If I had a nickel for every time a showrunner named Chris C. took an iconic sci-fi series that redefined the genre, misunderstood its core themes, introduced lore that needlessly rewrote character backstories, mishandled its female leads, threw in unnecessary plot twists that added nothing but frustration, and tanked the ratings with a mix of overconfidence and confusion…
I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
Most Gallifreyans have two hearts, so they need a slightly different CPR approach than humans. Here's how to do effective CPR on a Gallifreyan in cardiac arrest.
This guide is for use on Gallifreyans and Time Lords only. Always seek your human advice from human health providers.
Basic Life Support (BLS) for Gallifreyans involves maintaining airway, breathing, and circulation in a patient experiencing cardiac arrest. Due to their unique physiology—including dual hearts with a natural delayed rhythm (thud-thud...thud-thud, not together)—Gallifreyans require a different approach than humans.
This guide focuses on techniques tailored to Gallifreyan physiology, including both standard and enhanced methods of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and how to adjust care depending on your resources.
There are two established CPR strategies for Gallifreyans:
Both methods are valid; SD-CPR offers a more refined, physiology-aligned approach, especially when two rescuers are available, but for those not confident or on their own, D-CPR is an effective alternative.
Before initiating CPR, complete the following:
The standard method for Gallifreyan CPR.
A proposed improvement on D-CPR, aligning compressions with the natural delayed rhythm of Gallifreyan hearts.
Use when only one heart has stopped.
During CPR:
Once both hearts are functioning:
Medical Guides These are all practical guides to assessing and treating a Gallifreyan in an emergency or medical setting.
Any orange text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →📢Announcements |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts → Features:⭐Guest Posts | 🍜Chomp Chomp with Myishu →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴
in his first ever story, the brigadier tries to shoot a bunch of monsters that are completely unbulletable, and continues long past the point where it's obvious guns won't work. he goes on to do this in for more or less the rest of his time in the show where guns and unbulletable aliens appear. never change, brigadier, never change.
unbulletable is my favorite word of the day thank you
i was going to make a comment about if time lords are a misogynistic society, how does regeneration fit into that? but then i realised if you were a misogynistic society you'd probably just make sure to always regenerate into a man, which actually does track with the skewed gender ratio in terms of time lords we meet. still don't believe that theory, but hey
If we entertain the theory that Time Lords have a misogynistic streak, then prioritizing male regenerations would absolutely track—especially considering how many of the Time Lords we meet are men. We do see female Time Lords in Classic Who but they’re noticeably outnumbered, which suggests that while regeneration can result in any gender, there may be societal biases influencing how often it actually does.
This actually parallels the Qunari from Dragon Age. The Qunari follow a strict philosophy called the Qun, which dictates every aspect of their lives, including roles based on gender. Under the Qun, men and women are assigned different societal functions—women are often placed in administrative, educational, or religious roles, while men dominate military and leadership positions. It’s not that women can’t be warriors, but societal expectation makes it rare. Similarly, Time Lords can regenerate into any gender, but the overwhelming representation of male Time Lords suggests an implicit bias or cultural conditioning that influences how they view regeneration.
What’s particularly interesting is that when a female Qunari does take on a traditionally male role—like becoming a soldier or leader—the Qun effectively reclassifies them as male. The Qunari do not view gender in the same way as many other cultures; instead, they see it as tied to function. A person’s assigned gender is based on their societal role rather than their biology, meaning that gender is, in a sense, something dictated by their job rather than inherent identity. This reinforces the idea that the Qun prioritizes strict social order above individuality, much like how Time Lords rigidly adhere to hierarchy and tradition.
Similarly, Time Lords may have an ingrained cultural perception of what a "proper" Time Lord looks like—one that skews male, at least historically. While regeneration allows for gender fluidity, the predominance of male Time Lords we see suggests that either cultural conditioning or subconscious preference may influence the outcome. If the elites of Gallifrey believe leadership and power should be held by men, they may subtly enforce this expectation through regeneration choices, just as the Qun only allows women to take on certain roles unless they are essentially "reclassified" as men.
I don’t fully buy the theory either, but it’s fun to explore the implications
yeah sorry we took your canon male character and made him a butch dyke. no yeah it didnt change his appearance hes just a butch dyke now. sorry. hes infinitely cooler now if that makes u feel better
(Doctor Character Study part 3c.4[Redux]) 3c.1, 3c.2 3c.3
An analysis of The Doctor as having Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) along with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
The Doctor deals with a lot of grief (TV: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, TV: The God Complex, TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV: The Bells of Saint John, TV: The Time of The Doctor, Webcast: The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel, Prose: Dead of Winter, Comic: Dead Man's Hand, Comic: What He Wants..., Comic: The Eternal Dog Fight, Comic: Remembrance, Comic: The Tragical History Tour, & Comic: Hungry Thirsty Loops)
When dealing with learning that Sardick will lose the person he loves, and how it has closed ff Sardick’s heart we have this exchange:
“Sardick: All my life, I've been called heartless. My other life, my real life, the one you rewrote. Now look at me. The Doctor: Better a broken heart than no heart at all. Sardick: Oh, try it. You try it. Why are you here?”
(TV: A Christmas Carol)
The Doctor in this episode reflects Sardick's pain and understands what he has been through and gives him hope that you can hold onto love and feel the loss.
In TV: The Power of Three we see The Doctor talk to Brian about travelling with the Ponds and about his past companions:
“Brian: What happened to the other people who travel with you? The Doctor: Some left me. Some got left behind. And some, not many but, some died. Not them. Not them, Brian. Never them.”
This I believe shows his grief over what has happened to the people he has lost and how he has tried to convince himself that this won’t happen again, something he can’t promise but has to believe.
Experiencing the new loss of Amy and Rory (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) breaks The Doctor sending him to hide away from society and wall off from all connection besides a protective relationship with the Paternoster Gang. (TV: The Snowmen) The Doctor’s history of grief is expressed in the story he told to Akhaten (TV: Rings of Akhaten)
During his travels with Alice, The Doctor understands her grief over the loss of her mother. In TV: Hide we have Clara point out that he lives in such a liminal space in time that the normal people must be like ghosts, The Doctor rejects this, but Clara has a point. The Doctor lives at all points in time making everyone alive and dead at the same time, a constant state of loss.
In Prose: Shroud of Sorrow, The Doctor attaches a machine that magnifies his grief to himself, attracting a deadly force towards him in order to save other people. This not only puts him in a place to be physically killed but also causes him to relive some of his most recent grief. Like losing the Ponds.
A loss The Doctor we know he won't admit to truly is that of his children:
“The Doctor: Crying silently. I mean, children cry because they want attention because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that. Amy: Are you a parent?”
(TV: The Beast Below)
He also doesn’t answer in TV: A Good Man Goes to War, and references being out of practice with kids in TV: Night Terrors. We know that The Doctor has had children The Doctor confirmed this in TV: The Doctor’s Daughter:
“Donna: Well, what is it then? Having Jenny in the TARDIS, is that it? What's she going to do, cramp your style? Like you've got a sports car and she's going to turn it into a people-carrier? 10th Doctor: Donna, I've been a father before. Donna: What? 10th Doctor: I lost all that a long time ago, along with everything else. Donna: I'm sorry. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? You talk all the time, but you don't say anything. 10th Doctor: I know. I'm just. When I look at her now, I can see them. The hole they left, all the pain that filled it. I just don't know if I can face that every day.”
Having this pain in his previous regeneration likely carried over into Eleven’s regeneration to the point he refuses to confirm he even has children.
The Doctor suffers from loneliness and feels separated from other people. ( TV: Cold Blood, TV: The Doctor’s Wife, TV: The God Complex, TV: Closing Time, TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe, TV: Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, TV: The Power of Three, TV: The Snowmen, TV: The Bells of Saint John, TV: The Rings of Akhaten, Prose: The King's Dragon, Prose: Glamour Chase, Prose: Tales of Trenzalore, Comic: The Friendly Place, Comic: Down to Earth & Comic: Whodunnit)
In TV: The Eleventh Hour Amy can tell he’s lonely already, though she can also note there is something underneath that, which of course there is the crack in the wall influencing The Doctor choosing her. But even more on that, as he states in TV: The God Complex, he wanted to be adored, which was still wanted by someone there, he just couldn’t stand to be on his own anymore, even if it wasn’t a fully pure connection.
“The Doctor: Been knocking around on my own for a while. My choice, but I've started talking to myself all the time. It's giving me earache. Amy: You're lonely. That's it? Just that? The Doctor: Just that. Promise.” TV: The Eleventh Hour “The Doctor: Forget your faith in me. I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. Look at you. Glorious Pond, the girl who waited for me. I'm not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box.”
TV: The God Complex
In TV: The Doctor’s Wife we see that The Doctor is angry to be without his TARDIS and how sad and lonely he is when he believes he won’t ever be able to talk to her again when she goes back into the heart. How happy he is to see her still conscious in the TARDIS heart. She is his true companion throughout the story, his only long-term connection that he doesn’t lose like his other family. We see him afraid to be alone in Comic: Whodunnit and anticipating abandonment in Comic: Downtime.
The Doctor’s loneliness can cause his mental health to decompensate when he is alone causing more erraticism and him to fall into his own worst behaviours like seeking retributive justice. We see this in TV: A Town Called Mercy:
“Amy: This is not how we roll, and you know it. What happened to you, Doctor? When did killing someone become an option? The Doctor: Jex has to answer for his crimes. Amy: And what then? Are you going to hunt down everyone who's made a gun or a bullet or a bomb? The Doctor: But they keep coming back, don't you see? Every time I negotiate, I try to understand. Well, not today. No. Today, I honour the victims first. His, the Master's, the Dalek's, all the people who died because of my mercy! Amy: You see, this is what happens when you travel alone for too long.”
In the previous episode, The Doctor killed Solomon The Trader (TV: Dinosaurs On A Spaceship) after having been moving through different companions without having The Ponds as steady companions, possibly having been alone for long periods. Showing Amy's worries founded.
The Webcast: Prequel to the Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe shows The Doctor talking to himself believing being used to having people with him feeling off having no one with him after he tried to let The Ponds have time without him. During Comic: Downtime we see that he feels alone even when surrounded by other people.
Along with this loneliness The Doctor has self-isolated to deal with his depressive symptoms and grief after the loss of Amy and Roy as he completely cuts the world off in TV: The Snowmen rejecting helping others and even getting involved in mysteries that pique his interest. Then after realizing there are two Claras, The Doctor continues to stay self-isolated away from others locking away in his obsessive behaviour and leftover self-isolating depressive behaviour patterns (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
Eleven shows fatigue as a depressive symptom. Often with other people’s behaviour but also more generally. This expression of trauma and distress is much more prevalent in Doctor’s like their Twelfth incarnation but is present here. (TV: The Beast Below, TV: Victory of The Daleks, TV: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, TV: The Snowmen, TV: A Town Called Mercy Prose: Night of The Humans, Prose: Dead of Winter, & Comic: The Eternal Dog Fight)
We see The Doctor fall into his patterns of exhaustion when talking to Alfie [nickname Stormageddon] in TV: Closing Time:
“The Doctor: Hello, Stormageddon. It's the Doctor. Here to help. Shush. Hey. There, there. Be quiet. Go to sleep. Really. Stop crying. You've got a lot to look forward to, you know. A normal human life on Earth. Mortgage repayments, the nine to five, a persistent nagging sense of spiritual emptiness. Save the tears for later, boy-o. Oh, no. That was crabby. No, that was old. But I am old, Stormy. I am so old. So near the end.”
He pulls himself out of this place to give Alfie kindness but this shows his default state of mind can be to fall into fatigue, especially when he believes he is facing the end of his life.
In Comic: The Four Doctors We see an alternate timeline of what would tempt the Eleventh Doctor and his is he just wanting to rest with River and not have to fight anymore.
The Doctor experiences dissociation in a few forms throughout his regeneration as a reflection of his trauma. (TV: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone, TV: The Almost People, TV: The Girl Who Waited, TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe, TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, TV: The Crimson Horror, TV: The Day of The Doctor, Prose: Night of The Humans, Comic: The Comfort of The Good, & Comic: The Then and Now, )
He blanks out during TV: A Town Called Mercy we see how the world seems to blur around him:
“The Doctor: Hmm? Yes. I don't know. Whatever Amy said.”
Another Episode we see of The Doctor losing touch slightly with the world around him can be seen in TV: A Good Man Goes to War where we see him talk slightly to himself disconnected from other people.
We see The Doctor even disconnecting from his own body during TV: The Snowmen to the point he acts without fully noticing:
“The Doctor: ...Next time you're in trouble, don't expect me to (The Doctor is distracted by his reflection in a mirror.) Clara What is it? What's wrong?” The Doctor: Sorry, it's just. Didn't know I'd put it on.”
The sound around him and he separates from people around him again during Prose: Tales of Trenzalore. In Prose: Dark Horizons we see him experience dissociation with time loss and disconnection from the body to the point his pain blanks out.
The Doctor is dissociated from his own emotions having put a barrier so high inside of him that he can’t always fully access what he is feeling or his history of emotions. (TV: Day Of The Moon, Comic: Remembrance, Comic: Pull to Open, & Comic: The Tragical History Tour)
We see a very out front example of how unaware of his own emotions The Doctor can be in TV: A Good Man Goes to War:
“The Doctor: ... Oh, look, I'm angry. That's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now.”
The TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe has another example:
“The Doctor: Think of home. Just picture it, feel it! You have to really feel it. Can you do that? Your mind is controlling this vessel. You can fly us all back for Christmas. Madge: My head is full of trees, Caretaker. Can't you fly us home? The Doctor: I don't have a home to think of. And between you and me, I'm older than I look and I can't feel the way you do. Not any more. And you really need to feel it, Madge. Everything about home that you miss until you can't bear it. Until you almost burst.”
We know he can feel till he cries, as he puts it late in the episode “humany” emotions. He cries happy tears when he sees his own family, and he doesn’t even fully realise he’s crying till he touches his face.
During TV: Vincent and The Doctor is out of touch with his trauma reactions where he has had depressive symptoms and breakdowns of his own but is forced to face some of his struggle with loneliness with the krafayis.
In TV: The Snowmen we see how he tries to block out his emotions completely. In Prose: Tales of Trenzalore we see The Doctor repressing emotions in order to interact with the other people at all. Similarly in Prose: Dead of Winter he is alienated from emotions. It is stated about The Doctor’s inner monologue from the crossed minds:
Amy:" he's off about emotions sometimes like he's crossing them off in a spotters guide ah yes that'll be anger, that'll be fear, I have a hunch that's love "
We also see a more structural dissociation of his memories (TV: The Beast Below, TV: The Day of The Doctor, & Comic: The One) In Comic: Pull To Open we see The Doctor’s own mind treat him cruelly, fight him, his memories playing out like an interrogation, something dissociated apart from him.
In both TV: The Lodger and TV: The Day of The Doctor we see him unable to remember how old he is, I believe showing he has completely lost track of time concerning himself even though he has senses for time..
“The Doctor: Ah, I don't know. I lose track. Twelve hundred and something, I think, unless I'm lying. I can't remember if I'm lying about my age, that's how old I am.”
(TV: The Day of The Doctor)
He understands time fully but has split his identity so much and has spent time like the Time War dissociated he can’t place the time. We know that Eight also didn’t know how old he was at that point so it makes sense that the idea that Nine and Ten made up for his age might also be made up in the first place, but Eleven has forgotten even how old he is in relation to that count. This shows he has dissociated even in relationship to the time that Eleven has lived.
His dissociation affects his identity as well:
He blocks off the entire section of his life that is The War Doctor, he has dissociated this part of him so completely that he is never mentioned or remembered by The Doctor.
We see him bluntly reject him as not fully being The Doctor in TV: The Name of The Doctor.
“(The Doctor looks forward to where a man is standing with his back to them.) Clara: Who's that? The Doctor: Never mind. Let's go back. Clara: But who is he? The Doctor: He's me. There's only me here, that's the point. Now let's get back. Clara: But I never saw that one. I saw all of you. Eleven faces, all of them you. You're the eleventh Doctor. The Doctor: I said he was me. I never said he was the Doctor. Clara: I don't understand. The Doctor: Look, my name, my real name, that is not the point. The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose, it's like, it's like a promise you make. He's the one who broke the promise...He is my secret. War Doctor: What I did, I did without choice. The Doctor: I know. War Doctor: In the name of peace and sanity. The Doctor: But not in the name of the Doctor.”
This continued to be true in TV: The Day of The Doctor in how we see both The Tenth Doctor and Eleven react to what The War Doctor describes as “dread” and all of them struggle to understand him as part of their larger identity narrative until they can understand themselves better and re-integrate that part of their story when they grow empathy for that part of them.
We can see flashbacks happen, (TV: Day Of The Moon, TV: The Day of The Doctor, Comic: The Then and Now, Comic: The Memory Feast, & Comic: Strange Loops)
The above-discussed episodic dissociation, panic, and outward emotional episodes can often be traced back to triggers related to trauma around loss and war. (TV: Victory of The Daleks, TV: Flesh and Stone, TV: The Lodger, TV: The Doctor's Wife, TV: Asylum of The Daleks, TV: A Town Called Mercy, TV: The Snowmen, TV: Cold War, TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, TV: The Day of The Doctor, Audio: Paradise Lost, Comic: The Only Good Dalek, & Comic: The Tragical History Tour)
The Doctor is triggered easily into protective mode and believes he is in danger by seeing Cybermen in TV: Nightmare in Silver, he then stays in this stressed state causing trouble for them all. In TV: The Name of The Doctor he is triggered by the mention of Trenzalore causing him to break down into tears. During Comic: The One the mention of libraries while River Song is present causes a momentary moment of stress and causes him to be visibly upset due to it reminding him of his loss. Comic: The Memory Feast has Eleven triggered back the Time War due to the death of the Xersxes, which causes him to keep himself and others in danger due to his trauma. Being reminded of the Time Lords who previously caused him pain. In TV: SkyJacks reminders of both what Time Lords like Omega and The Master have done snd the Time Lords having been gone and what’s attacking them only being an echo cause him to fall into a screaming fit.
The Memories themselves are often referenced as painful like in the above-discussed scene with Akhaten (TV: The Rings of Akhaten) But also comes up in Comic: The Scream where memories are referred to as "burning", while some of this may be sci-fy style [like The Doctor's Name] but can also reference how overwhelming and traumatic much of The Doctor's life has bee. The Comic: The Lost Dimension also shows how Eleven’s memories are so full of pain and hatred they scare a baby TARDIS.
The overwhelming memories The Doctor has been expressed in TV: The Rings of Akhaten:
“The Doctor:... Take my memories. But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things. I walked away from the last Great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time. No space. Just me. I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. I've watched universes freeze and creations burn. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. I have lost things you will never understand. And I know things. Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze...”
His painful memories also allow him to have empathy for people like Madge Arewll,
“Madge: Lily and Cyril's father, my husband, is dead and they don't know yet, because if I tell them now, then Christmas will always be what took their father away from them, and no one should have to live like that. Of course, when the Christmas period is over, I shall. I don't know why I keep shouting at them. The Doctor: Because every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be, and it breaks your heart...Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later...The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.”
(TV: The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe)
He is also willing to give his life for his companions, seriously concerning sacrificing himself in TV: Flesh and Stone, hoping Amy could pull him back but willing to be outside the big bang in TV: The Big Bang, Willing to face Akhaten alone in TV: The Rings of Akhaten or dying for Alice in Comic: Supremacy of the Cybermen.
He attempts to avoid his distressing memories by running, running away from everything both literally like his death in series six ([Mainly]TV: The Impossible Astronaut & TV: The Wedding of River Song) but also from his mind, being continuously active as talked about above, never stopping and taking a break. Doing so stops him from having to think. He finally stopped staying in Christmas and protecting its people even after he got his TARDIS back for hundreds of years because he was needed. He had to deal with his people reminding him of the Time War and a constant battle leaving new physical and emotional scars but he stood still, accepting his death. Even when he got his regeneration energy back he still faced regeneration with relative grace compared to his previous face accepting his own death with understanding. Wanting to remember when the doctor was him, not forgetting and running from his pain and loss but holding it:
“The Doctor:..I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”
(TV: The Time of The Doctor)
Overall He shows a significant amount of C-PTSD & BPD Symptoms: hyperarousal, hypervigilance, schema disruption, anxiety-spectrum symptoms, agitation, depression, heightened emotions, impulsiveness, recklessness, need for control, relational difficulties, identity disturbance, guilt, complicated grief, loneliness, dissociation, and avoidance.
The Eleventh Doctor is an example of C-PTSD that might not be the most positive with his complicated relationships and sometimes cruel behaviour. But he is a fascinating one and worth analysing. He is key to understanding the effects of the Tenth Doctor’s run and how the Twelfth Doctor and forward form.
David pondering a chip 🍟😊🥰
Do........... do you think he (as the 9th) also ate them like this after the events of The End Of The World. I like to think he did. Can you imagine that, just the 9th doctor staring at a chip on a fork? With the intensity of trying to solve a complicated mathematical equation?
I didn’t miss that social cue I just thought it was stupid
‘i saw your social cue but am ignoring it in the hopes you learn to use your words and communicate like an adult. hope this helps’
he said it, it's cannon, trust me
