of the Judoon” episode of Doctor Who.
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So…that just happened. Doctor Who fans would be forgiven for spending the first few minutes after watching the latest episode, “Fugitive of the Judoon,” with their mouths agape and their minds officially blown.
Far from the mid-season romp featuring a neo-classic returning monster (the Judoon first appeared in 2007) that all the advertising suggested, this installment turned out to be an absolutely overwhelming reinvention of everything we know about the Doctor’s past.
Episode five of Series 12 upends 57 years of established continuity and fan assumptions as well as advancing the story arc that began with the Master’s revelations in the two-part opener, “Spyfall.” Let’s get into this and break it down, because it’s a lot.
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If you recall, Series 12 began with the new incarnation of the Master, played by Sacha Dhawan, telling the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) that “everything that you think you know is a lie.” He also apparently destroyed their home of Gallifrey, planet of the Time Lords, and told the Doctor that he did it after learning a great secret:
“The founding fathers of Gallifrey… everything we were told was a lie,” he said. “We’re not who we think. You and I… the whole existence of our species built on the lie of the Timeless Child.”
Ruth Clayton Is… the Doctor?!
Now we might be starting to unravel that particular mystery thanks to the introduction of Ruth Clayton played by Jo Martin, a tour guide in present-day Gloucester who is improbably targeted by a hired Judoon platoon seeking an alien fugitive on behalf of an unknown client.
Her husband Lee tries to protect her and clearly knows more than he’s telling, but when he’s murdered by the Judoon, the Doctor steps in to take Ruth on a journey back to her childhood home, only to discover that Ruth is indeed far more than just a human. In fact…
She’s the Doctor.
Recovering her memories via a familiar process (more on that later) and unearthing her buried TARDIS, Ruth is revealed as a previously unseen — and perhaps distant past — incarnation of the Doctor herself, on the run from Gallifrey for reasons unknown and hunted by the Time Lords with the help of the Judoon.
As that incredible fact sinks in, and skipping over this era’s seeming obsession with randomly killing elderly background characters to enjoy some old-school snide banter between Doctors, the Thirteenth incarnation almost becomes companion to the very determined and self-possessed Ruth/Doctor by default.
Although the pursuit of the Judoon is halted and Ruth’s Doctor lives to escape another day, the real issue here is: What really just happened (and when is she coming back; we need time for the cosplayers to work out her outfit details)?
Now that this era has not only made history by introducing the first and now second female Doctor, and the first Doctor of color as well, we have to go over what we do understand about this developing story… which isn’t much. Ruth’s false life as a human and her ability to hide on Earth and then recover her Time Lord identity was via a technology we’ve seen before in the David Tennant era of the show.
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Back then, a TARDIS’ “Chameleon Arch” enabled both the Tenth Doctor and the Derek Jacobi incarnation of the Master to disguise themselves as humans under wildly different circumstances. There’s always a bittersweet aspect to the recovery of the true identity, since it sort of means the “death” of the human guise that doesn’t know any different, but here there’s an additional level of tragedy in watching Lee murdered by the Judoon. Not only does he clearly love Ruth, but he was probably a long-time traveling companion of that Doctor, the sort of character that in another place and time we would have been emotionally invested in.
The Chameleon Arch Effect
As this new revelation sinks in, and with plenty of the mystery doubtless yet to be uncovered in Series 12’s remaining episodes, there are tons of questions in fan minds…as well there should be! One thing that occurs to me involves the Chameleon Arch technology itself and the information we’ve had up until now about the Doctor’s (and the Master’s, for that matter) childhood.
Everything we’ve known suggested that the Doctor and the Master grew up as boyhood friends, and that perhaps the young man that would be the Doctor matured into the “first” incarnation played by William Hartnell. But since we know the Chameleon Arch creates a human version of an adult Time Lord and implants false memories of a lifetime spent up until that point, how do we actually know that the Doctor’s childhood memories are even real?
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Perhaps after Ruth/Doctor and whatever other incarnations might exist in that past time — assuming she is from the Doctor’s past, which seems the safest bet here — the Doctor’s memory was wiped as part of some sort of variation of the Chameleon Arch effect, setting up the succession of Doctors we’ve known since 1963.
I know some folks are suggesting Ruth is from an alternate timeline or parallel universe, but that would not only be a far less impactful story to tell, it was definitively debunked by showrunner Chris Chibnall himself. This is a deliberate game-changer with wide-reaching consequences, and it’s extra delightful if you’re a fan of the 1990s New Adventures novels, an era of Doctor Who that first presented a theory of a pre-First Doctor being known as “The Other.”
One other point: Ruth’s TARDIS interior is extremely Hartnell-esque in its many appointments, which seems to place her — logically enough — prior to his incarnation, or at least near to it. But if, as the meager evidence suggests, Ruth is from a time prior to Hartnell’s “First” Doctor, why would her TARDIS look like a police box, when that broken chameleon circuit effect was supposed to have happened first when Hartnell’s Doctor landed in 1963 London?
In addition, why would this even be the same TARDIS, since we know Hartnell’s Doctor stole his TARDIS and began traveling with it at that point? Or do we know that? Is everything we’ve heard and seen up until this point — Clara meddling and all — just a lie? The Master did say that, didn’t he?
(Note: Some people are placing Ruth after Hartnell’s Doctor but prior to the Doctor’s regular use of a sonic screwdriver, given Ruth seems not to recognize one, but since I’m thinking this is part of a plan to reveal a pre-Hartnell lifetime of multiple incarnations, I’m discounting that theory.)
John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness Returns!
By the way, we just covered all of this and didn’t even get to the part where fan-favorite character Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), introduced in Series 1 of the modern Doctor Who and star of the spin-off Torchwood (2006-2011), popped back in briefly for a shock return just long enough to inject some serious sass back into the proceedings and deliver an ominous message about “the lone Cyberman.” Surely part of this series’ story arc, Jack’s involvement in the rest of the episode was minimal, but it’s hard to believe he won’t rear his handsome head again soon (although not perhaps this series, according to Chibnall).
Make no mistake: “Fugitive of the Judoon” was a massive event in the history of Doctor Who, and an impressive parade of surprises accomplished by a production team that has already demonstrated just how good they are at keeping big reveals under wraps in the Age of Social Media (Master, anyone?). The more this series leans into the show’s long history — and disrupts it in stunning and satisfying ways — the bigger the question gets:
What else is going to happen this year? Stay tuned!
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Find Arnold T. Blumberg on Twitter at @DoctoroftheDead.
Source: IGN.com Doctor Who's Ruth Clayton Explained: Who is Jo Martin's Character?