Spoilers: Steven Moffat managed to troll the Internet hard by faking people out and titling the latest episode of Doctor Who “The Name of the Doctor,” but they never in fact named him! We’re taking the opportunity to point out some of the reasons why viewers learning his name is something that should not and probably will not ever happen.
You can’t mess with the show’s title.
Doctor Who is the longest running sci-fi television show in history, which means that it has quite the track record with fans. It’s bigger than Moffat, Russell T. Davies, and any other show-runner that will come to pass, however hard they try to change it. You can bring in the scariest of monsters, the best of Doctors, and the most wonderful companions the series ever had, and it will always remain Doctor Who, not Doctor [insert show-runner’s decisions for a name here]!
Even if the show was ending permanently, and you were watching the last episode of Doctor Who ever, you can’t name the Doctor on screen! Why? Because we’ll know the answer whenever someone asks “Doctor who?” and therefore the show title will be completely redundant, and we’ll be annoyed for the rest of our Whovian lives.
It’s unpronounceable
The Doctor himself said that it’s something we won’t be able to prounounce. Perhaps it’s pronounceable in Gallifreyan, which would make sense as to why River can say it, but to the normal human it’s supposed to be something we can’t say. Don’t know about you, but we’d rather not have to refer him as Doctor fghdjkabgtttsdrsto, Doctor Who has a much better ring to it!
Nothing will live up to the hype.
Fifty years is a long time coming, and fans have been speculating about the Doctor’s name for ages. It can be a cornucopia of things but no matter what someone will hopefully never decide, it should remain a mystery for all time.
Let’s not even try to name him for the 100th anniversary, if it comes to that. When we tell our grandkids about Doctor Who, we want it to be with as little an inkling of what his name is as we have now.
If you thought he was actually going to be named in this episode, you can rest your overly anxious mind and go to sleep knowing that the mystery is still there. If you’re still curious about what it could be, take a look at our guesses of what the Doctor’s name is!