Doctor Who secretly introduced a Time War survivor. When Russell T. Davies relaunched Doctor Who in 2005, he introduced viewers to a new status quo in which the Time Lords and the Daleks had been wiped out after what the Doctor hoped was the final Time War. The Doctor himself had brought an end to the conflict, having realized his people had fallen just as far as the Daleks themselves.
Years later, Doctor Who secretly introduced a survivor of the Time War who had encountered the War Doctor when the conflict was at its height. Dorium Maldovar was a blue-skinned businessman who made his debut in the Eleventh Doctor episode “A Good Man Goes To War,” where he was picked up by the enigmatic time traveler when the Doctor was calling in favors to save the daughter of Amy and Rory. The Doctor had chosen his allies well, because Dorium was the one who had actually sold the Headless Monks their security software. But just what was the history between the Doctor and Dorium?
Titan Comics finally answered that question in a short story published in 2018 in honor of Jodie Whittaker’s first season. The Many Lives of Doctor Who is an anthology of short stories featuring different incarnations of the Doctor, and “The Whole Thing’s Bananas” is an amusing one by Richard Dinnick and Neil Edwards. Featuring John Hurt’s War Doctor, it is set in the final months of the Time War, with the War Doctor corralling Dorium for help destroying thirteen weapons factories at Villengard before the Daleks can acquire them. Dorium only realizes who he’s been helping when he sees the Doctor depart in the TARDIS.
This actually adds quite a fascinating new dimension to Doctor Who season 6. In that season, the Doctor learned he had become too big, too important, too influential; as a result, people had begun to react to him with fear rather than trust. On some worlds, the word “Doctor” had taken on a totally different meaning, interpreted as “Warrior.” Dorium’s backstory helps explain why this had happened; because there were presumably countless survivors of the Time War who knew a little of what the Doctor had done during the conflict, and were perhaps even aware he was believed to have destroyed his homeworld of Gallifrey.
Viewed through the lens of the Time War, the Doctor is the last soldier standing, the warrior who has foiled countless Dalek (and Time Lord) plots, the one who fires the final shot and wipes out two races. The Doctor may have wanted to forget this, and Doctor Who may not have shown these stories on the small screen, but there are those in the universe who remember them nonetheless.
