Talk:The Tourist (short story)

Which incarnation?
I’d like to dispute the claim that the incarnation of the Doctor featured in this story is the Fugitive Doctor played by Jo Martin.

The POV character lives in Ruth’s apartment, which still contains all her possessions, including pictures of her and Lee. He takes particular notice of her smile, and comments that it’s a smile that tells you everything will be okay.

"But the photos were different. A man. A woman. Smiling. Always smiling! Well… him trying to smile and her knowing how to better than anyone George had ever known. It was a smile that let you know everything would be OK"

A few pages later he encounters a strange woman at a pet shelter, who he finds familiar but doesn’t immediately recognise. The woman is dressed in blue, is characterised almost exactly like the Thirteenth Doctor, and when she mentions the TARDIS, the POV character suspects that it’s a club all the cool young people go to. So none of this feels particularly reminiscent of Ruth to me.

"Pulling away, George sucked at the blood newly released from the back of his hand when he noticed a woman a few feet away, leaning in to his moment with Mittens. He found himself surprisingly defensive about it. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, were you wanting to look at this cat?’ The woman frowned. ‘Nah. She’s all yours. TARDIS is no place for a kitty. She’d get all over the place. Upside down, more often than not. Imagine the litter tray issues!’"

"‘Have we met before?’ he asked. She seemed to take this question very seriously. ‘It’s perfectly possible,’ she said. ‘I tend to get about. But I left Gloucester a long time ago. Or not that long ago actually. Depends how you look at it.’"

Then, he finally seems to recognise the woman when she smiles. It’s the smile specifically that makes him realise who the woman is, and I doubt he’d forget the face that’s all over his apartment.

"The woman smiled and, right then, George knew exactly who she was and that everything would be OK."

Of course it’s still by no means cut and dry and there’s a great degree of ambiguity here, but I do feel that this is more obviously the Thirteenth Doctor than the Fugitive Doctor. SarahJaneFan ☎  00:38, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the comment about leaving Gloucester make it obvious that this was supposed to be the Fugitive Doctor, as well as the man recognising the Doctor as the smiling Ruth Clayton that he had noticed earlier. RadMatter ☎  01:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I disagree. That comment about leaving Gloucester refers to her visit to the city as the Fugitive Doctor "a long time ago" ("But I left Gloucester a long time ago.") and she refers to the literal time since she left ("Or not that long ago actually."). It's the classic humorous timey-wimey comment the Doctor is prone to making. I find it doubtful that the writer would set the story so much further into the Fugitive Doctor's life that she considers Fugitive of the Judoon to have been "a long time ago". Hence it makes the most sense for it to be 13, based on this piece of evidence.


 * Secondly, the smile here is used as a connection between the two characters - they're both the Doctor (they have the same smile) but are otherwise dissimilar. Perhaps that's a bit of a fanciful notion, but it seems to me to be the intention of the author.


 * But honestly, the dialogue in this piece is so obviously 13. That's the most conclusive evidence here, I find. Danochy ☎  11:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * The mention of leaving Gloucester makes it sound like they were there for a long time, along the lines of "I left Gallifrey a long time ago", but Thirteen was literally only there for a few hours if that. The beginning and end are designed to fit together - the man doesn't recognise the Fugitive Doctor until she smiles and then he remembers having the same feeling as he did from looking at the picture of Ruth. It is very clear that this is a Fugitive Doctor story. RadMatter ☎  12:12, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Uh, as I already said, it's 13 referring to the time she left Gloucester as the Fugitive Doctor. Because they're the same person. Also as I already said, the smile is the link between the two Doctors. If you'll recall, they are the same person. Danochy ☎  10:22, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm of two minds. The "a long time ago" line could certainly work with Thirteen, and George not recognising the Doctor at first does suggest different incarnations. But I'm puzzled by this "dressed in blue" business. Thirteen doesn't dress in blue — the Jo Martin Doctor does. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  13:54, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Jodie's coat, trousers and a least a few of the tops she wears are all varying shades of blue with some minor rainbow detail. Ruth's jacket and waistcoat are blue. I’m not sure about her trousers. They’re either black or a very dark blue. I’d certainly argue that they’ve both roughly got the same amount of blue making up their costumes either which way, at least depending on the colour of Ruth’s trousers. I would probably personally describe Thirteen as more blue than Ruth purely because Ruth has a bit more going on with her costume than just blue. SarahJaneFan ☎  14:09, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Huh, funny how these things work out in the eye of the beholder. Thirteen's costume never quite registered as "blue" to me — the trousers are incidentally blue, but the T-shirt I always thought of as simply 'dark', and the jacket as more 'gray' than 'light blue'. But you may be right. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  14:16, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

There’s this article from a few years back where the Doctor who brand manager describes it as being a “sky blue/lilac” colour. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/theres-a-crucial-detail-about-jodie-whittakers-doctor-who-costume-that-everyone-missed/amp/ SarahJaneFan ☎  14:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * The Thirteenth Doctor doesn't currently know if the Fugitive is her past or future so her using the past tense to describe that she left Gloucester as the Fugitive "long ago" doesn't ring true to me. It would be speculation to suggest that Thirteen had, at this moment in time, found out about the Fugitive's place in her timeline. The author wrote the Fugitive Doctor's first appearance so it makes sense that he would be writing her return to Gloucester, and George not realising who the Fugitive was at first until she smiled like she was in the picture confirms that it is the Fugitive.


 * Also, Thirteen's coat may technically be classed as light blue but literally nobody would think that unless they had been told the answer. Any reasonable person would think that it was grey. I don't believe that a character would pick up on her outfit being blue rather than noting the rainbow stripe across her chest. Whereas the Fugitive's costume is very notable as blue with a bit of colour around the cuffs and neck. RadMatter ☎  14:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think the "smile" line is the smoking gun you think it is, Rad. If anything, although it could work with the woman in the picture and the tourist both being Jo Martin, the fact that George doesn't recognise her until she smiles would point at the woman in the blue outfit being a different incarnation of the Doctor — he recognises that she is the same person by the way she smiles even though it's a new face doing the smiling. This is a fairly common 'trope' in stories where characters knew the Doctor in one incarnation, and run across them in another. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  14:59, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Would the average person immediately recognise someone that they have not met and do not know just because there was a photo of them in their house? I have watched some actors for years on television but can still fail to recognise them until they do or say something that I am familiar with - in George's case this was the Fugitive smiling like she was as Ruth in the photo. The Doctors have completely different faces from body to body and, although I have heard characters say that they have the same eyes, I have never heard the same being said about their smile. Sarah Jane didn't recognise 10 or 11 despite having seen many of the Doctor's incarnations so would George, someone who does not know about regeneration, really recongise a white woman as the black woman from a photograph in his house?


 * The entire point of the story is that the Fugitive Doctor was once a tour guide in the city but has now returned as a tourist (hence the title) to visit the place where she spent a lot of her time. From their first encounter George thinks that the Fugitive is familiar and asks if they have met before, but it wasn't until she smiled that he was able to place her as the same woman from his photograph. RadMatter ☎  15:41, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I asked Vinay Patel on Twitter and got this response. https://mobile.twitter.com/VinayPatel/status/1398316957091434502 SarahJaneFan ☎  16:48, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah. Gosh. Hm. In this case the page should probably reflect the (apparently intended) ambiguity. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  17:16, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Interesting response, I’ll have to re-read with that ambiguity in mind. The page should definitely reflect that the incarnation of the Doctor is ambiguous. SherlockTheII ☎  18:09, 28 May 2021 (UTC)