Danny Pink – Master of Disguise?

Guest contributor Daniel Whitaker speculates on the theory that Samuel Anderson’s character hides a secret.

I am overjoyed that in Series 8 the Doctor will have a younger male companion, whizzing around with him through time and space; I was even more overjoyed when I discovered we shared a forename. However, the second I saw the promotional picture and heard his backstory, I thought he could be a Master in/ of disguise (There’ll be plenty more puns). But what about his backstory and the image made me think that the character, played by the brilliant Samuel Anderson, will be a renegade character?

The Time Lords

During the events of The Day and The Time of The Doctor, I think it’s more or less confirmed that at some point in the near future, Gallifrey and the Time Lords will return. And, I don’t know about you, but after the events of the Time War, I’d be pretty cautious when returning a whole civilisation to the universe which tried to destroy it. So it would make perfect sense for Rassilon (or whoever’s in charge now (Please be Romana to make the Gallifrey series from Big Finish canon)) to send out a few Time Lords into the universe, to test the metaphorical water before diving in.

Now this doesn’t mean that it has to be The Master, but I think it would be more interesting to have the Time Lords send out their maddest creation to ensure the universe can handle the full force of the Time Lords returning.

The Watch

Now this is probably myself going all Sherlock and overanalysing the promotional image we were given of Mr. Pink, but the first thing I noticed was his watch. We all know that on shows like Doctor Who, everything is in it for a reason; just think back to the RTD era of Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Vote Saxon, YANA and “He will knock four times”. As the mysterious woman said in The End of Time, “There is no such thing as coincidence” and I feel that the watch is so out there on an otherwise rather closed picture for a reason.

The two theories I have surrounding the watch is that either:

1. The watch is just a symbol of time, and therefore Time Lords
2. The watch could be a fob-watch type device and Danny has no idea that he has a Time Lord on his wrist.
3. Alternatively, it’s just a watch and I could be looking for things that don’t exist.

Full Circle

The Doctor is played by an older actor, let’s call him William Hartnell. He travels with his granddaughter, Susan and two teachers from Coal Hill School, let’s call them Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Skip forward a little over 50 years, The Doctor is played by an older actor, let’s call him Peter Capaldi. He travels with two teachers from Coal Hill School, let’s call them Clara Oswald and Danny Pink. Sound familiar? Moffat is recreating the start, but modernising it and probably giving it a bit more of a story.

What if Danny Pink is a teacher of science, much like Mr Chesterton before him, but this time his true passion is psychology? Mr Pink could have the knowledge on how to hypnotise, much like The Master. And if Danny can hypnotise people, what’s to stop him from hypnotising Clara into fighting for the wrong cause, especially if they spend so much time in the TARDIS…

Final Thoughts

Although Danny Pink being the Master may be too far-fetched, rumours are currently swirling and I think it would be an interesting move, especially if it is only very lightly hinted midway through the series and is the big revelation during the finale. It would enable fans to go back and re-watch the entire series, clueing for looks to see how subtle and calculated Samuel Anderson’s performance is. (As long as he’s not lowering the IQ of the entire street).

Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts on this theory below.

(And apologies to anyone who’s not seen Sherlock for the majority of these jokes.)