Talk:The Doctor
![]() | This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
![]() | The Doctor is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive. | |||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Current status: Former featured article candidate |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.
Discussions:
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 60 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. |
Bi-regeneration and the possible regeneration of 2 Doctors and List of Doctors Order
[edit]If Tenth/Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) is still able to re-generate and he manages to do so what happens to the List of Doctors order as there is no guarantee that he will eventually become Gatwa as there could be Unknown Doctors between the two versions of The Doctor.
Also, should Tennant's 14th Doctor regenerate, it's also possible he could gain an unfamiliar face or revert to another previous one. Even though the bi-regeneration in The Giggle gave us Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) at the same time it is still possible the 15th could have been pulled in from somewhere in the future. We don't know if both Doctors can re-generate yet or just Gatwa. - 2A02:C7C:53C1:E00:90CB:DA01:E677:CD31 (talk) 14:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
- There's entirely too much speculation at play here. If/when such things transpire, then the article can reflect that. Until then, there's nothing reasonable to revise in the article. Beyond that, this discussion page shouldn't be a forum for what-if scenarios. —Shada Ng (talk | contribs) 16:54, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
Origin
[edit]Since the timeless children, there is some debate among fans as to whether the Doctor is fully Gailfreyan. Hence some users have edited "Unknown, Gallifrey (adopted)" Has there been confirmation or not from the writers? ~~ 92.17.199.182 (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Voice changer dalek
[edit]a voice changer of a dalek 111.220.173.112 (talk) 05:27, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
David Tennant is there twice
[edit]Although there seems to be a consensus to distinguish between the tenth and fourteenth doctors in an in-universe sense, there is only one David Tennant (the actor). When listing the fourteen lead actors, he should only be listed once.
The infobox says “Portrayed by” and seems to proceed to claim the character was portrayed by two David Tennants (2005-2010) and (2023). That is incorrect, he was portrayed by the same man (2005-2010, 2023). There is a clear precedent in Sean Connery’s non-consecutive portrayals of James Bond which are listed in that character’s infobox as (1962-1967, 1971, 1983). Even in this specific Doctor Who list, David Bradley’s non-consecutive appearances as distinct incarnations of the character are listed as (2017, 2022).
The subsection titled Actors begins by saying “The actors who have played the lead role of the Doctor to date in the programme, and the dates of their first and last regular television appearances in the role, are:” and follows that up with a table listing the fifteen in-universe incarnations of the character instead of listing the actors who have played the lead role in the programme to date as promised. Either the table needs to be revamped or the sentence leading into it needs to be rewritten.
I would propose something like:
Actor | No. of series |
No. of episodes |
Incarnation | Original start | Original end | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Age | Date | Age | ||||
William Hartnell | 4 | 134 (29 stories) | First Doctor | 23 November 1963 | 55 | 29 October 1966 | 58 |
Patrick Troughton | 3 | 119 (21 stories) | Second Doctor | 5 November 1966 | 46 | 21 June 1969 | 49 |
Jon Pertwee | 5 | 128 (24 stories) | Third Doctor | 3 January 1970 | 50 | 8 June 1974 | 54 |
Tom Baker | 7 | 172 (41 stories) | Fourth Doctor | 28 December 1974 | 40 | 21 March 1981 | 47 |
Peter Davison | 3 | 69 (20 stories) | Fifth Doctor | 4 January 1982 | 30 | 16 March 1984 | 32 |
Colin Baker | 2 | 31 (8 stories) | Sixth Doctor | 22 March 1984 | 40 | 6 December 1986 | 43 |
Sylvester McCoy | 3 | 42 (12 stories) | Seventh Doctor | 7 September 1987 | 44 | 6 December 1989 | 46 |
Paul McGann | — | 1 (1 story) | Eighth Doctor | 27 May 1996 | 36 | 27 May 1996[nb 1] | 36 |
Christopher Eccleston | 1 | 13 (10 stories) | Ninth Doctor | 26 March 2005 | 41 | 18 June 2005 | 41 |
David Tennant | 3 | 50 (39 stories) | Tenth Doctor | 25 December 2005 | 34 | 1 January 2010 | 38 |
Fourteenth Doctor | 25 November 2023 | 52 | 9 December 2023 | 52 | |||
Matt Smith | 3 | 44 (39 stories) | Eleventh Doctor | 3 April 2010 | 27 | 25 December 2013 | 31 |
Peter Capaldi | 3 | 40 (35 stories) | Twelfth Doctor | 23 August 2014 | 56 | 25 December 2017 | 59 |
Jodie Whittaker | 3 | 31 (24 stories) | Thirteenth Doctor | 7 October 2018 | 36 | 23 October 2022 | 40 |
Ncuti Gatwa | 1 | 9 (8 stories) | Fifteenth Doctor | 25 December 2023 | 31 | TBA | TBA |
or:
Actor | Incarnation | No. of series |
No. of episodes |
Original start | Original end | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Age | Date | Age | ||||
William Hartnell | First Doctor | 4 | 134 (29 stories) | 23 November 1963 | 55 | 29 October 1966 | 58 |
Patrick Troughton | Second Doctor | 3 | 119 (21 stories) | 5 November 1966 | 46 | 21 June 1969 | 49 |
Jon Pertwee | Third Doctor | 5 | 128 (24 stories) | 3 January 1970 | 50 | 8 June 1974 | 54 |
Tom Baker | Fourth Doctor | 7 | 172 (41 stories) | 28 December 1974 | 40 | 21 March 1981 | 47 |
Peter Davison | Fifth Doctor | 3 | 69 (20 stories) | 4 January 1982 | 30 | 16 March 1984 | 32 |
Colin Baker | Sixth Doctor | 2 | 31 (8 stories) | 22 March 1984 | 40 | 6 December 1986 | 43 |
Sylvester McCoy | Seventh Doctor | 3 | 42 (12 stories) | 7 September 1987 | 44 | 6 December 1989 | 46 |
Paul McGann | Eighth Doctor | — | 1 (1 story) | 27 May 1996 | 36 | 27 May 1996[nb 2] | 36 |
Christopher Eccleston | Ninth Doctor | 1 | 13 (10 stories) | 26 March 2005 | 41 | 18 June 2005 | 41 |
David Tennant | Tenth Doctor | 3 | 47 (36 stories) | 25 December 2005 | 34 | 1 January 2010 | 38 |
Fourteenth Doctor | — | 3 (3 stories) | 25 November 2023 | 52 | 9 December 2023 | 52 | |
Matt Smith | Eleventh Doctor | 3 | 44 (39 stories) | 3 April 2010 | 27 | 25 December 2013 | 31 |
Peter Capaldi | Twelfth Doctor | 3 | 40 (35 stories) | 23 August 2014 | 56 | 25 December 2017 | 59 |
Jodie Whittaker | Thirteenth Doctor | 3 | 31 (24 stories) | 7 October 2018 | 36 | 23 October 2022 | 40 |
Ncuti Gatwa | Fifteenth Doctor | 1 | 9 (8 stories) | 25 December 2023 | 31 | TBA | TBA |
184.144.62.38 (talk) 01:01, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
- I have been WP:BOLD and changed the infobox per your suggestion, as this would appear to be straightforward. As you say, there is one David Tennant, not two. I don't think the table should be changed, though. I understand your reasoning for the suggested forms above, but if you tie both roles to a single Tennant entry like that, it breaks the sorting of the table, keeping Tenth and Fourteenth together no matter if you want to sort it by one through fifteen. For that reason, I think the table still needs to have the characters separated. JustAnotherCompanion (talk) 08:12, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
- This was reverted by an IP editor and, without seeing this discussion or that you had made your edit WP:BOLDly, I restored your edit. Ordinarily I would have left it in its original state and discussed here but missed that. I strongly agree with the above comments that listing him twice implies they are different actors. The infobox says "portrayed by" so he should be listed once with the dates. A comparable (but obviously different!) situation is Living with Yourself which stars Paul Rudd as the protagonist and his clone – but the infobox only lists Rudd as "starring" once.
- Nonetheless, if other editors disagree, feel free to re-revert to the original state and we can discuss per WP:BRD. Irltoad (talk) 13:40, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
- I've done some more research and have some additional comments to make that supports Tennant being in the infobox once. 1) I checked the instructions for Template:Infobox character and for the 'portrayed' field, it says "Name of the individuals who portrayed the character." This seems straightforward; there's only one individual named David Tennant who prortrayed the character, so he gets named once. 2) The edit summary of the IP editor who reverted me ends with "If he appears in the list once then it may seem to some people that he only played one incarnation". I'd like to turn that around and ask, "Who reading this list will see David Tennant named twice and jump to the conclusion that he played two different incarnations?" If you haven't watched the show, are you really going to think Tennant played a different incarnation in his second appearance? I don't think so. And if you have watched the show, you don't need to list Tennant twice to know that his 2023 appearance was as a different incarnation. 3) In any case, regardless of the incarnations, the character is still "The Doctor". One David Tennant has portrayed the Doctor.
- As for the subsection headed Actors, I think this could be solved by changing to order of the columns slightly and renaming the section. At the risk of having WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS invoked on me, I had a look at how List of US Presidents handles their non-consecutive president, Grover Cleveland. Their table has the President number in the first column, so Grover Cleveland is listed separately at 22 and 24 rather than having his presidencies rowspanned together. It strikes me we could do the same here; have the incarnation numbers for the first column, then there's no issue with Tennant appearing twice in the table. The subsection may need to be renamed Incarnations. Which, given this is a character article, I don't see a huge issue with. But on this one I'm not inclined to be bold because it's nowhere near as straightforward as the infobox issue. JustAnotherCompanion (talk) 14:42, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
- List of presidents of the United States is a great article that spends most of its lead explaining how and why it is not a list of men who have held the office, it is instead a list of presidencies. If the table here is going to be based around the in-universe incarnations, I think it would make sense to rename the subsection and rewrite its introductory sentence.
- I also think that the List of actors who have played the Doctor falls foul of this and is sitting on the fence about what it is trying to be. Template:Doctor Who places it alongside character pages and calls it a page about the “Doctors”. The article’s title, lead and infobox are explicitly about the 14 actors who have played the part. But the core table is a list of incarnations with two David Tennants. I may be overstepping however, that’s probably a different argument for a different talk page, and as an IP editor renaming a 20 year old article or reformatting its titular list is probably above my pay grade. 184.144.62.38 (talk) 20:21, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
that’s probably a different argument for a different talk page
Just a note to say that I have started a section on Talk:List of actors who have played the Doctor#The Tennant Problem where this can be discussed separately from the discussion of this page. JustAnotherCompanion (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Requested move 31 July 2024
[edit]- The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: Moved to The Doctor. Strong consensus in favour of moving, no obvious policy reasons not to do the move. The doctor will remain a redirect to Doctor. (non-admin closure) FOARP (talk) 09:44, 16 August 2024 (UTC) I did the actual move, due to admin-only page-move protections, based on FOARP's closure. DMacks (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
The Doctor (Doctor Who) → The Doctor – The definite article 'the' in the title designates this topic as the primary one for 'The Doctor' (but only with the definite article). This is consistent with titles such as The Guardian, The Signpost, The Postal Service, The Edge, The 1975, and The Undertaker. A Google search for "The Doctor" returns results related to Doctor Who, as does a Google image search. Similarly, a Google News search returns Doctor Who-related coverage. While a search for "The Doctor" on JSTOR for produces variable results, a search for "The Guardian" on JSTOR wouldn't establish the newspaper as the primary topic alone. A Google Ngram analysis reveals that the term 'The Doctor' saw an increase in usage in 2005, coinciding with the show's revival. Worldwide Google Trends indicate that "The Doctor" is predominantly used in reference to searches about Doctor Who, per the 'related topics' and 'related searches'; with a notable peak in November 2013, coinciding with the show's 50th anniversary special. This 'The Doctor' (with the definite article) has more coverage from reliable sources than others (with the definite article) listed on the disambiguation page. Amendment: Pageview Analysis (with a date range of 'All time') comparing all of the pages titled 'The Doctor' show that this topic has more views by a clear margin. It is limited to 10 pages, so I've split it into two: first second. On Wikipedia this topic is the most sought after 'The Doctor' (with the definite article) on the entire site. Note: When researching, "The Doctor" should be enclosed in quotation marks as some databases often exclude definite articles. Svampesky (talk) 12:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC), amended 03:07, 02 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support, per the nom and the cited data. "The Doctor" with the definite article seems to be used to refer specifically to the Doctor Who character widely and commonly enough that the parenthetical is unnecessary. ╠╣uw [talk] 13:25, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. "The Doctor" is a very common phrase in daily life. The argument that the TV series constitutes the primary use of the word "The Doctor" does not hold any water for me. Cfls (talk) 08:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- The term doctor is very common, but just to be clear are you saying that "The Doctor" (capital D) is also very commonly used in reference to subjects other than the character? ╠╣uw [talk] 13:00, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Cfls. Even as a fan of the series, this is not the primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:31, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- The nominator presents their argument well, but I'm wary of relying too much on view counts when we're comparing a pop culture topic to a fundamental social topic. Doctor Who has much more significance than most TV shows, but even so, it is relevant primarily in the Western world, and in the long term, the concept of a doctor will likely be around long after the show is cancelled. That said, it's fairly unlikely that someone looking for info on physicians would search for "the doctor". Sdkb talk 18:31, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support while I am iffy, the fact is that no one searching "the doctor" is looking for the concept of a doctor. The Doctor has a case for this more than most pop culture topics, given they're the main focus of a well-known and heavily analyzed television program that has been part of culture for over 60 years, far longer than most forms of media. It's a difference of a definite article versus generic terminology, and at the very worst, Wikipedia:DIFFCAPS applies here since very few would search for a doctor with a definite article, let alone with a capital on both "The" and "Doctor". Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:48, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support on the basis of WP:SMALLDETAILS and WP:NATURALDIS. A general doctor is referred to as "the doctor" with a lowercase d, not "The Doctor". A hatnote can resolve any confusion. Similar situations include Ice Cube (the rapper) versus Ice cube (a cubed piece of ice). cookie monster 755 21:09, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Opposebut on different grounds to what has been mentioned so far. While I agree that the definite article and DIFFCAPS sufficiently disambiguates it with the physician meaning, there are other subjects & articles titled "The Doctor" – largely listed under Doctor and including films, albums, and other fictional characters; as well as being a nickname for several real people. Disambiguation is necessary for these articles. Irltoad (talk) 21:14, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Change to Weak Support On further thought, I think there is some evidence this article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "The Doctor" for the reasoning that the proposing editor provided (coverage from RSPs). I'm not totally convinced that it's necessary but I am generally in favour if consensus agrees that it is the primary topic. It should, of course, have a hatnote directing to Doctor for "other uses" Irltoad (talk) 21:35, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Comment to draw attention to a previous RFC on the topic. Obviously this was 9 years ago and opinion & consensus changes, but interested parties may want to give it a skim. Irltoad (talk) 21:26, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
- Looking at a glance, a lot of the opposition seems to be because the page at the time was called "Doctor (Doctor Who)" instead of "The Doctor (Doctor Who)" which would have caused numerous naming problems at the time. Given the current title, this shouldn't be a problem. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 22:24, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
- That was my main takeaway, too, also from a glance. Agreed that it shouldn't present a problem now. Irltoad (talk) 14:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
- Looking at a glance, a lot of the opposition seems to be because the page at the time was called "Doctor (Doctor Who)" instead of "The Doctor (Doctor Who)" which would have caused numerous naming problems at the time. Given the current title, this shouldn't be a problem. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 22:24, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support Due to pageviews, it seems to be far and away the primary topic, but only for the capitalized version due to DIFFCAPS. The doctor should still go to the disambiguation page. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support I disagree that the TV series isn't the primary use of The Doctor. It's the most widely known and discussed iteration of the term. Waqar💬 18:55, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support It's WP:NATURAL. U-Mos (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
- Support, per Clara Oswald. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
- The Doctor primary use should be Star Trek. IKhitron (talk) 16:04, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
- The Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager) which is only Star Trek on the disambiguation has far fewer page views than this article, and a notability tag (not looked into myself), how is that primary? Indagate (talk) 16:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
Cite error: There are <ref group=nb>
tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}}
template (see the help page).
- Wikipedia articles that use British English
- Old requests for peer review
- Former good article nominees
- B-Class vital articles
- Wikipedia level-5 vital articles
- Wikipedia vital articles in Arts
- B-Class level-5 vital articles
- Wikipedia level-5 vital articles in Arts
- B-Class vital articles in Arts
- B-Class Doctor Who articles
- Top-importance Doctor Who articles
- B-Class fictional character articles
- WikiProject Fictional characters articles
- B-Class science fiction articles
- Top-importance science fiction articles
- WikiProject Science Fiction articles