Doctor Who: Every Prophecy In The Show (& Which Came True)

The sci-fi fantasy show Doctor Who sometimes explores the world of prophecy, and many of them have come to pass. The prophecies come in the form of the dreams of alien species like the Ood, from visions from clairvoyant humans like Evelina, and a collection of other sources. The fulfillment of these prophecies has enriched the show for long-time fans.

Since time in the Doctor Who universe is but a “big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff,” foresight is nebulous. The Doctor, along with many other characters, swims in time, where the future and the past often collide, leading to a heightened level of perception from people who come in contact with him. Inspired moments of augury are peppered through the show, punctuating the hazy nature of what is to come versus what has passed. In some cases, predictions are merely a case of historical knowledge, but even then they are not assured.

Beings with precognitive abilities are introduced in very specific ways throughout the series. Many revelations deal with the Doctor himself, who has as much to learn about himself as the audience does. He is perpetually enigmatic, as is his/her future. As he moves through time and space, little pieces of the puzzle that is the Doctor come together through drips and drabs of destiny. The Doctor, his friends, and his enemies are folded into the fabric of the foretold, bringing about exciting plots, luminous stories, and complex characters that fans can really grab onto.

Dalek Caan

Dalek Caan was driven mad when he saw all of time and space. He traveled into the Time War, which showed him “time, its infinite complexity and majesty raging through his mind.” He saw a “three-fold man” that would descend upon the Daleks, and his prophecy ended up being correct when the 10th Doctor, the meta-crisis Doctor, and Doctor Donna showed up in “The Stolen Earth.” His repeated prophecy stood as a threat to the doctor: one of his most faithful companions was doomed to die. His final words, “One will still die,” were one last jab to the Doctor. No one died, but the Doctor was forced to tragically wipe Donna’s memory clean so as to save her life. In that way, he lost one of his most cherished companions, as she would no longer remember him or the adventures they had together.

Another foretelling of Caan’s was concerning the “true self” of the Doctor. Through the series, the Doctor doesn’t take up weapons against his foes willingly, mostly opting for the passive utilization of a sonic screwdriver. However, Davros comments that when the Doctor gathers all his friends together to bring death to the Dalek race, it is his friends that are his weapons. In this, Dalek Caan was correct: the Doctor’s true nature is one made in war, and he creates companions like the meta-war Doctor to do the dirty work for him, this time in the destruction of the Daleks.

The First Doctor Is Not The First

In “The Brain of Morbius,” the Doctor and Sarah Jane come across a creature whose mind reveals eight additional previous incarnations that the fourth Doctor is not aware of. This reveals that there may have been other versions of the Doctor before the one that he understands was the first. Through the years, there were contradictions to this revelation, most significantly in episodes like “The Three Doctors,” “Mawdryn Undead,” and “The Five Doctors.” In the March 2020 episode “The Timeless Children,” however, the answer to this puzzle was finally unfolded. First, in a series 12 episode “Fugitive of the Judoon,” a mysterious woman named Ruth is introduced. It is slowly divulged that Ruth very well may be a previous incarnation of the Doctor who found her way into an alternate universe after her memory was wiped. The Doctor ponders upon whether she remembers her life correctly and whether her first self was indeed first. In “The Timeless Children,” the true origin of the Doctor is revealed. She is not a Time Lord at all, but a being called a Timeless Child who is capable of unlimited regenerations. The Doctor’s memories are suppressed by an organization called “The Division,” who altered the past in an effort to protect Gallifrey.

The Fires Of Pompeii

Time traveler Donna Noble is called a “false prophet” by the Sibylline Sisterhood when she told them that Vesuvius would erupt and destroy Pompeii. Donna is of course not clairvoyant, rather simply knowledgeable of history. This “prophecy” of course unfortunately came true in August of 79 A.D. The Sisterhood foretold that a “blue box” would arrive at a moment of “storms and fire and betrayal,” which of course came about. Another true clairvoyant, Evelina, predicts that someone is about to have to make a terrible choice. Within the action of the episode, the Doctor is forced to choose to allow the citizens of Pompeii to perish in order to save the world.

Lucius, the city augur, makes conjectures about Donna and the Doctor that also bear weight. As he proves his skills as an Oracle, he identifies personal details about each and makes pronouncements. To the Doctor he says, “She is returning.” This refers to Rose, who does indeed return in “Turn Left,” and “The Stolen Earth.” To Donna he says, “There is something on your back.” This indicates the time beetle that latches to her back and messes with her timeline in “Turn Left.”

The Dream Of The Ood

The tenth Doctor observes that the Ood as a species are accelerating far more quickly than they should. An Ood confides in him that every night they share bad dreams. An Ood elder says, “It is always returning—through the fire and the blood, always returning. It is returning, and he is returning, and they are returning, but too late—far too late—he has come.” The Doctor agrees to share in their dream, and he sees a vision of the Master’s laughing face. He denies the prophecy, insisting that the Master is dead. He also sees a political couple he does not recognize as well as a sorrowful Wilfred and the Master’s wife Lucy in mourning. A part of the Master survived, as is shown in a Gallifreyan ring that falls from his burial pyre, ending up in the manicured hand of an elegant older woman. The Ood tells the Doctor that the Master is part of a “greater design, because a shadow is falling over creation, and something vast is stirring in the dark.” The Ood have gained power to see through time because “time is bleeding.” These events herald the end of time itself. The vision is fulfilled in “The End of Time” when the Doctor saw the Master revive in the form of Missy and he himself was forced to regenerate to save Wilfred.

Bad Wolf

References to Bad Wolf are peppered all over the first series of the renewed Doctor Who. At first, it seems a coincidence, but when precognitive servant girl Gwyneth says to Rose, “And you, you’ve flown so far, further than anyone! The things you’ve seen. The darkness. The Big Bad Wolf,” the moment seems significant. Gwyneth stumbles back in fright in a moment wonderfully acted by Eve Myles, and the previously innocuous words are imbued with meaning. The audience and characters start seeing the words Bad Wolf everywhere, including graffiti, breaking news about the Face of Boe’s pregnancy, in a Welsh sign at a power plant (Blaidd Drwg), and on a German missile (Schlechter Wolf), to name a few. This all leads up to Rose becoming the Bad Wolf entity when she looks into the heart of the TARDIS. Her being is filled with the time vortex, and she is able to revive Jack Harkness, who from that point on is immortal. The Doctor absorbs the vortex into himself to save her and change her back into Rose as he regenerates, but Bad Wolf is an ontological paradox tying Rose forever to the Doctor, so Bad Wolf continues to pop up in the series from time to time.

Knock Four Times

In “Planet of the Dead,” an older woman named Carmen with middling psychic abilities finds her powers heightened by proximity to the Doctor. As she bids him farewell, she has foresight into what will come, saying, “Your song is ending, sir. It is returning. It is returning through the dark and then Doctor, oh, but then. He will knock four times.” The Doctor fears her words, doing everything in his power to stop the inevitable. He goes so far as to electrocute Andy Stone to bar him from knocking four times in “The Waters of Mars.” He discovers what the “it” in Carmen’s prophecy was: Gallifrey. The Doctor’s home planet reappeared in all its glory, nearly obliterating earth. The Doctor and the Master pair up to banish the Time Lords and Gallifrey back to where they belong, and the Doctor thinks himself free. At that moment, four knocks sound. Wilfred raps on the door of a radiation booth he is locked in. The Doctor, knowing this to be his final moment, sacrifices himself to save Wilfred, regenerating as his song ends.

The Hybrid

A foretelling of a hybrid creature destined to bring about the destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords is an old legend from the prophecies of The Matrix. Davros was convinced that the hybrid is a combination of both Time Lord and Dalek, and he aimed to bring the prophecy about by creating his own Time Lord and Dalek half-breeds via the Doctor’s energy. The Doctor had his own theory, considering the human-Mire hybrid Ashildr as a possible candidate. In the series 12 finale “The Timeless Children,” the prophecy may have been realized. As the Doctor and the Master stand among the ashes of their beloved home planet, the Master reveals the secret history of the origin of the Time Lords and the race that used to exist on Gallifrey, the Shobogans. The Master kills the Lone Cyberman in order to bond with the Cyberium, an artificial intelligence hub. The Master becomes a hybrid of Time Lords and Cybermen, born in the ashes of Gallifrey, and the prophecy is considered fulfilled.

The Arrival

An authoritative sect known as The Governors spent their time studying the cracks in space and time. They served at Coal Hill Academy, keeping a well-run school as they attempted to discover the purposes in the cracks. In the meantime, under the guidance of the Weeping Angels, they prepared for “the arrival.” On a tablet in the academy hung a tablet that depicting a weeping angel descending upon modern-day London. A piece of the tablet where the angel’s head should have been was missing, and illegible inscriptions muddied the message. The Governors expended a great deal of technology and brain-power in preparation for the arrival, but it never came.

Silence Falling

“Silence will fall when the question is asked,” is the phrase repeated by several characters through the era of the eleventh Doctor (once translated as “silence must fall”) in Doctor Who. More specifically, the religious sect known as the Silence predicted: “On the Fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked: a question that must never ever be answered.” The Silence are committed to keeping one man — the Doctor — from answering that which must never be answered. On Trenzalore, the Time Lords made an attempt to re-enter the universe through a crack in time and space. The question that wasn’t to be answered was the Doctor’s real name, so the Time Lord flooded Trenzalore — in particular a town called Christmas — with a truth field that would force the Doctor to reveal his name, thus opening the crack for their entry. Instead, the Doctor stayed in Christmas for centuries, defending it from invading aliens until his regeneration. The prophecy was not necessarily fulfilled but re-interpreted, as the Doctor never speaks his name, leaving that task to River Song.

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