The Doctor once said, “We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?” And when it comes to a life full of stories to tell, this character has more than any living being in the Whoniverse. The concept of storytelling and its power take on a new meaning in Doctor Who’s “The Story & The Engine,” which takes us through a little previous incarnation trip through the Doctor’s past. We see many of his previous faces onscreen, but we get a surprise cameo from Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor.
In this episode, the Doctor and Belinda arrive in Lagos to fuel up the Vindicator. Before the Doctor goes off into the streets, he opens up to Belinda about his reality. He talks about what it is like to be an otherworldly being in a Black body. Fifteen admits that there are many places in the world where he’s not accepted. However, he feels at home in a small barbershop where he can engage with other men and tell stories.
It’s a reflection of many Black men’s lives, who often find community in the safe space of a barbershop. The Doctor specifically says it is his first time having THIS Black body and not A Black body because, well, that would be false. We know that the Fugitive Doctor presents as a Black woman with locs and the Doctor does remember meeting that incarnation.
The barbershop where the Doctor found peace turns out to be something much stranger. The Doctor’s friends are trapped there, thanks to a man they call the Barber. He owns the shop and forces them to tell stories while he cuts their hair. Their tales fuel his vessel, which looks like a giant spider and travels along the Nexus, which he formed as the real World Wide Web to weave together stories.
Thanks to a time space compressor, the barbershop is both in Lagos and traveling at the same time and will only let two people in and out. Besides the Barber, the other person is a woman, whom the Doctor knows from somewhere. She’s rather abrasive towards him and he doesn’t connect the dots. The Barber tries to like and say he is several gods from several cultures, including Anansi the spider man. But the Doctor and Belinda quickly call out (and laugh about) his lie.
The Doctor says he met all of the gods, noting that Anansi made him lose a bet to marry one of his daughters. Well, that daughter is the woman in the shop, whose real name is Abena. She’s upset that the Doctor left her behind and the frame moves, showing Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor in place of the Fifteenth Doctor. She explains that she was a fugitive and busy with a different story that might be finished one day. That checks out considering the Doctor’s work with the Division, with most of those memories stuck in that fob watch from Tecteun. Considering that Abena is a goddess herself, it makes sense that the Doctor’s new face is not shocking to her.
It is possible that the Doctor will start to peel back those layers of the past and uncover more secrets. This means we could see the Fugitive Doctor return again. Perhaps we will get more flashbacks as we discover what happened to the Doctor during that time.
Abena got in cahoots with the Barber, who admits that he was once human. He was the fuel behind telling the gods’ stories and printing them to strengthen their bond with humanity. However, he didn’t get credit for his stories, so that’s why he wants to ruin them all. In the end, Abena has a change of heart and decides to tell a story about braiding hair, giving the Doctor cornrows and a pathway towards escaping. It’s a story where everyone lives, which is always nice. But it was even better to learn a bit more about the Fugitive Doctor and see her once again.
Content shared from nerdist.com.