Fugitive Doctor

Fugitive Doctor
Main aliases:	Ruth Clayton
Species:	The Doctor's species
First appearance:	Fugitive of the Judoon
Appearances:	TV: The Timeless Children
Main actor:	Jo Martin
Memorable moment
▶︎ YouTube YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy UnderstoodDismiss

Incarnations of the Doctor
Widely accepted
Others / unplaced incarnations
More ambiguous

An incarnation of the Doctor, identified as such by the Judoon and the Thirteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver, had a history of working for officials on Gallifrey. She served in a role she had not signed up for, and which she sought to abandon. At one point, she hid out on Earth using a Chameleon Arch, taking on a human identity as "Ruth Clayton".

She had her TARDIS buried near the lighthouse where she stored her true identity and trusted Lee Clayton to protect her, undercover as Ruth's husband. Lee was also tasked with reminding her to "Follow the light and break the glass" when the time was right, as this would lead Ruth to return to the lighthouse, which she was made to recall from childhood, and finally restore her Time Lord memories. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Biography

Working for Gallifrey

For a period of time, having been consigned or recruited, the Doctor worked for the enforcers of Gallifrey. She tried to flee from them on at least one occasion, but learnt that escape would not prove an easy task after she failed to get away. While working for the Time Lords, the Doctor became acquainted with Gat.

After she successfully escaped from Gallifrey, stealing a gun from Gat in the process, the Doctor fled to Earth in her TARDIS and used a Chameleon Arch to disguise herself as a human named "Ruth Clayton", with Lee Clayton acting as her protector in case of trouble. Taking up residence in Gloucester with Lee posing as her husband, Ruth made a living as a self-employed tour guide. She believed herself to be a 43-year-old human and remembered being brought up by her parents in a disused lighthouse. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

As Ruth Clayton

According to her constructed memories, Ruth moved away from home to Gloucester in mid-December 1999, seeking a life of her own. Her parents died after this point and Ruth inherited the lighthouse from them, though she did not wish to live there. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

By 2020, (TV: Can You Hear Me?) she was a regular customer at a coffee shop where she had become friendly with the barista, Allan. Allan tried to convince Ruth that Lee was not good enough for her, even keeping a dossier which recorded his suspicions regarding him. She also made a friend in elderly resident Marcia. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Hunted by the Judoon

On Ruth's supposed 44th birthday, the Judoon, under contract with the Division, came to Gloucester to retrieve the Doctor, having pinned down her location due to Lee keeping hold of his old service medal. When another incarnation of the Doctor, the Thirteenth Doctor, haggled a brief reprise from the Judoon to investigate matters herself, Lee distracted the Judoon to allow Ruth to escape with the Doctor. He was ultimately executed by Gat, but not before sending Ruth a cryptic text message that briefly reawakened her Time Lord persona to defend Ruth from the Judoon. In an act beyond self-defence, Ruth pulled off Captain Pol-Kon-Don's horn, escalating the Judoon's hostility and causing the Thirteenth Doctor to inquire after her true identity.

As memories began surfacing unexpectedly, she and the Thirteenth Doctor then travelled to the lighthouse, where Ruth followed her imperative to "break the glass". After shattering the biodata module with the push of a button, Ruth's Time Lord personality was reactivated and she became "the Doctor" again. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Memories restored

With her true self restored, the Fugitive Doctor retrieved the rifle she had stolen from Gat, quickly changed into her old clothes, and went outside to introduce herself to the Thirteenth Doctor, who had dug up her TARDIS. The Fugitive Doctor then teleported the two of them onboard, where she learnt of the Thirteenth Doctor's identity. Since she didn't recognise the Thirteenth Doctor, she assumed she was encountering a future incarnation of herself, only to learn that the Thirteenth Doctor had no memory of ever being her either.

Before either Doctor could figure out what was going on, the Fugitive Doctor's TARDIS was captured by the Judoon. Onboard the Judoon ship, the two Doctors encountered Gat and the Fugitive Doctor returned her rifle to her. She attempted to pass off her thirteenth incarnation as "nobody", but the Thirteenth Doctor ultimately revealed who she was. To the Fugitive Doctor's surprise, the Thirteenth Doctor also claimed that Gallifrey had been destroyed by "a lunatic", sharing her memories of this with Gat as proof that she was not lying.

Gat tried to execute both Doctors, despite the Fugitive Doctor's pleas for her to stand down. The rifle had previously been sabotaged and it backfired on Gat, killing her. Setting aside the Thirteenth Doctor's horror at her actions, the Fugitive Doctor retrieved the firearm and reversed her alterations. Using the weapon, she threatened the Judoon with it, pointing out that, now that they were in interstellar space, crime was not defined, and they had no jurisdiction. After the Judoon let them leave, the Fugitive Doctor returned her thirteenth incarnation to Earth, noting that they couldn't both be right about each other's place in their chronology. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Matrix projection

The Doctor appears in the Matrix. (TV: The Timeless Children)

After being trapped in the Matrix by the Spy Master, the Thirteenth Doctor encountered a projection of the Fugitive Doctor, whom she speculated was the Matrix playing more games with her. The Fugitive Doctor reminded her that she had never been limited by who she was before, telling her that the universe needed the Doctor too much for her to be tired. She mentioned how Ashad had said something that was nagging her, hinting at the death particle, and told her to "blow the mind" of the Matrix before disappearing. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Legacy

The Fugitive Doctor's actions against Gat and the Judoon got her marked for arrest. However, it became a cold case. The Judoon eventually found the Thirteenth Doctor and imprisoned her. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Psychological profile

Personality

The Fugitive Doctor had a low opinion on the Thirteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver, terming it a "gizmo", and arrogantly claimed she was too smart to use one for herself.

She exhibited a more violent persona than many of her other incarnations, threatening to kill a Judoon platoon, and arming herself with a gun as well as programming Gat's gun to blow its user up. She did however give Gat repeated warnings about using the gun, practically begging Gat not to do it. The Fugitive Doctor also agreed with the Thirteenth Doctor's statement that the Doctor never used weapons, suggesting that she might have been bluffing when she threatened the Judoon.

She also showed dislike for the Thirteenth Doctor. After instructing her to keep quiet and let her do all the talking, the Fugitive Doctor was furious with her for interfering in her plans for Gat.

However, she also had an excitable streak, proclaiming, "You're gonna love this," to the Thirteenth Doctor before showing her TARDIS. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Habits and quirks

The Fugitive Doctor spoke in a traditional London accent, both while under the impression of being Ruth Clayton, and as her true self.

In a manner similar to the Thirteenth Doctor, she gives out points as people got something right. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Skills

The Fugitive Doctor had the combat skills to overpower a platoon of Judoon with her bare hands, and even had the strength to remove Captain Pol-Kon-Don's horn with one hand.

She could drive a car. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Appearance

The Fugitive Doctor resembled a dark-skinned middle-aged woman. She had black hair, which she wore in dreadlocks. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Clothing

The Fugitive Doctor wore a royal blue tweed frock coat with seven silver buttons on the left side and one on the right. She wore a kente shirt with frilled stand collar and cuffs under a navy blue moleskin double-breasted tweed waistcoat with sixteen bronze buttons. She also wore black combat trousers tucked into black Doc Marten shoes.

The Fugitive Doctor also wore yellow sunglasses with gold branches and two gold hoops with complicated design. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)

Behind the scenes

While Fugitive of the Judoon and The Timeless Children both left it unclear where the Fugitive Doctor fits into the Doctor's life, Chris Chibnall confirmed to The Mirror that, as stated in the episode, "She is definitively the Doctor." He went on to say that "There's not a sort of parallel universe going on; there's no tricks." Meet the Doctor, a piece of prose from Doctor Who The Official Annual 2021, suggested strongly that this Doctor was one of the Timeless Child's regenerations from before the Doctor was mind-wiped and forcibly regressed into a child. However, it was a fourth-wall-breaking and non-narrative effort, and is as a result not considered a valid source by this Wiki.

When designing the costume, Ray Holman initially went in with how it should have references to previous Doctors, such as tweed and a waistcoat from the Eleventh Doctor, a period cut in reference to classic Doctors, and having boots and trousers reminiscent of the Twelfth Doctor. There was also a plan to put the whole attire together with a seventeenth century linen shirt with frill stand collar and frill cuffs. When Jo Martin was cast, she and Ray conversed with each other and it was decided that the shirt should be a more vibrant Kente with African wax-print fabric, rather than cream, to be more reflective of Martin. The yellow sunglasses were picked out by Martin herself, from an opticians in Covent Garden. (DWM 549)

First POC to play the Doctor?

The Fugitive Doctor was the first mainstream televised incarnation of the Doctor to be played by a non-white actor, namely Jo Martin. However, this widely-hailed status of the "Fugitive" incarnation as the first Person of Colour (POC) Doctor is not quite accurate.

Firstly, some stories had previously shown the Doctor briefly taking over the bodies of non-white humans, and so getting played by those who were cast for those characters. Daniel Anthony briefly played the Eleventh Doctor in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Death of the Doctor while he occupied the body of Clyde Langer, and Damian Lynch played the Third Doctor in the audio story Ghost in the Machine while he was using the body of Benjamin Chikoto to communicate.

More concretely, Russell T Davies' Rose novelisation, released some time before Fugitive of the Judoon, showed that Clive Finch possessed a photograph of, among other known incarnations, a tall, bald, black female Doctor who wields a flaming sword.

Within the same televised season to debut the Fugitive Doctor, an exploration of an era of the Doctor's early life before the First Doctor showed several of this Timeless Child's lives, including the first one, to be played by non-white actors, male and female. This child first appeared in visions in Spyfall and Can You Hear Me?, though she was not revealed to be an earlier version of the Doctor (and shown in further regenerations) until The Timeless Children.

At the time of production for Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, Steven Moffat privately intended Doctor Moon to be a future Doctor. This would have made Colin Salmon the first POC to play the Doctor, though the storyline never came to pass on-screen. In Showrunner Showdown in 2020, Moffat commented that he thought a version of this idea could still work and Russell T Davies revealed that he always thought of the character as the Doctor while watching the episode.