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Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has clarified just where John Hurt's Doctor comes in the timeline.

Fans were confused when the mini-episode The Night of the Doctor showed Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor regenerating into John Hurt's all-new Doctor, but there is a simple explanation.

"I've been really, really quite careful about the numbering of the Doctors," the showrunner told Doctor Who magazine.

"He's very specific, the John Hurt Doctor, that he doesn't take the name of the Doctor. He doesn't call himself that. He's the same Time Lord, the same being as the Doctors either side of him, but he's the one who says, 'I'm not the Doctor.'

"So the Eleventh Doctor is still the Eleventh Doctor, the Tenth Doctor is still the Tenth..."

The writer went on to muddy the waters further by throwing another Doctor into the mix.

"Technically, if you really counted it, the David Tennant Doctor is two Doctors, on account of the Meta-Crisis Doctor [in Journey's End].

"It's not a matter of counting the regenerations, but of counting the faces of the Time Lord that calls himself the Doctor.

"There's an anomaly Doctor slotted in somewhere, that's all. In the script to The Day of the Doctor, Matt's Doctor was called the Eleventh, and David's was called the Tenth, so the numbering stays exactly the same - and we call Peter Capaldi the Twelfth Doctor."

That clears that up - sort of.

Watch The Night of the Doctor below.

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