So... why IS the Doctor such a stormcrow?

[Nonsuch]

@riker1384

What’s with that? Is that something new? Seemed like a real dumb idea to me. I never heard anything before about it myself but I haven’t seen every episode.

In one story, Leela asked the Doctor if the Tardis understood them when they spoke to it, and he replied that the Tardis does generate “a low-intensity telepathic field.”

[Quartz]

@Nonsuch

In one story, Leela asked the Doctor if the Tardis understood them when they spoke to it, and he replied that the Tardis does generate “a low-intensity telepathic field.”

Possibly a spoiler, so

In the Christmas episode, it was explicitly stated that the Tardis has a link with the Doctor and that’s how the Doctor and his companions can communicate with everything. And they start off being unable to understand the invading aliens, and then start to, and at that point Rose realises that the Doctor is back.

[Don_Draper]

@Steve Wright

We don’t see any of this stuff, of course, because (funnily enough) the scriptwriters don’t think a storyline consisting of “the Doctor has a lie in, goes for a walk, has lunch at a local restaurant, writes a couple of postcards to his mates and then goes paddling” would pull in the viewers.

Well, actually Douglas Adams actually did write the rough drafts for a serial in which the Doctor decides to give up the heroic daring-do act, and becomes a hermit / monk on an otherwise deserted world, giving the TARDIS to Romana & K-9 and allowing them to fight the forces of evil. BBC execs nixed the idea as heresy - so Adams wrote “Shada” instead. (And we all know how well that turned out :).)