Story arcs

[mmcirvin]

Many people have wondered whether the backstory gradually being revealed in Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who revival owes anything to the tie-in novels about the Paul McGann Doctor (to which it bears only a vague resemblance). But...

...this page about the Sixties serial The Power Of The Daleks (Patrick Troughton's first full serial) suggests to me that Davies' actual source could be rejected backstory from about 40 years ago:

In the early fall [1966], a profile of the new Doctor was made available by the production office. At this stage, Troughton's incarnation was to have a sardonic, Sherlock Holmes-like sense of humour and be scarred by his past (the Doctor was still envisaged as being a refugee from the destruction of his home planet during a galactic war). [...]

Whitaker submitted draft scripts to Davis in September, around which time the title became The Power Of The Daleks. These revealed that the Doctor had been renewed several times in the past; he was to open a drawer in the console which contained relics from his previous incarnations, including an earring and a metal bracelet. The scripts also specified the Doctor's age as 750, included various references to his granddaughter Susan (the Doctor no longer being able to recall where he left her), and also hinted that it might have been the Daleks who destroyed his homeworld.

Apropos of nothing, personally, I've always favored the idea that the reason Susan called him "Grandfather" was that he was her grandfather. Granted, it raises a lot of questions, but it has the virtue of simplicity.