The fact that the Abbot was an exact doppelganger for the Doctor has always been an unexplained mystery. Steven even examined the Abbot’s corpse up close and still believed him to have been the Doctor. But since the release of “The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve”, we have learned new info about the Doctor that casts this mystery in a new light:

1. The Doctor can sometimes subconsciously “choose” their new face when regenerating, as in the cases of the Curator Doctor resembling the Fourth Doctor, the Twelfth Doctor resembling Lobus Caecilius, and the Fourteenth Doctor resembling the Tenth Doctor.

2. The First Doctor was not, in fact, the first Doctor, but a regeneration, with tge Doctor having had many unknown incarnations and unknown adventures prior to this one.

With this in mind, how likely would we say it is that a prior incarnation of the Doctor (the Fugitive Doctor, for instance) actually met the Abbot on a hitherto-unseen adventure, and that when the Doctor regenerated into their so-called “First Doctor” incarnation, they “chose” the Abbot’s face? And if so… why? The “First” Doctor came after the Division gave the Doctor a total memory wipe. The Doctor therefore shouldn’t have been able to remember the Abbot at all. So if they still did, and if they “chose” the Abbot’s face, then the Abbot must have been very significant indeed for the Doctor. But why?