Thirteenth Doctor

The Thirteenth Doctor was the first female incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor and the second incarnation of the Doctor's second regeneration cycle granted by the Time Lords during the Siege of Trenzalore.

After being separated from her TARDIS during her post-regenerative trauma, the Doctor was assisted in her recovery by Graham and Grace O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair, and Yasmin Khan. Following a battle with the Stenza she dubbed Tim Shaw, that resulted in Grace's death, the Doctor inadvertently brought Graham, Ryan and Yasmin with her in her search for her TARDIS.

After finding the TARDIS, the Doctor initially planned to take Graham, Ryan and Yaz back home, making several accidental trips along the way. After briefly returning to Sheffield, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz officially joined the Doctor in her travels; they shared a close, family-like bond, calling themselves Team TARDIS.

A day to come
When encountering the "Vortex Butterfly", the Tenth Doctor was cryptically told that he would not be "limited" to "thirteen lives". (COMIC: Vortex Butterflies)

When the Twelfth Doctor broke his toe, Clara Oswald suggested that he regenerate to heal the injury, but he berated the idea as a waste. (PROSE: The Blood Cell)

When threatened by Captain Lundvik, the Twelfth Doctor told her she would have to shoot him, Clara Oswald and Courtney Woods, but warned that she would "have to spend a lot of time shooting [him] because [he would] keep on regenerating." Clara, during a falling out with the Doctor, later threatened to "smack [him] so hard [he would] regenerate". (TV: Kill the Moon)

While suffering from the common cold, the Twelfth Doctor, overreacting to the illness, considered the possibility of needing to regenerate. (COMIC: The Day at the Doctors)

When the Twelfth Doctor confronted Rassilon in Gallifrey's Drylands after escaping from his confession dial, Rassilon contemplated using his gauntlet to force the Doctor to regenerate as a method of torture, rhetorically wondering how many regenerations the Doctor had been granted, but was interrupted before he could attack the Doctor with the gauntlet. (TV: Hell Bent)

After the Monk invasion, the Twelfth Doctor needed to know if his companion, Bill Potts, was under the control of the Monks, and deceived her into shooting him in a rage to see if she had succumbed to the mind control, secretly putting blanks in all the guns, and faking his regeneration to complete the illusion. He made it look like the process had started, but emerged as himself to show her that he had deceived her. (TV: The Lie of the Land)

After the Twelfth Doctor was captured by and  on a Mondasian colony ship, they debated throwing him off a hospital roof to kill him, but decided against it when they realised their uncertainty on how many regenerations he had remaining, believing they "could have been up and down the stairs all night." (TV: The Doctor Falls)

Regeneration
After the Twelfth Doctor was gravely wounded by the Cybermen on the Mondasian colony ship, the regenerative process began. However, tired of "being someone else", the Doctor delayed the change for several weeks, (TV: The Doctor Falls) until an encounter with his first incarnation, Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart, and the Testimony caused the Doctor to concede that another regeneration wouldn't "kill anyone". After taking a final look at the universe and providing advice to his next incarnation, the Doctor regenerated inside his TARDIS in an explosive fashion. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

As they regenerated, the Doctor relived memories from each of their past lives while the Twelfth Doctor's personality continued to give advice. They remembered the magnificence of their TARDIS; (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) their first human friends, Ian and Barbara, and a time the First Doctor visited a Pathicol spiritual site with Ian, Barbara, and Susan; (COMIC: The Path of Skulls) the strangeness of some of their adventures, including one the Second Doctor had with Jamie, Ben, and Polly involving living playing cards; (COMIC: Card Conundrum) their love for London, and how the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane saved the city from the Dahensa; (COMIC: Invasion of the Scorpion Men) and their love for parts of Earth outside the UK, such as New York City, where the Fourth Doctor and Romana II retrieved a psychic sales voucher for two Ra'ra'vis. (COMIC: Time Lady of Means)

As she continued the recollections, the Doctor settled into a new body. (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) She next remembered Gallifrey and the regeneration limit, and how the Fifth Doctor journeyed into the Cloisters with Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough and worked with Ophiuchus to break the limit; (COMIC: Ophiuchus) how the Sixth Doctor and Peri saved the Triumvirs from the Haxeen; (COMIC: Virtually Indestructible) the Master, and how the Seventh Doctor and Ace once stopped from murdering Julius Caesar; (COMIC: Crossing the Rubicon) how things weren't always as they appeared, as evidenced during the Eighth Doctor and Josie's rescue of an Omsonii; (COMIC: The Time Ball) and the Last Great Time War, in particular when the War Doctor and Dorium Maldovar destroyed the weapons factories of Villengard. (COMIC: The Whole Thing's Bananas)

As the regeneration finished, the Doctor noticed that her clothes no longer fitted and felt "there was something different about this body". (PROSE: Twice Upon a Time) After the Twelfth Doctor's ring fell off her finger, (TV: Twice Upon a Time) the Doctor remembered how the Ninth Doctor had to relearn to be "the Doctor", and once, with Rose and Jack, saved a Volsci; (COMIC: Return of the Volsci) how the Tenth Doctor, Gabby, and Cindy helped Elizabeth Garrett Anderson become the first female doctor in England; (COMIC: Nurse Who?) her wife River Song and the time the Eleventh Doctor and Alice saved River from Shoalies; (COMIC: Without A Paddle) and, finally, the Daleks, and the Twelfth Doctor and Bill's encounter with a Kaled harvester ship. (COMIC: Harvest of the Daleks)

With the new incarnation becoming a certainty instead of a possibility, her actualised potential sent postcards with pictures of herself in baggy black clothing to various friends, including V. M. McCrimmon and Grandfather Halfling in the City of the Saved, as a sort of "hello to the world". McCrimmon had letters from two other potential versions of the new incarnation, which were made narratively unstable and destroyed by the postcard. (PROSE: Postscript)

Post-regeneration
Still hearing her predecessor in her head, (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) the Doctor staggered to the console in a daze. Examining her face in a reflection, the Doctor saw that she had regenerated into a woman, and felt that the change was "brilliant". After she pressed a button on the console, the TARDIS suddenly spiralled into chaos, caused in part by the explosive regeneration. Subsequently, she was thrown out through the TARDIS doors in the confusion after the time rotor exploded, with the TARDIS itself vanishing without the Doctor as she fell towards Earth. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)

Crashing through the ceiling of a train in 2018 Sheffield that was being besieged by an alien energy coil, the Doctor saved Karl Wright and Graham and Grace O'Brien from the creature by forcing it to retreat, and took charge of the situation when PC Yaz Khan showed up with Grace's grandson, Ryan Sinclair. When Karl opted to leave without getting involved, the Doctor asked Yaz, Ryan, Graham and Grace to assist her, as she was still feeling uneasy after her regeneration, to the point that she collapsed. Waking up in Graham and Grace's house, the Doctor found that she and her new friends had had DNA bombs implanted in them, but was able to remove them and use the bombs to track the coil creature. Tracing the creature's signal to a warehouse with a Stenza transport pod, the Doctor, having lost everything in her pockets when falling out of the TARDIS, made a new sonic screwdriver using Stenza crystals and scrap metal, and then confronted the Stenza warrior, Tzim-Sha, who had arrived in Sheffield to hunt Karl as a rites of passage.

The Doctor and her friends were able to find Karl at a construction site, and the Doctor was able to trick Tzim-Sha into activating the DNA bombs that had been downloaded into him, and Tzim-Sha retreated. Unfortunately, Grace was killed when she was thrown off a crane while trying to overload the coil creature. Out of respect, the Doctor went to Grace's funeral, where she comforted Ryan. After the funeral, she went to a charity store with Ryan and Yaz, and chose a new outfit. Needing to find her TARDIS, the Doctor rigged up Tzim-Sha's transport pod, and transported herself to where she traced the TARDIS, accidentally bringing Graham, Yaz and Ryan with her. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

Winding up on a spaceship crash landing on the planet known only as Desolation, the Doctor and her companions accompanied a duo of space racers, Epzo and Angstrom, while they finished the Rally of the Twelve Galaxies. (TV: The Ghost Monument) While on Desolation, the Doctor overlooked the ocean as she considered her uncertainty about her future, knowing only that it would be "amazing". (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) Managing to survive the SniperBots hidden throughout the ruins of the planet, the Doctor uncovered a sabotaged science experiment conducted by another alien race subjugated by the Stenza, who had forced them to create weapons that would eventually poison the planet and reduce it to a barren wasteland. Cornered by their Remnants, who attempted to read her mind, the Doctor destroyed them by igniting the gas in the air. After the space racers left the planet, having decided to end the race with a draw, the TARDIS returned to the Doctor with a redecorated interior, and the Doctor made to return Graham, Yaz and Ryan to their home. (TV: The Ghost Monument) However, the Doctor had some trouble piloting the TARDIS with the new controls. (TV: Rosa)

Returning to Sheffield
The Doctor tried to pilot the TARDIS back to Sheffield but made several accidental stops along the way. (TV: Rosa)

After fourteen attempts to return to Sheffield, the TARDIS arrived in Montgomery on 30 November 1955. The Doctor noticed an influx of artron energy in the area, and decided to investigate. After Ryan was assaulted due to his skin colour, the Doctor was spared from having to interfere when Rosa Parks stepped up to alleviate the situation. When scanning Rosa revealed that she had been exposed to artron energy, and with her starting the Montgomery bus boycott just a day away, the Doctor decided to investigate, and found that a mass murderer from the far future named Krasko was attempting to prevent Rosa from initiating the boycott in the hope that doing so would prevent equality between races, but could not harm her or them due to a neural restrictor in his brain, forcing him to use a temporal displacement weapon instead. Engaging Krasko in a game of out doing each other, the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham were able to keep history on track, even realising that they were always part of the events, and ensure Rosa was arrested after refusing to follow James Blake's order to move seats for Graham to sit on the bus. (TV: Rosa)

The Doctor eventually got the TARDIS to Sheffield, but decided to stick around for tea at Yaz's flat after she was offered. She met Yaz's father and sister, Hakim and Sonya Khan, and went to retrieve an unclaimed package for Hakim with Ryan when Yaz left to pick up her mother. Going to the neighbour's flat, the Doctor and Ryan met Dr. Jade McIntyre, and found that the neighbour had been killed by a giant spider. When Graham arrived claiming to have found another giant spider in his house, the Doctor, Ryan and Graham were brought by Jade to her laboratory, where the Doctor found that a Robertson Luxury Hotels hotel was at the epicentre of the spider sightings. Arriving at the hotel to find Yaz and her mother, Najia Khan, being threatened by a massive spider with the hotel owner, Jack Robertson, the Doctor investigated underneath the hotel, and found that an old mine filled with waste disposed by Robertson's disposal company had caused a specimen from Jade's lab that was thought deceased to mutate.

The Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz, working with Robertson, Najia and Jade, were able to trap the entire brood of spiders in Robertson's panic room, and Robertson killed the spider mother with a gun, much to the Doctor's outrage, as the spider was already dying due to being too large to support itself. Later that night, as the Doctor prepared to depart, Yaz, Ryan and Graham returned to the TARDIS, explaining that they had all chosen to stay; Graham wished to have something to do to help him cope with Grace's passing, Ryan wanted more excitement in his life, and Yaz yearned to see more of the universe. Though the Doctor tried to persuade them to reconsider due to her dangerous lifestyle, the trio accepted the risks, pulling the dematerialisation lever together to continue their journeys as Team TARDIS. (TV: Arachnids in the UK)

Team TARDIS
The Doctor took her friends to a singing waterfall made of pink crystals, a unicorn sanctuary on a lost moon, the Big Bang (PROSE: The Good Doctor) and the upward tropics of Kinstarno for rain bathing. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum) She also outwitted carnivorous chessmen on Proxima Ceti, defused a temporal anomaly bomb on a derelict space station and escaped from 200 evil cyborg clones of Harry Houdini in a subway in New York City in 1904. (PROSE: The Secret in Vault 13) After Team TARDIS encountered the Death Eye Turtle Army, the Doctor found herself having to "profusely" apologise to Graham for taking a risk he disagreed with. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

Hoping to stock up on spare parts for the TARDIS, the Doctor went to a junk galaxy to scavenge. While there, Graham accidentally set off a sonic mine that knocked them out for four days. Fortunately, the Tsuranga medical ship had been nearby when the mine detonated, and they had been brought on board for treatment shortly after the blast. Upon regaining consciousness, the Doctor found out that the rescue craft was on a preprogramed route and could not take them back to the TARDIS until docking at Resus One. As the Doctor tried to find a way to get back to her TARDIS, a Pting managed to get aboard the ship, and began eating it. The Doctor stunned the Pting by making it eat a device that overloaded it with energy and ejected it into space. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum)

The Doctor was tasked with preventing the Genesis Seed stored in the secret Vault 13 within the Galactic Seed Vault from falling into the hands of Nightshade. (PROSE: The Secret in Vault 13)

At Yaz's urging, the Doctor took Team TARDIS to 1947 during the Partition of India, so Yaz could learn more about the life her grandmother, Umbreen, had before she moved to Sheffield, as Umbreen refused to talk about that time of her life. Meeting Umbreen and her fiancé, Prem, who Yaz claimed not to be her grandfather and had no knowledge of, the Doctor discovered Thijarians, a species of known assassins, near the body of a recently deceased holy man and assumed they were responsible for his death. However, the Thijarians revealed that they no longer killed, having been absent during the destruction of their planet, instead taking the role of witnesses to watch over the dying as they could not do this for their own people, and also revealed that Prem was destined to die during the Partition. Knowing history had to play out, the Doctor officiated the marriage of Prem and Umbreen in the place of the holy man, before Prem was killed on the orders of his brother, Manish, for marrying a woman of a different religion. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

While travelling in the Time Vortex, the TARDIS was boarded by a Kerb!am Man to deliver a fez the Doctor had ordered in a previous incarnation. On the packing slip, Yaz found a message begging for help. The Doctor took the team to Kerb!am to find the source of the distress call and they began investigating the mysterious disappearances of workers. The Doctor eventually determined that the Kerb!am AI itself had sent the distress call in response to the disappearance of the employees. Shortly after making this revelation, Ryan deduced that Charlie Duffy, a maintenance worker, was behind the disappearances, and Charlie revealed his plan to to have an army of Kerb!am Men deliver packages with bombs in the bubble wrap to kill Kerb!am customers and prevent automation from completely replacing a human workforce. The Doctor was able to reprogram the robots to open their own packages and detonate the explosives within, destroying the army and killing Charlie when he refused to escape with the Doctor. (TV: Kerblam!)

Attempting to see the coronation of Elizabeth I, the TARDIS instead brought Team TARDIS to Bilehurst Cragg in the 17th century, where the Doctor interfered in a witch trial, though she failed to save the accused, Old Mother Twiston, from drowning. Disgusted at the callousness of the landowner, Becka Savage, the Doctor tried getting her to see that there was no supernatural evil in her village, but the arrival of King James I hampered her attempts, especially when he dismissed her as a woman. Deciding to investigate elsewhere with Yaz while Ryan and Graham remained with King James, the Doctor visited Twiston's granddaughter, Willa, and learned of the unexpected depletion of the local fauna. The Doctor, Yaz and Willa investigated Old Mother Twiston's grave and saw her rise as a Morax. As Graham and Ryan arrived with King James and Becka in tow, the Doctor instructed Graham, Yaz and Ryan to follow the Morax as she questioned Becka. However, when she realised that Becka knew more than she was letting on, Becka accused the Doctor of being a witch, and King James ordered her drowned.

As she prepared to face a witch trial, the Doctor discovered that Becka was infected by the Morax Queen when she chopped down the lock keeping the Morax DNA imprisoned, thinking it was only a tree. Escaping her bonds after being submerged, the Doctor exposed Becka just before the Morax Queen took control of her and kidnapped King James, planning to turn him into a vessel for the Morax King. However, the Doctor was able to reactivate the prison to suck the Morax back in. Unfortunately, as the queen resisted, King James burned her with a torch, causing her to dissolve. Disgusted with the king, the Doctor refused to speak to him until she departed, with King James promising the end the witch trials and have the events in Bilehurst Cragg be stricken from the history books. (TV: The Witchfinders)

The Doctor took her friends to see the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, where she photobombed the picture of the royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. She then saw that Eva De Vil, who had been sent to assassinate her, was leaving the scene, but her attempt to interfere resulted in a lizard creature being taken by De Vil by mistake. Tracking De Vil, the Doctor landed the TARDIS on the Phasmatodea Cartel representative who hired De Vil and was able to retrieve the lizard creature. (COMIC: Where's the Doctor?)

After halting a war on the planet Lobos between the Loba and the human colonists, the Doctor and her companions departed in the TARDIS. When they attempted to return to retrieve Ryan's mobile phone, the TARDIS slipped almost six hundred years into the future, where the planet was now ruled by human zealots, served by slave Loba, whose religion was largely based on a misinterpreted throwaway joke made by Graham, who was worshipped by them as "The Good Doctor". First relegated to the background and having to do things through Graham's authority, the Doctor came into conflict with the ruling Temple of Tordos. She had to fight an artificially enhanced Loba Tromos to the death. In the end, the Doctor succeeded in uncovering the lie of the zealots, setting the record straight and brokering a lasting peace between humans and Loba. (PROSE: The Good Doctor)

When the TARDIS landed in 2018 Norway, Team TARDIS found Hanne, a blind girl left to fend for herself in a boarded up house with a monster seemingly hiding in the woods outside. While trying to help Hanne find the monster, the Doctor discovered a mirror leading to another plane of existence, and ventured through it with Yaz and Graham, where they found Hanne's father, Erik, living with his supposedly deceased wife, and what appeared to be Grace. Evaluating the facts with Yaz, the Doctor realised that her grandmother's old bedtime stories about the Solitract were real, and that she had discovered the living universe.

Thinking she had walked Graham into a trap, the Doctor tried to convince him and Erik to leave, but both men refused to lose their wives again, though Graham was convinced of Grace being a fake when she reacted with indifference to Ryan's safety. With everyone but Erik evacuated, the Doctor convinced the Solitract into forcibly releasing him by offering herself in his place. Now alone with the Doctor, the Solitract explained that it was not being malicious, but was in fact lonely and only wanted company. The Doctor convinced the Solitract that its existence was threatened by objects foreign to its universe, including her, and it reluctantly let her go. (TV: It Takes You Away)

The Doctor and her friends visited Adamantine, where the entire civilisation lived inside the hollowed shell underneath the planet's exterior. They soon befriended Ash, one of the native silicon-based life forms and the daughter of the planet's first scientist, Basalt. The Doctor soon determined that the civilisation was under threat as the exterior of the planet began to crack and let in water which threatened to cool the lava that Basalt's people needed to survive. While Graham and Yaz tried to calm the people, the Doctor and Ryan travelled up to the surface with Ash, learning that the cracks were caused by a mining expedition that had been "abandoned" after the original team was killed by an exploding gas pocket while leaving their equipment running. (PROSE: Molten Heart)

Team TARDIS landed in Gaul in 451 AD after the ship passed through an energy anomaly. Graham and Ryan were separated from the others during an attack, while the Doctor and Yaz were "captured" by Attila the Hun to serve as his new "combat witches" against the power of the mysterious Tenctrama. The Doctor eventually determined that the Tencrama were survivors of a catastrophe on a distant planet who now sought to gain power from the psychic energies generated by the deaths in the wars they were escalating on Earth. (PROSE: Combat Magicks)

When the TARDIS picked up nine separate distress signals from planet Ranskoor Av Kolos in 5425, the Doctor took interest in the fact that everyone kept ignoring them and took Team TARDIS to investigate. Finding Greston Paltraki alone in his ship with memory problems and a strange package, the Doctor helped restore his memory, and he remembered that he was on a rescue mission just as Tzim-Sha contacted him, demanding Paltraki give back what he stole in return for his crew's safety. The Doctor had Paltraki lead her and her companions to Tzim-Sha's base for a prisoner exchange, and Graham told her that he planned on murdering Tzim-Sha to avenge Grace, with the Doctor threatening to expel him from the TARDIS if he did, though he still planned to do it.

Arriving at Tzim-Sha's "edifice", the Doctor took the package directly to Tzim-Sha, and learned that, after the DNA bombs caused his teleporter to malfunction and strand him on Ranskoor Av Kolos, he had fooled the Ux, a rare species capable of dimensional engineering through pure thought, into seeing him as their God and convinced them to use their powers to heal him from his near death, and create a weapon that could miniaturise planets, killing the inhabitants in the process, so that Tzim-Sha could take revenge on worlds that had opposed the Stenza. However, the Doctor, with help from Yaz, was able to get the Ux to see their mistake and return the planets to their original places. With the planets return stabilising the universe, the Doctor found that Graham and Ryan had trapped Tzim-Sha inside one of his own trophy cases as punishment, with the Ux sealing the edifice to ensure no-one would be able to free him. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos)

After enjoying nineteen historical New Year's celebrations, Team TARDIS was alerted to spatial shifts in Sheffield, and met Mitch and Lin at an archaeological site in the sewers, where the Doctor obtained DNA from slime on the wall. Deciding to go to Graham's house, Team TARDIS found Ryan's absent father, Aaron, had arrived to reconnect with his son. After Ryan left to hear his dad out, the DNA analysis in the TARDIS completed, and the Doctor found that it belonged to a Dalek. Tracking down Mitch, the Doctor learned that the Dalek had been buried on Earth since the 9th century, and that it was controlling Lin. Resolving to stop the Dalek after Ryan returned, the Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, and Mitch, accidently leaving Graham behind with Aaron, tracked Lin to a warehouse, where the Dalek had constructed a new casing from scrap.

Revealing her identity to the Dalek, the Doctor demanded the Dalek leave the planet while it had the chance, but it refused. Collecting Graham and Aaron, the Doctor tracked the Dalek to the Government Communications Headquarters, where she and her team melted the Dalek's casing with Aaron's microwave oven. The victory was short-lived when the Kaled mutant inside took control of Aaron's body, forcing the Doctor to take it back to Skaro. However, the Doctor opened the TARDIS doors into a supernova, removing it from Aaron. (TV: Resolution)

With Team TARDIS
The Doctor and her companions travelled to the planet Gatan, arriving in the City of Radiant Stone in the midst of war. As the group split into twos to help a lost girl called Tondi find her mother, the Doctor and Yaz were attacked by a looter called Gorny, after the former asked him for directions. The Doctor was able to subdue the looter, but before he could divulge to the Doctor why the city was in such a state, they both got caught in the crossfire between two enemy warriors called Tumat and Kraytos. The Doctor later discovered that the two of them had been fighting for months, causing the destruction of the entire city, but upon attempting to confront them, she was grabbed by a robotic reporter called Sandola Dell and was teleported to her boss, Berakka Dogbolter. Berakka revealed the history of the warriors to the Doctor and how she was using enterprise to profit off of their fighting, and proceeded to attempt to kill the Doctor to protect her plans. (COMIC: The Warmonger)

Stopping to watch the Sentient Nebulae on Blecplam Two and a Half in 3912, the Doctor and her friends encountered a rip in time from which a humanoid hand emerged from a figure asking for someone to "grab on" as they "can't hold...". The Doctor recognised the rip as the very same anomaly she'd briefly encountered before in her tenth and twelfth incarnations. The rip quickly vanished as before, but the crew were able to track it down again to an unnamed planet, where they successfully saved the man trapped inside. After the group were suddenly surrounded and imprisoned by the Grand Army of the Just, the enigmatic time traveller, who identified himself as Dr Leon Perkins, explained that he'd become stuck in a time-loop when he and his superior activated the prototypes of their "wearable time travel tech", only for his to malfunction. Using her sonic screwdriver, which she managed to sneak past the grand army, the Doctor opened their containment cell and escaped with her friends. After a detour that saw them find a war room containing statues of a presumed diety called "The Judge" and what appeared to be war plans, the group finally made it back to the TARDIS safely. Suddenly, Perkins brandished a gun at them, saying that he needed their ship. (COMIC: A New Beginning)

To help her friends throw a surprise birthday party for Yaz, the Doctor went in her TARDIS to look for a cake, balloons, and birthday candles. At a bakery on Sontar, she bought a Sontaran Frosted Boom Cake, she obtained some "enormous balloons" from London during the Blitz, and some candles in Paris. When the party began, the cake exploded and covered the team in pink chocolate, but Yaz was happy nonetheless. (PROSE: Dr. Thirteenth)

Alone
The Doctor once posed as a museum curator in Venice. visited her to ask for the location of items that had been stolen from her in the 14th century. Missy took an old map from her and left. Later, the Doctor saved Antonia from being left behind in 14th century Venice, returning her to the present. She left Antonia with a note chastising Missy for her actions and that she would have to try harder next time. She then cleared out her office and told her assistant to tell anyone who asked that "the Doctor doesn't work here anymore." (PROSE: The Liar, the Glitch and the War Zone)

At some point, the Doctor met Cass Fermazzi and gave her a bandolier. While sitting on a bench in Henry VIII's third-favourite garden, the Doctor thought about the lesson the Moment had wanted to impart. The Moment then joined her on the bench, and when the Doctor asked her why she had helped him the day he saved Gallifrey, she said it was because she did not want to be used. About a year later, when the Doctor stood in a fountain at the heart of the Villengard banana groves, the Moment appeared again, continuing their conversation. The Moment told her that she helped because the universe had a need for the Doctor, and at that point, they were in danger of stopping. Pleased that she finally had an answer, the Doctor went back to the TARDIS with a renewed vigour. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)

The Doctor once offered to babysit a young Judoon refugee from a "big fight" on a world far from Earth, but was prevented from doing so by other Judoon. She went to 1966 Dublin after the young Judoon landed there, but found it was already in the care of Patricia. After the Judoon returned to its people, the Doctor gave a few encouraging words to Patricia. (PROSE: The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street)

While on an unnamed planet, the Doctor received a phone call from Santa Claus, telling her he needed her help with an emergency. She headed straight to Lapland to meet with him. Upon her arrival, Santa told the Doctor that his sleigh had lost its magical flying power. The Doctor lent him her TARDIS to substitute the sleigh, on the condition that he return it once he was finished. (WC: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas)

Miscellaneous

 * The Doctor had an encounter with Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart that was recorded on video. (PROSE: Avatars of the Intelligence) She also visited him shortly before his death in 2011. (PROSE: Acceptance, and then Understanding)
 * At some point before 5 March 2005, the Doctor was photographed "running away from a giant frog in front of Buckingham Palace". (PROSE: Rose)

Personality
Influenced by the final words of the Twelfth Doctor, (TV: Twice Upon a Time) the Thirteenth Doctor was a kindhearted individual, though she was aware that her compassion was a flaw. (TV: Demons of the Punjab, Resolution) A livewire full of energy, the Doctor fizzed with excitement and strived to be a warm and passionate person, willing to take great risks protecting innocent lives, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Witchfinders, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) and proud that she would never refuse anyone help if they needed it. Though empathetic, she would be short-tempered with those who put their own needs and wants above others. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, Arachnids in the UK)

A self-proclaimed "nutter", (TV: It Takes You Away) the Thirteenth Doctor was a chatty individual who defended talking as "brilliant", (TV: The Witchfinders) often going off on tangents, frequently rambling to distract herself or others from her worries. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, Arachnids in the UK, Demons of the Punjab, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) However, when facing an adversary by herself, the Doctor would appear as a confident and direct speaker. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Rosa, Demons of the Punjab, Kerblam!, The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Resolution) She could also be passive aggressive when talking to a foe, antagonising them into exposing their shortcomings. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Rosa, The Witchfinders)

She implored those around her to ask questions about a situation, and showed no irritation on how off topic the questions got, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) even showing excitement when the right questions were asked, (TV: Rosa) but would clarify when "the wrong question" to a situation was being posed. (TV: Arachnids in the UK) However, she showed displeasure in handling multiple questions simultaneously, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) and would refuse to answer questions asked of her if the person did not answer any questions she asked first. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos)

The Thirteenth Doctor had a tendency to make immediate assumptions, sometimes only to discover that her judgements were misplaced, though she would own up to her mistakes, once pointed out to her. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Demons of the Punjab, Kerblam!) On one occasion, in the heat of the moment, she acted selfishly, disregarding others and putting her own need to find her TARDIS first. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum) She also disliked not being in charge, still assuming to know better than someone else better equipped to be in charge of the situation at hand. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam!)

She had a bit of an ego, stating her plans would be a success due to her "not [being] an amateur", (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) boasting about her intelligence, (TV: The Ghost Monument, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) and describing her chapter in the Book of the Celebrants as being "more of a volume". (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum) She claimed to have an understanding of "pretty much everything". (COMIC: A New Beginning) She delighted in one Dalek's reaction to hearing her name. (TV: Resolution)

The Doctor claimed that she enjoyed making "trip[s] into the past" for research purposes, but knew to be cautious when making such trips, even writing a note to chastise for her lack of caution in that regard. (PROSE: The Liar, the Glitch and the War Zone) She took her devotion to the preservation of history so seriously that she described herself and her companions as its guardians. (TV: Rosa) Despite her usual unwillingness to tamper with time, the Doctor found herself willing take her companions to visit their own family history, with some persuasion, though warned her friend to "tread softly" on their own history. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) At some times, the Doctor's sense of justice got the better of her, making her intervene in past events if she believed them to be minuscule enough to not impact history. (TV: The Witchfinders) She would still show signs of distress if preserving history meant letting injustices stand and go unpunished. (TV: Rosa, Demons of the Punjab)

She retained the absent-mindedness of her previous incarnation, tending to forget how many times she did something, (TV: Rosa) lacking social awareness, (TV: Arachnids in the UK) and forgetting whether she was awarding points or gold stars to her companions. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) She also retained his veneration of the dead. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) As a result, the Doctor held respect for all living beings even if they caused harm due to their nature, (TV: Arachnids in the UK, The Tsuranga Conundrum) and sought to give a second chance even to the deadliest of her foes. (TV: Resolution)

She liked fried egg sandwiches, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) holograms, "big locked doors", (TV: The Ghost Monument) the number 51, the musical Hamilton, (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum) apple bobbing, (TV: The Witchfinders) and Wellington boots. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) She retained her eleventh incarnation's fondness for fezzes. (TV: Kerblam!)

The Doctor enjoyed biscuits, (TV: Demons of the Punjab) with custard creams being a particular favourite, (TV: The Ghost Monument) and tea, (TV: Arachnids in the UK) with Yorkshire Tea being her preference. (PROSE: The Good Doctor) For breakfast, she liked to have cereal or croissants. (TV: Arachnids in the UK)

While she once claimed to "love a conspiracy", (TV: Arachnids in the UK) she disliked ones that resulted in information being purposely withheld from her. (TV: Kerblam!) She also heavily disliked having empty pockets, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) as well as olives, (PROSE: The Good Doctor) bullies, and people in danger. (TV: Kerblam!)

The Thirteenth Doctor was passionately against murder, trying her best to subdue her opponents in a non-lethal fashion. (TV: Arachnids in the UK, The Witchfinders, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) She also expressed distaste for the act even when committed by her allies, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) and was deeply disturbed when she was forced to indirectly be responsible for the loss of life, (TV: Kerblam!) seeking confirmation from her friends that she had given every opportunity for a better outcome when she resorted to killing her foes. (TV: Resolution)

Similar to the Tenth Doctor, the Thirteenth Doctor disliked weaponry, opting instead to use her intellect and environment to her advantage, (TV: The Ghost Monument, Arachnids in the UK) though admitted it was a "flexible creed", as she thought that anything that could be rebuilt was "fair game" to be destroyed. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) Specifically, the Doctor believed guns "made things worse", as they only agitated attackers, (TV: The Ghost Monument) and that only "idiots" carried knives. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

The Thirteenth Doctor stated that love was central to her "faith", believing it to be the better source of belief. (TV: Demons of the Punjab, The Witchfinders) Like her early incarnations, the Thirteenth Doctor was not interested in romance, (TV: Arachnids in the UK) but retained a respect for it. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) She was also a strong believer in hope. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos)

Much like her eleventh incarnation, the Thirteenth Doctor would run into a situation without a strategy in mind, hoping to come up with a plan in the heat of the moment, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Resolution) claiming to be "good in a tight spot", (TV: The Ghost Monument) but would take precautions when she knew how dangerous a situation was. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) She was confident she could take on any threat. (TV: Resolution)

She used humour to defuse tension, (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum) demonstrating a playful sense of humour. She labelled the Moment's interface "a Christmas cracker", and responded to Cass Fermazzi's mention of having needed childhood therapy with a dry "didn't we all". (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)

She retained the guilt demonstrated in her prior incarnations over the events of the Last Great Time War. Visiting Cass prior to her death, the Doctor expressed her regret over Cass' fate and noted that saving Cass was impossible as "[Cass] was too wrapped up in [her] timeline", demonstrating her continued respect for the Laws of Time. She was unwilling to alter her own personal timeline. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor) Like her immediate predecessor, she believed that "no one ever wins at war". (PROSE: The Good Doctor)

The Thirteenth Doctor was not above being secretive and cryptic, handing an annotated map of 14th century Venice, without explaining it and leaving Missy to discover for herself what the annotations meant, while also not divulging her true identity to Missy. (PROSE: The Liar, the Glitch and the War Zone)

Even when asserting her authority, the Doctor would reassure others' safety in a careful, but direct, manner, (TV: The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Resolution) but was willing to withhold information if it meant appeasing someone who was particularly stubborn. (TV: It Takes You Away) She always gave her friends the chance to walk away or stay behind when faced with danger, (TV: Rosa, Arachnids in the UK, Resolution) and sometimes preferred to face an enemy alone. (TV: Rosa, Demons of the Punjab, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Resolution)

She was upfront and honest with her feelings, letting people know when she was afraid or no longer feeling a certain way. (TV: Demons of the Punjab, The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, Resolution) She was particularly displeased to be reminded of being an outcast, (TV: The Ghost Monument) and tried to hide her fear of loneliness with the company she kept, becoming upset at the prospect of bidding her companions a farewell. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Arachnids in the UK) She considered her friends to be an extended family. (TV: Resolution)

The Thirteenth Doctor stood against racism and prejudice, and showed her disgust with gentle comments of acceptance. (TV: Rosa)

The Doctor considered Graham, Yaz and Ryan to be her "best friends". (TV: Resolution) She was encouraging with them, especially when they made a connection, showed prowess, acted well in a crisis, or came up with a good plan of action. (TV: Arachnids in the UK, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Demons of the Punjab, Resolution) She liked giving her companions, Ryan in particular, a chance to shine. (TV: The Ghost Monument, Kerblam!) She was stern with Graham when he expressed an intention to kill Tzim-Sha, warning him he would not be invited back into the TARDIS if he carried it through, and expressed her pride in him when he chose not to kill Tzim-Sha. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos)

The Thirteenth Doctor also had a much friendlier approach to Santa Claus than her immediate predecessor, even allowing him to borrow her TARDIS for an emergency, (WC: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas) in spite of her dislike of being separated from her ship. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum)

Habits and quirks
Early in her life, the Thirteenth Doctor had some trouble adjusting to her new gender, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument) having trouble getting used to people calling her "Ma'am". (TV: Rosa) She openly enjoyed getting opportunities she never had when she used to be a man. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) However, she would later become frustrated when facing judgment because of her new form. (TV: The Witchfinders) Much like the Eighth Doctor, she did not consider herself to be a man or a woman "in the way that [humans] understand it". (PROSE: The Good Doctor)

Like her ninth incarnation, the Thirteenth Doctor spoke with a northern accent. She also used "Oi" to get someone's attention, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Rosa, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) or when beginning a counter-argument. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum, Demons of the Punjab)

Similar to her tenth incarnation, she would consider good things and ideas to be "brilliant", (TV: Twice Upon a Time, Rosa, Kerblam!, The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away) but would also use the word in a sarcastic sense, (TV: The Ghost Monument) and to describe how someone performed in a crisis. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum)

Also like the Tenth Doctor, she was quick to apologise for her own actions and others' circumstances. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, Arachnids in the UK, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Demons of the Punjab, The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Resolution)

When making a statement, the Doctor would say "right" before elaborating on her statement. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, It Takes You Away) She would say things were going to be "fine" to reassure people, usually when all evidence pointed to the contrary. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument) When pressing someone to move or act quickly, she would say "chop-chop", (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Kerblam!) or, "get a shift on". (TV: The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum) When explaining her intended actions, the Doctor would utter, "but not right now", to show that she was preoccupied with a different situation than the one she was explaining. (TV: The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum) When the Doctor came to a new realisation, she would slowly utter "oh..." as the idea dawned on her. (TV: The Ghost Monument, Rosa, Arachnids in the UK, Demons of the Punjab, Resolution)

When surprised, the Doctor tended to give a yelp. (TV: The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam!, Resolution)

She often boasted about meeting historical figures, usually with an accompanying tale that shed new light on the character of said figure. (TV: The Ghost Monument, Rosa, Arachnids in the UK, Demons of the Punjab, Kerblam!, The Witchfinders)

The Doctor would state a feeling she was having, but then backtrack on that feeling and claim to be feeling the opposite of what she initially felt. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) She would also state one thing before backtracking to elaborate on her statement. (TV: The Ghost Monument, Kerblam!)

The Thirteenth Doctor would lean her face forward, with her eyebrows lowered and her upper lip stretched upwards, when she was feeling annoyed, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Demons of the Punjab) giving an unbelievable explanation, (TV: The Ghost Monument) or when thinking intensely. (TV: Arachnids in the UK, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Resolution) She would likewise scrunch her face up when annoyed, (TV: Rosa, The Witchfinders) trying to hide her hurt feelings, (TV: Arachnids in the UK) in pain, (TV: Demons of the Punjab) observing, (TV: It Takes You Away, Resolution) or apologising for an embarrassing stunt she pulled. (TV: Resolution)

She would sometimes flick a half-smile. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Arachnids in the UK, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Demons of the Punjab, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Resolution)

When pleased, the Doctor would beam a wide smile. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, Arachnids in the UK, Demons of the Punjab, Resolution)

She often stood with her hands on her hips, (TV: The Ghost Monument, Rosa, Arachnids in the UK, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam!, Resolution) or behind her back. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam!, The Witchfinders)

As with previous incarnations, she would also stand with her hands in her pockets, flicking her coat back as she did so. (TV: Demons of the Punjab, It Takes You Away)

When giving a speech, proclaiming instructions or vocally analysing her situation, the Doctor would move her hands upwards, with her hands facing her head and with her fingers curled. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam!, The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away, Resolution)

When drawing it from her coat, she would flourish her sonic screwdriver. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Ghost Monument, Arachnids in the UK, Kerblam!, Resolution)

The Doctor used a point system to grade her companions to mark how well they performed. (TV: The Tsuranga Conundrum, Demons of the Punjab, It Takes You Away)

Skills
Much like her third incarnation, the Thirteenth Doctor was a skilled mechanic, being able to craft new contraptions from raw material she found, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Demons of the Punjab) or alter technology at her disposal to suit a new purpose of her choosing. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) She was also able to quickly reformat Ryan's mobile phone into a tracker to find the gathering coil, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) and reactivate Twirly to be plugged into the Kerb!am System. (TV: Kerblam!)

The Doctor demonstrated astute detective skills, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Arachnids in the UK, It Takes You Away) and could deduce a person's thought pattern through eye contact. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) She was also able to tell when she was talking to a bad liar. (TV: Rosa, The Tsuranga Conundrum)

With the aid of Venusian aikido, the Doctor could use her pinkie finger to paralyse someone without harming them by pressing on their throat, (TV: The Ghost Monument, Kerblam!) and could throw someone over her shoulder with little difficulty. She was also swift and nimble, able to avoid being struck by a fist with ease, (COMIC: The Warmonger) and glide across a surface, jump and roll while avoiding shots from a Dalek gunstick. (TV: Resolution)

She could also analyse her environment by tasting the ground. (TV: It Takes You Away)

Without the aid of a translation circuit, the Doctor could read the language of the Creators of Death. (TV: The Ghost Monument)

She could quickly calculate the length of time it would take her to do something, and act with quick succession, (COMIC: The Warmonger) though she sometimes doubted she would be able to. (TV: Resolution)

Like her predecessors, the Thirteenth Doctor was a skilled escape artist, crediting it to the teachings of Harry Houdini. (TV: The Witchfinders)

Appearance
The Thirteenth Doctor resembled a woman in her mid-thirties, possessing jaw-length blonde hair with dark roots, and hazel-coloured eyes. (TV: Twice Upon a Time) To her annoyance, she was shorter than her predecessor. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

In preparation for Umbreen's wedding to Prem, the Doctor had henna tattoos temporarily applied to her arms by Hasna. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

Lucy Wilson described her as a "beautiful woman", (PROSE: Avatars of the Intelligence) with James I also commenting on her "alluring form". (TV: The Witchfinders) Patricia thought that the Doctor's face conveyed a constant, unashamed amazement. (PROSE: The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street)

Clothing


After going clothes shopping at a charity shop with Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) the Thirteenth Doctor took to wearing a hooded, lilac-blue trench coat with dark blue interim and a rainbow pattern along the edges of it. (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) She was very prideful of her coat, (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) and would try to avoid the coat getting damaged due to her fondness of it, (TV: The Witchfinders) though she had to rip part of it to help history go undisturbed from Krasko's meddling, but had the tear repaired by seamstress Rosa Parks. (TV: Rosa) Her protectiveness of the coat extended to not wearing it during TARDIS maintenance. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

Under her coat, the Doctor wore a T-shirt with rainbow stripes running across the chest, with the colouring coming in dark purple, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) and burgundy. (TV: Rosa) Under her shirt, she wore a white, long-sleeved jumper. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Rosa)

On her legs, she wore a pair of high-waisted teal blue capri trousers, (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) kept up by mustard yellow braces. (PROSE: Rose) For footwear, she wore blue striped socks with brown, laced-up boots. (COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who) She sometimes wore a bum bag around her waist to carry her sonic screwdriver and psychic paper. (TV: Arachnids in the UK)

She also wore golden-ringed ear cuffs at the top and at the lobe of her left ear. The top cuff was a series of eight joint stars, and the bottom cuff was in the shape of two hands holding each other. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)

On occasion, she would wear a multi-coloured scarf around her neck. (TV: Resolution)

First female Doctor
The Thirteenth Doctor is the first and,, only incarnation of the Doctor in the programme's history to be played by a woman. Before Jodie Whittaker, though, the idea of a woman Doctor had been explored.

The idea that a female actor could take the role of the Doctor was first publicly introduced by John Nathan-Turner and Tom Baker in 1980. By Baker's suggestion, he told the press, "I certainly wish my successor luck, whoever he—or she—might be." Peter Davison was cast as the Fifth Doctor, but the idea remained alive, as in a Daily Star article from 29 July 1983, headlined as AFTER Dr WHO... Dr HER?, talking about Davison bowing out, Nathan-Turner said; "the hunt for a new doctor starts today and it's quite feasible it will be a woman". Colin Baker was eventually cast as the Sixth Doctor.

In 1986, creator Sydney Newman suggested that "at a later stage Doctor Who should be metamorphosed into a woman", offering Joanna Lumley as the potential candidate for the Seventh Doctor. and Dawn French were also mentioned. Eventually, Sylvester McCoy was cast in 1987.

By the time Whittaker was announced as the actor to follow Peter Capaldi, it was well-established, to viewers and within the Doctor Who universe, that the Doctor could be played by a woman.

Though a parody, The Curse of Fatal Death (1999) by Steven Moffat introduced another Thirteenth Doctor, played by Joanna Lumley. This Doctor, upon regenerating, immediately noted that she had "etheric beam locators" (calling back to an earlier gag where etheric beam locators had been confused for breasts). When Emma tells her that those are actual breasts, the Doctor says that she "always wanted to get [her] hands on one of these". At the end, she suddenly finds the Master attractive, and they walk off together, arms around each other's waists.

In 1999's Interference - Book Two, a BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, I.M. Foreman is twice stated to have a female tenth incarnation, who calls herself Queen Nitocris.

In 2002, the Big Finish audio Seasons of Fear features the Eighth Doctor telling his future/past enemy Sebastian Grayle, in his own first encounter with that character, that the Doctor is "not a glamorous woman at the moment", hinting that he could become such a thing in the future.

The Big Finish Doctor Who Unbound story Exile (2003), though not set in the prime Doctor Who universe, starred a female Third Doctor, played by Arabella Weir. The story tried to establish that, in this universe, suicide was necessary for a "sex-change regeneration", which was also considered a crime by the Time Lords. Later stories, particularly in the Steven Moffat era, would contradict the idea that changing gender during regeneration was anything out of the ordinary.

Prior to the massive comeback of the TV series in 2005, Jane Tranter wanted the Ninth Doctor to be the first female incarnation, played by.

A cut line in The Unquiet Dead would have had Sneed remark to the Ninth Doctor, "I thought you'd be a woman," to which the Doctor would respond, "No, not yet."

In 2007, when David Tennant announced his intention to leave, the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) wanted the next Doctor to be female, issuing a statement saying: "There is a distinct lack of role models of female scientists in the media and recent research shows that this contributes to the under-representation of women in the field. The UKRC believes that making a high profile sci-fi character with a following like Doctor Who female would help to raise the profile of women in science and bring the issue of the important contribution women can and should make to science in the public domain."

In 2010, The End of Time: Part Two had the Eleventh Doctor briefly think he had regenerated into a woman, immediately post-regeneration. He quickly realised that he was mistaken, on finding his Adam's apple.

In 2011, Neil Gaiman's The Doctor's Wife was the first television story to make direct reference to a Time Lord changing gender through regeneration. The Doctor talks of the Corsair, a "fantastic bloke", who was also a "bad girl" in a couple of their incarnations.

In 2013, The Night of the Doctor had the Sisterhood of Karn offer the Eighth Doctor the choice of "man or woman", for his approaching regeneration. However, the novelisation of The Day of the Doctor revealed that the elixir given to the Doctor was just lemonade and dry ice, so the offer is almost rendered a moot point.

That year, the idea of a female Twelfth Doctor gained a media presence. The Guardian offered up their own suggestions for the role.

In 2014, Steven Moffat introduced audiences to, revealed in Dark Water to be the first female incarnation of the Master. Missy was a recurring character in series 8, 9, and 10.

In 2015, Hell Bent showed audiences the regeneration of the General, from a male to a female incarnation. While not the first such regeneration depicted, it was the first to take place on-screen. Just eighteen days before the episode aired, Big Finish audio story The Black Hole had its own male-to-female regeneration scene.

Also in 2015, Liz White voiced Genesta in The Brink of Death, an audio story by Big Finish. As Genesta was a disguise of the Valeyard, White played him and by extension, the Doctor. This made her the first woman to portray the Doctor in a valid production.

In 2016, Enemy Lines, another Big Finish audio, showed the first female-to-male regeneration.

2017's World Enough and Time included a rooftop conversation, between the Twelfth Doctor and Bill, in which the Doctor is only "fairly sure" that his first incarnation was a man, as it was a long time ago. The Doctor here claims that Time Lords are "beyond [the] petty human obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes".

The same year, the audio story The Conscript included a conversation between the Eighth Doctor and a Time Lord soldier, where the Doctor stated that he was a "he, for now at least".

Appearances prior to her first full story
The Thirteenth Doctor is unique amongst her previous incarnations by having appeared multiple times in the expanded media before her official television debut in The Woman Who Fell to Earth.
 * Like most incarnations of the BBC Wales series, she appeared in some specially-made teasers in the run-up to series 11.
 * She was featured in the narrative poem The Death List from the collection Now We Are Six Hundred, with an illustration by Russell T Davies.
 * Postcards from the Thirteenth Doctor to Doctor Who spinoff characters were discussed and depicted in the Lethbridge-Stewart short story When Times Change... (printed with The Two Brigadiers); the Iris Wildthyme short story A Lady Doctor?; and the City of the Saved short story Postscript in Stranger Tales of the City.
 * She was mentioned as appearing with her other incarnations in archive footage during Avatars of Intelligence and Rose.
 * She made an extended speaking cameo in The Liar, the Glitch and the War Zone, though her identity was only revealed at the end of the story.
 * She made a surprise appearance in Chapter 13 of The Day of the Doctor.
 * Her costume made its debut in the invalid comic story And Introducing....
 * The first official trailer featuring this incarnation was put forward as a part of the major press debut of the series 11 team at San Diego Comic-Con 2018.