In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine issue #475, showrunner Steven Moffat questions something that has not been questioned since Doctor Who returned in 2005: Is the Doctor really not an alien?

In the issue, Moffat wants the audience to ask themselves a question: “Here’s a question I tried on some Doctor Who fans recently, and we were all a bit startled by the answer, when it finally emerged – if we got it right. Okay; keeping in mind that everything you know for sure is probably wrong, answer me this: in which story is it confirmed, definitively, that the Doctor is not human?”

Keep in mind that season 1, episode 1 of the reboot, “Rose,” has the following conversation that he holds with her:

“It’s alien,” says Rose.
“Yeah.”
“Are you alien?”
“Yes, is that alright?
“Yeah.”

Despite that conversation in the first episode of the reboot, Moffat continues to question the audience. “Now before you jump up and yell ‘An Unearthly Child’ – sorry, but wrong. He makes it clear he’s not from this time, and seems to indicate that he was born on another world, but he never says he’s an alien. He could, just as easily, be a human being from the far future, born on some colonized world. Indeed, most of his conversation in the early days would seem to confirm that he thinks of himself as human, and he even explicitly states that he is, at least once.

“So come on then. To your DVD collection. In what story do the wise men and women of the BBC stop fudging the issue, and make our hero Not One Of Us. I’m not talking about him having remarkable abilities or attributes – we’ve always known he’s not ordinary, that s fair enough. Spider-Man’s not ordinary, but he’s not an alien. And I’m not talking about series bibles, or internal memos or retconned continuity – when did the Doctor Who production team stop hedging their bets and make him alien? Fandom, to your work. Yes, Russell, you too.”

We’re sure this is just some comment to stir up the fandom, as it’s been made pretty clear in the 50 years that Doctor Who has managed to stay alive that the Doctor is an alien from another planet, and he’s most definitely not from earth. Or is Moffat planning on redirecting canon to tell us a different story about the Doctor and/pr his past? Looks like we’ll have to wait to find out.

Is it clear enough that the Doctor is an alien?

Let us know what you think about Moffat’s comments!

Edit: The original question we’d asked our readers has been amended to accurately represent the topic Moffat and team posed to the fandom.