Top 10 Unanswered Questions in Doctor Who

Since the beginning of the Whoniverse this question has been asked by almost every species throughout the series, not to mention by the fans themselves. However, it’s almost certain that it's a question that will never be answered. What we do know is that the name is the key to The Doctor’s tomb on Trenzalore and that it can open a crack in time and space that would allow the Time Lords to return. Very few people are actually privy to the Doctor’s name, though… and another reason that’s unlikely to change anytime soon is the sheer impossibility showrunners would face in having to think up a name that lives up to the legacy and mystery.

Don’t blink! When those nightmarish Weeping Angels took over Manhattan, they inhabited the Statue of Liberty to terrorize The Doctor and his companions. But how is it possible that no one noticed something of that magnitude make its way across Manhattan? Especially as the Angels can’t actually move in the first place if they’re seen. Steven Moffat offered the explanation that “They can bend time, climb inside your mind, hide in pictures, steal your voice and mess with your perception.” So, essentially you only see and understand what the Angels permit. But Moffat also offered the alternative solution that it tiptoed... Player's choice on this one, mates.

When human militants force The Doctor’s hand into a progenation machine, he is introduced to Jenny, his daughter. Fans were horrified when she was fatally wounded after taking a bullet for dear old Dad, though, and it seemed that she hadn't inherited his regeneration genes. However, after Ten leaves, she wakes up, commandeers a spaceship and takes off, leaving us hopeful for a family reunion in the future. In fact, Steven Moffat said that Jenny was meant to return but when they scrapped the idea, he offered the rather unsatisfactory alternative timeline that she flew into a moon and died.

When we first meet Orson Pink, we’re led to believe that he’s a descendant of Clara and Danny, hinting at their future as a couple. However, Danny is killed in an accident and Clara dies later on, leaving us to wonder if it's possible that The Impossible Girl has an impossible descendant. Orson unknowingly drops several hints about his ancestors with all clues leading us back to the couple. In yet another response that disappointed some fans, though, Moffat explained that Orson comes from a different branch of the Pink family tree. But, even if we could believe that, it still doesn’t explain how Clara is related.

Sure, we understand that The Doctor couldn’t fly his TARDIS to New York due to the risk of creating yet another paradox but it seems that he could have tried a bit harder to reunite with his friends. We’re not saying that we’re experts in “Wibbly Wobbly” or “Timey Wimey” matters, but couldn’t The Doctor simply park his TARDIS elsewhere and make his way to New York to see them without it? In a never filmed short animation, we reportedly learn a bit more about their lives after The Doctor but we certainly could have used more closure on Amy and Rory’s story.

Okay, so here are the facts: Captain Jack is immortal, and yet he keeps aging. He’s the first person from the Boeshane Peninsula to join the Time Academy and perhaps the biggest clue of all is when he tells The Doctor and Martha that as a child, he featured on posters, earning him the nickname “Face of Boe”. Everything indicates that he must be the Face of Boe, yet we still can’t be entirely sure. Russell T. Davies has his theories on the subject, but he’d much rather leave us wondering… apparently the mystery is far more exciting than the truth.

In a show about time travel, paradoxes are bound to be a reoccurring theme and that’s certainly true of “Doctor Who”. So, when Rose can’t resist saving her father from a fatal accident, she creates a paradox. Enter the Reapers who try to heal wounds in the time-stream, albeit by killing others. However, this is the only time we see them and there have definitely been plenty of opportunities for them to feature again. We learn that some moments are fixed in time so when River Song doesn’t kill Eleven or when Ten tries to save Captain Adelaide, where are those Reapers then?

The Doctor and River Song certainly have an unconventional relationship and when we first meet River, she is baffled as to why The Doctor doesn’t recognize her. Could it be that River has been around for so long that she’s lost track of the chronology of their meetings? It’s probably hard to keep track of your husband when his appearance can change so drastically and suddenly, after all. However, we see that she keeps a note of all their encounters, so surely she must know that he won’t have met her yet? Even if we knew the answer, it’s “Spoilers, sweetie.”

When the Doctor is being attacked by a force trying to destroy his entire time stream at once, it’s Clara to the rescue. He warns her that it’s a fatal decision as she will be split over time and space and be unable to return. Yet despite all his warnings, Clara decides to go through with it and eventually she’s the one who needs saving by The Doctor, who risks entering his own time stream too. A cool story, but we were baffled when in the following episode no explanation was offered as to how they’d both survived and escaped the ordeal. It was just never mentioned again.

From what we’ve learned about The Time War, we know it was a brutal battle that resulted in Daleks being all but wiped out and the Time Lords frozen in a single moment in time, in a parallel universe. It seems with every passing series we piece together just a little bit more information on the epic encounter, but we still don’t know what actually sparked the conflict. The Doctor is very hush-hush about everything to do with it until the 50th anniversary, where his encounter with The War Doctor forces him to address the past. Maybe we’ll just have to wait for the 60th anniversary to find out more.