Ruby’s Parents, Bigeneration Aftermath & More Major Questions for ‘Doctor Who’ in 2024
Doctor Who ended 2023 with three specials to celebrate its 60th anniversary featuring returning characters, The Doctor revisiting a familiar face, the reintroduction of a villain from years ago, and a major twist when it came time for the regeneration. Then it introduced The Doctor to his newest companion in a Christmas special.
David Tennant returned as the Fourteenth Doctor, having previously played the Tenth Doctor, alongside Catherine Tate whom is back as companion Donna Noble. And while the last time they saw each other, she couldn’t remember who he was or her mind would burn up — after she took the power of a Time Lord into her head — the first special, “The Star Beast,” solved that problem, thanks to her sharing the metacrisis with her daughter, Rose (Yasmin Finney), and then the two just letting it all go.
Then in the third special, “The Giggle,” The Doctor faced the Toymaker (Neil Patrick Harris) and when he took a fatal blast, bigenerated, splitting off into the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). The Fourteenth Doctor stopped traveling, instead settling down to live a life with a family — Donna, her husband, her daughter, her mother, and her granddad — and Fifteen set off on the next big adventure.
The Doctor (Gatwa) then met Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) in the Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” which set up quite the mystery about her as well as one of her neighbors.
Those four episodes left us with quite a few major questions about what’s to come for both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors, and chances are it will be a while before we get answers about Tennant’s because it’s Gatwa’s time to shine as the Time Lord. But when the show returns in May, it certainly could address some of them.
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Doctor Who, Returns, May 2024, Disney+
What does bigeneration mean for the Fourteenth Doctor's future?
What happens when the Fourteenth Doctor is about to die the next time? (As we’ve seen, he’s not going to stay grounded for long; he’d already been on at least two trips in the TARDIS before sitting down for a meal with his family at the end of “The Giggle.”) Could he be the start of what led to Tom Baker as the Curator in the 50th anniversary special? (He was the one to tell Matt Smith‘s Doctor that he’d be revisiting some faces…) Presumably there wouldn’t be a need for him to bigenerate again. Does he never die or regenerate? That’s unlikely but has to be put out there. Or…
Will Fourteen, when his next regeneration comes, go back to that helipad and become Fifteen?
The Fifteenth Doctor, while talking to the Fourteenth about him “running on fumes,” did say that he’s fine “because you fix yourself” and that, as Time Lords, “we’re doing rehab out of order.” Is that because Fourteen will, upon his next regeneration, perhaps just disappear from wherever he is at the time and go back to that moment on the helipad to become the Fifteenth Doctor? Anything is possible with this bigeneration twist, though this does seem very likely.
Who is the Meep's boss?
The first 60th anniversary special introduced the Meep, at first seemingly just an adorable alien before turning out to be the villain. The Meep, upon being taken into custody, left The Doctor with a warning: “I will escape and have my revenge, so you beware, Doctor. Because there’s one more thing… A creature with two hearts is such a rare thing, just wait until I tell the boss.” That’s the last we heard of that “boss,” meaning that The Doctor still has that possibly coming his way in upcoming episodes.
Who is "the one who waits"?
When The Doctor faced off with the Toymaker for their second game, the villain took a moment to recap his victories to that point… and the one time he didn’t play. “I came to this universe with such delight, and I played them all, Doctor. I toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spin tops. I gambled with God and made him a jack-in-the-box. I made a jigsaw out of your history, did you like it? The Master was dying and begged for his life with one final game, and when he lost, I sealed him for all eternity inside my gold tooth,” he boasted.
But “there’s only one player I didn’t dare face: the one who waits… I saw it, hiding, and I ran,” the Toymaker said ominously. “That’s someone else’s game.” Is that for the Fifteenth Doctor to play or deal with the consequences?
Who are the Toymaker's legions?
Following the bigeneration, both Doctors challenged the Toymaker to a game of catch and won. As the Toymaker folded up on himself, before falling into the box of his shop from Soho in 1925, he warned, “My legions are coming.” Who (or what) make up his legions? And when will they show up? Considering he could “get from 1925 to now like stepping through a door” and the same could be true of his legions, they could appear anywhere and at any time.
Are the Meep's boss and "the one who waits" the same being?
Does the Doctor have two potential enemies out there to fear? After all, if the Toymaker wouldn’t face “the one who waits” after everything else he did… Or are the two one and the same? Has The Doctor dealt with either of them (if they’re not the same) in the past? Do either know who The Doctor is? Will fans recognize either?
Who took the Toymaker's gold tooth containing the Master?
As the two Doctors and Donna walked back inside UNIT headquarters, a hand with red fingernails (pictured above) picked up the gold tooth left behind after the Toymaker’s banishment as the laughter of who we assume are multiple versions of the Master was heard. (Also, the tooth was at the edge of the helipad and the others didn’t see whoever that was, so where was that person exactly?)
Who are Ruby's parents?
The Christmas special showed a woman leaving her daughter, the baby who was then named Ruby (for where she was found) at a church, and according to the opening voiceover, the mother “was never seen again. No one ever knew her name, until that night, a time traveler came to call, a traveler known as The Doctor.” Then, later, as a young adult, Ruby found out, after giving a DNA sample, there’s no trace of her parents (unusual). So who are her parents? It’s “ongoing throughout the series,” Gibson teased to TV Insider. And that mystery is “part of what The Doctor finds intriguing,” said Gatwa.
Who's Mrs. Flood?
Ruby’s neighbor Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) is certainly quite the mystery after the Christmas special. At first, she didn’t (seem to?) recognize the TARDIS parked on the street. Then, she later spoke with both The Doctor and Ruby (encouraging the latter to enter the TARDIS and wishing her luck). And at the very end, she asked the camera, “Never seen a TARDIS before?” after The Doctor and Ruby took off. “You’re going to see a little bit more of her,” Gibson promised. But who is she?
How long will it be "mavity"?
In “Wild Blue Yonder,” as the TARDIS went a little haywire, The Doctor and Donna encountered Isaac Newton (Nathaniel Curtis) in 1666 and remarked that he could “appreciate the gravity of the situation.” After they took off, he tried to recall the “delightful word” they’d said and landed on “mavity.” In the same episode, The Doctor used both “gravity” and “mavity.” Then, in “The Church on Ruby Road,” The Doctor used “mavity.” So how long will that continue? Will The Doctor travel back to Isaac to fix that?
