Doctor Number 26-30: The Curse of Fatal Death Doctors
It is quite possible that the War Doctor regenerated into Rowan Atkinson’s Doctor.
In 1999 the BBC produced a charity edition of the show called The Curse of Fatal Death. This story was for the Red Nose Day charity event and featured Rowan Atkinson as what can be considered an alternative Ninth Doctor.
During the course of the episode the Doctor regenerates several times and is played by Richard E Grant followed by Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and finally Joanna Lumley.
Whilst this story is treated as non-canon these days there are several things to note about it. Firstly, that it was written by Steven Moffat who would later write for the show from 2005 onwards and would become the showrunner for the series.
It’s also of note that when the episode was made it was made with the view of it being a continuation of the TV series…even if it wasn’t a completely serious one. This can be seen by the fact that even though played for comedy, the Doctor’s regeneration limit was still observed to match that Paul McGann was the Eighth Doctor.
The Doctor burns through all their remaining regenerations taking them to what at the time could be considered their thirteenth regeneration. Perhaps prophetically is a blonde white woman just as the officially named Thirteenth Doctor would become when played by Jodie Whittaker.
This Comic Relief special wasn’t as controversial as other storylines mentioned in this article as fans didn’t see it as genuinely burning through all of the Doctor’s regenerations. However, with the Timeless Child storyline establishing that the Doctor can regenerate an infinite amount of times we can now look at the Curse of Fatal Death Doctors as having existed as part of the canon without it breaking the show.
If nothing else, it is a fact that there is absolutely room for the War Doctor’s regeneration to have been into Rowan Atkinson’s Doctor.
And with that said we should also point out that when the episode ends we didn’t see Joanna Lumley’s Doctor regenerate into anyone which leaves a mystery that we can still solve here. At some point it can be assumed that Joanna Lumley’s Doctor either became the Ninth Doctor as played by christopher Eccleston or…
Doctor Number 31: The Shalka Doctor
Before it was announced that the show was being revived with Christopher Eccleston becoming the official Ninth Doctor, the BBC had announced that Richard E Grant would be returning to the role of the Doctor having played it in the Curse of Fatal Death.
This wouldn’t be the same version of the Doctor as seen in that story as we saw that Doctor’s entire life play out on screen (although there is wiggle room here with wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff). The Doctor that Richard E Grant would play would be for the animated story the Scream of the Shalka.
Having been announced as the official Ninth Doctor, this would soon be taken away again when the new TV series was announced for a 2005 release.
What’s interesting about the Shalka Doctor, who had the likeness of Richard E Grant is that the idea of the Doctor revisiting faces would come up again with the character The Curator who we will talk about later. It’s also worth mentioning that the Twelfth Doctor acknowledged that his physical appearance had come from someone the Tenth Doctor had met, and the Eleventh Doctor would later meet the Great Intelligence, who also played by Richard E Grant, would share the same physical appearance.
All of these facts lend weight that the Shalka Doctor can fit into the timeline. It could be argued whether the Shalka Doctor should come before or after the Curse of Fatal Death Doctors, but as it is let’s follow their first appearances as the guide for the ordering of them.
Again, we don’t see the Shalka Doctor regenerate, but without other candidates to fill the gap, we must now assume that the Shalka Doctor would become…
Doctor Number 32: The Ninth Doctor
Ah when the Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston was first on screen we could go with the idea that he was the true ninth incarnation of the Doctor, but with the Timeless Child story and multiverses in play we can now look at the first Doctor of the modern era as potentially the thirty-second. Crazy I know!
One thing about the first appearance of the Ninth Doctor in the episode Rose is that we see him look in a mirror and comment on his physical appearance as if he hadn’t seen his own reflection before. For the newly restarted show this was a subtle nod to the fact that the Doctor was a new regeneration and that the show was a continuation of what had come before, but it was a clumsy nod to the past. It really didn’t make much sense that the Doctor wouldn’t have seen his own face up until this point, but it does seem to indicate that when we see the Ninth Doctor here it is within the first few hours of his regeneration.
Within the same episode Rose Tyler visits a conspiracy theorist who has images of the Ninth Doctor. The fact that he has images of the Ninth Doctor within a few hours of his regeneration can be explained by the fact that as a time traveller, these images may have been taken in the Ninth Doctor’s personal future and wouldn’t contradict the Ninth Doctor having only just regenerated.
