WMG / Doctor Who 2022 CEN "The Power of the Doctor"

Beware of unmarked spoilers

This page is specifically for The Power of the Doctor. Any WMG and spoilers for later stories (e.g. the 2023 specials) should go on WMG Doctor Who (with spoilers) or other relevant WMG pages, not this one.

How this leads into the 60th

We know from set photos of the 60th anniversary that both David Tennant and Catherine Tate will return but could the events of this special be why? There's a theory that suggests that the 13th Doctor will actually retro-regenerate into the 10th, who will then have the 60th anniversary as his own adventure before regenerating proper into Ncuti Gatwa.

• Confirmed in that Thirteen regenerates into David Tennant at the episode's end.

• While this theory actually has basis in the show's history (there was a plan to regenerate Colin Baker's Doctor back into Patrick Troughton for a season before regenerating into a woman for the next), and it's happened multiple times in the Expanded Universe, it would severely take the wind out of Ncuti's casting if David Tennant usurped his regeneration, even if just for one story.
• Perhaps the Thirteenth Doctor will regenerate into Ncuti, only to run into (some version of) the Tenth Doctor shortly afterwards, sort of an inversion of Twice Upon a Time. Probably with both Doctors finishing the special by asking each other “What?” repeatedly.
  • Jossed in that Thirteen doesn't regenerate into Ncuti. But the Doctor does say the "What?" line upon realizing that they turned back into Tennant.

The Master's Plan...

• ...is to erase the Doctor from existence.
  • Confirmed. He actually forced a regeneration, taking over her body, but Yaz and Vinder were able to reverse it.

Bel and Vinder's child is the Doctor

Whether they all realise that by the end of the story is another question. Meet the fam, fam.

• Jossed, at least for this special— Bel doesn't even appear.

At some point in the specials, an evil duplicate of Dan will show up

It might be too late, but an Ascended Meme for the Evil Dan YTPs would be nice.

• Jossed. Dan leaves the plot early, and there are no duplicates of him.

There will be two regenerations in the specials

Jodie Whittaker into Olly Alexander and Carole Ann Ford into Lidya West.

• Jossed: Ncuti Gatwa is Fourteen. Er, or is that Fifteen?
• Also Confirmed, but only in the most literal sense: there are three regenerations - The Master forces The Doctor to regenerate into his form while he possesses her, which is later reversed, before Thirteen herself finally regenerates at the episode's end... into David Tennant.

The regeneration seen in the Centenary Special trailer isn't really one.

• It's an attempt at regeneration, or at holding back regeneration.
• It's some other kind of energy.
• The memories from the fob watch containing pre-Hartnell memories are being channeled through the Doctor somehow.
  • All Jossed. It was a real regeneration, forced by the Master in an attempt to hijack her body.

The Centenary Special will have strong parallels to Doomsday and Journey's End.

• There will be a Doomsday-esque scene where the Doctor and Yaz are separated permanently in the midst of expressing their love for each other.
  • Jossed. Yaz and 13 do separate at the end of the episode, but both do so willingly, instead of being forced to like a good number of the companions.
• The Doctor creates a (human) clone of herself, who lives happily ever after with Yaz.
  • Jossed. No clones.
  • This actually kind of happened in "The Giggle," in which the Fifteenth doctor "bi-generated" from the Fourteenth, allowing the Fourteen to live a quiet life with Donna and her family while Fifteen continued to adventure.
• Given the assemblage of returned companions and villains, the Journey's End parallels are likely.
  • Jossed. While there's a clear homage to the "flying the TARDIS" scene in Journeys End when the companions jumpstart the TARDIS's, that's where the comparison stops; if anything, it has more parallels to The Pandorica Opens.
• The Deleted Scene in which the Doctor grew a new TARDIS will be resurrected.
  • Jossed. No such scene happens. Instead, Davies himself brought in back in "The Giggle," with Fourteen and Fifteen each getting their own time machine.
• Like Davros in Journey's End, the Master will bring up the idea that the Doctor is a bad influence on her companions, maybe even with another montage including Ko Sharmus, Ji-Hun, and other people who have recently died to save the Doctor. It helps that Tecteun briefly did something similar in Survivors of the Flux.
  • Jossed. While this does become an awkward theme in the episode (note 13's look when meeting Tegan and Ace and compare it to 10's look upon meeting Sarah Jane in School Reunion), it sets up the opposite theme of never leaving or forgetting about past companions. The Master acts as the bad influence for Yaz, actively wanting to corrupt them and future companions, and the guilt slinging is brought out by Tegan for feeling disposable. It is also briefly discussed by Hologram-Seven and Ace, with Seven fearing that he taught Ace some bad habits, and Ace responding that, on the contrary, he had been an important moderating influence upon her.

Davros will be a secret villain

• Jossed. He does not return, but he is briefly alluded to at the start by 13.

Fourteen will not be seen in the Centenary Special.

Contrary to all other revived series regeneration episodes, the Centenary Special will not feature Fourteen, ending at the moment of Thirteen's regeneration. Despite the reveal of Fourteen being prior to the episode's airing, Fourteen's debut will be in the 60th anniversary special.

• Jodie Whittaker did say that Fourteen was not present during the filming of her regeneration episode. Although that doesn't necessarily mean anything. In some previous regenerations (including Eccleston to Tennant) the new Doctor wasn't on set with the old one.
  • Confirmed. Sort of. Thirteen regenerates... but into David Tennant, not Ncuti's new Doctor.
    • Ultimately Jossed, as Tennant's Doctor is officially being dubbed the 14th Doctor, with Ncuti's Doctor properly being the 15th.

In the Centenary Special, Dan pretends to be the Doctor as a decoy for the enemies.

He can be seen holding what looks like a sonic in a promo pic.

• Jossed. He does use the sonic, but doesn't impersonate the Doctor.

Thirteen will regenerate into David Tennant at the end of the Cenentary Special.

Thus providing the Driving Question of why, exactly, they look like a previous incarnation, and what they can do to gain a new face.

• David Tennant has denied being Jodie Whittaker's immediate successor.
  • Confirmed. Tennant was lying!

Dan will die in The Power of the Doctor.

• Jossed. He chooses to leave.

It will be established that the historical Rasputin and the Master are one and the same in the Whoniverse.

• Implicitly confirmed, in that The Master commandeers the Winter Palace in the guise of Rasputin, although it isn't clear as to whether he is Rasputin or is just impersonating him. The Master's presence does explain Rasputin's reputed More than Mind Control powers, though, and the Doctor's uncharacteristically unconcerned about one of history's more influential figures going missing.
  • Potentially Jossed, however, as it appears the Master's Rasputin disguise is discarded with his seeming death on the disintegrating Conversion Planet, meaning someone else had to be there in Saint Petersburg for the nobles to poison, shoot, and dump in a river...
  • Potentially confirmed by the original script outright stating that Rasputin was always the Master.

The Master is attempting to harvest the Doctor's regeneration energy.

• Perhaps he is trying to turn the Doctor into a living battery, giving one meaning of The Power of the Doctor.
• Jossed. He instead executes a plan to hijack the Doctor's body.

The origin of the Cybermaster variants

In the promo pics, we see Cybermen with Gallifreyan writing on them but without Time Lord headpieces and cloaks, accompanied (led?) by one Cybermaster with a Time Lord headpiece and cloak. The Cybermasters that we see in The Timeless Children, all with headpieces and cloaks, are not all the Cybermasters that there are. Perhaps those were made from the Time Lord High Council, while the ones with no Time Lord regalia are made from lower-ranking Time Lords (or ordinary Gallifreyans).

• Perhaps the Cybermasters have the same hierarchy amongst themselves as the Time Lords traditionally did.

The Cybermasters (with or without help from the Master) are trying to rebuild Gallifrey, only with Cybermasters instead of Time Lords.

• After all, Gallifrey the planet still exists, only with no organic life.
• They are attempting to take the Time Lords' former role as masters of time and creation.
  • Jossed, they're just muscle for the Master, who has an entirely different plan.

The Thijarians will be present at 13's regeneration.

At the very least, they could be name-dropped.

• Jossed, not even a mention of them.

Gallifrey's organic life/biosphere will be restored.

• Jossed, at least for now…

13 will regenerate by falling off a cliff.

Thus providing a parallel to the Timeless Child's first (known) regeneration.

• The Master pushes her.
• Perhaps it will be confirmed that the child who pushed the Timeless Child down the cliff was the Master, who is Tecteun's biological son.
  • Jossed, but she does regenerate atop a cliff.

The Conversion Planet is Gallifrey.

• That would really cement its destruction and make it impossible (or at least significantly harder) for future writers to bring the Gallifreyan civilization back.
• And it would tie up really nicely with the Cybermasters. Get it? Cyber-converted Time Lords running a Cyber-converted Gallifrey.

Ashad survived, and will eventually return

• One of the complaints in The Timeless Children was that They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character by killing off Ashad so early in the story. His defeat in this story is much less clear cut of a death, and electrocution is probably much more survivable to a Cyberman than anyone else.

The ex-companions group has more members than the six we see

• Towards the end, some of the Doctor's former companions are shown meeting up to talk about their experiences. The ones we see are Ian, Jo, Tegan, Mel, Ace and Graham, but there are other companions who were last seen on present-day ^note at the time they and the Doctor parted company Earth who are not present. Admittedly, several ex-companions are absent because the actors who played them have since died, but, in most cases, there's no confirmation that their characters have also died. So it's possible that at least some of these companions are still alive and are members of this group; we just don't see them. Not to mention that Polly, Mickey, Martha and Ryan could, in theory, also be members.
• It's also possible, given that she talks about checking up on other former companions in The Sarah Jane Adventures, that Sarah Jane Smith had a hand in getting everyone together. Though the lockdown special "Farewell, Sarah Jane" is about her funeral, there was at the time the special was made no indication that she was dead in the continuity of the TV series.
  • Possibly Jossed. Towards the end of "The Giggle" it's mentioned that Sarah Jane died off-screen, but we aren't told when this happened.

Mel met up with the Doctor again and was brought back to Earth in the TARDIS

• Until now, Mel's last onscreen appearance was in the Seventh Doctor story "Dragonfire", which ends with her deciding to stay with rogue trader Sabalom Glitz. The Sixth Doctor story "The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet" establishes that Glitz comes from around 2 million years in Earth's future, suggesting that "Dragonfire" also takes place in that time frame. However, Mel is among the former companions attending the meeting towards the end of "The Power of the Doctor", which takes place in 2022. So how did she travel back in time by 2 million years? One possibility is that she crossed paths with the Doctor again and, presumably after a few more adventures, the Doctor set the TARDIS for Pease Pottage ^note Mel's home town and dropped her off there.
  • In the Classic Series Season 26 collection announcement minisode '24 Karot', Langford reprises her role as Mel, revealing the character now heads up an interstellar recruitment drive for potential investments. At the end of the minisode, she is reunited with the Seventh Doctor and once again becomes his companion, heading out into the galaxy aboard the TARDIS. It's entirely possible she is dropped back on Earth at the close of these unseen new adventures. However, like all expanded Who media, the canonicity of this minisode is debatable.
  • Mel is confirmed to be returning in Series 14. Perhaps her return to Earth will be explained then.
• Jossed – Mel said in The Giggle that she returned to Earth by getting "a lift off a Zingo"; whatever a Zingo is, the Doctor was certainly not involved.

The Master!Doctor is the Valeyard.

The Valeyard claims to be an evil future version of the Doctor, and the Master!Doctor did spend a little while alone on that asteroid, so the Timelords could have picked him up, let him prosecute the Doctor, and then put him back in time for Yaz to pick him up.