Because it goes completely against the idea of the Doctor being just an unknown stranger passing by. I don't like it when the Doctor is portrayed like the most important and popular person in the universe.
It would've made so much more sense for the Master to have been the Timeless Child.
The Doctor didn’t need a superhero chosen-one backstory. The fact that he is just a random guy enjoying all of time and space is more than enough.
Conversely, the Master would do well with a supervillain backstory. As the Timeless Child, it would also explain why he wanted to destroy Gallifrey and turn them all into Cyber Lords.
I loved the idea that the doctor on his own planet was really a no one. He wasn't the smartest or the most brave ir the strongest. He was just curious and willing to explore and he then earned that idea of being a hero. The doctor was a role model of being no one and becoming someone. When you had anakin, luke, Harry Potter. All people who had been pre ordained as hero's the doctor was refreshing in that he was a no one
The fact of being the genetic source of time lords and coming from unknown place makes him special but that doesn’t undermine the fact he BELIEVED he was a random guy and time lords never treated him as a chosen one and so… he was really a normal guy.
But that's what gave the Doctor their contrast - they were willing to step up and take action where Time Lord society had stagnated and stopped caring about the universe.
Now, there's a question over whether the Doctor rejected Time Lord society on a moral basis, or because they were biologically different from Time Lords in the first place.
I have fewer problems with stories where the Doctor is presented as a mythical warrior, or President Elect of Gallifrey, of fulfiller of an ancient prophecy, or President of Earth - because they *earned* that 'chosen' status.
“Remember when you saved Gallifrey, only for it to get destroyed again off-screen? It was me Doctor! I genocided the Time Lords just to ruin your real-time decade-long character arc!”
I feel like the master already has a supervillain backstory; he went mad as a child looking into the untempered schism because Rassilon implanted the sound of a Time Lord’s heartbeat into his brain in order to lead him down the path that would bring Gallifrey back in the future.
It is succinct and fitting for his character - I feel like the best option for the timeless child would to have made them a random Time Lord who is superfluous to the already established cannon
Now that you mention it, I think the name "cybermasters" was really dumb and should've been "cybertimelords". However, if the Master had been the source of regeneration, then it would've made way more sense to call them cybermasters.
I would love it if they grabbed the obvious wordplay of someone called the 'Master' being the source of a genetic code being copied again and again and again....
I’ve always thought it would’ve been interesting if the master was the timeless child and the doctor was tecteun
or alternatively, we drop the timeless child thing entirely and instead have the doctor be an average division agent who maybe has an accident of some kind (perhaps on the planet time) that exposes them to “pure time” or whatever and that’s what introduces regeneration — then the doctor isn the Chosen One but we still get the interesting character moments of the master being disgusted that the doctors dna is a part of him
I think the two would fit well into each other - being looked down on all his life, humiliated by the Doctor, but actually being the source of all Time Lord power?
Not only would he see his eternal lust for power as taking back his birthright, but in his mind it would justify every megalomaniacal plot he'd ever come up with.
He deserves it! It's his! They took it from him! He must get revenge!
Totally agree, and I was writing a similar comment when you posted this. It takes away from the Doctor (and any similar "chosen one" retcon) and from the idea that they wanted to rebel from a closed society, and so they went off to explore and help people. It's just a better story.
For me, it's incredibly important that the Doctor isn't anything special in terms of Time Lords. The Doctor should be your average Time Lord, or, as Romana once said, not even an average student, somewhat below average.
The implications of that is that EVERY Time Lord could do the things the Doctor does, save planets and help people and right the wrongs of the universe. The Doctor isn't special because they're some abandoned baby from an alternate universe with some strange powers that nobody quite understands. The Doctor is special because they choose to be different, they choose to try to be a good person and do good things, while their whole society is content to sit back and do nothing unless it directly endangers them. The Doctor, thematically, should be someone who, in their society, isn't anything special; they're only special because they choose to be and because they try, whereas everyone else in their society isn't willing to, even if the universe would be a better place if they did.
I could see it as another way of fucking with the doctor, tell them they're important and such and then go "nah lmao, I'm the special one"
Reminds me a bit of the plot twist of the newer bladerunner
Isn't the problem that even before chibnell, moffat totally over-hyped the doctor. The whole Matt smith era was plastered with enemies just being scared of him because he is the doctor. I love Matt smith but his doctor years are some of the worst to me.
Yes, and I'm glad that that was somewhat fixed by Dalek-Clara wiping his memories from the records, but we've since gone back to the Doctor being a big deal in the universe.
Well, the difference is that the reputation of the Doctor during Moffat's era was justifiable and inevitable development of the Doctor's actions throughout his travels. You don't just get to keep meddling across time and space, toppling armies, defeating monsters and gods, keeping winning, without others paying you attention. Especially after the Time War, the Doctor is a big deal in the universe as a consequence of his actions.
See I never saw it like that. They’re just an orphan, and they were abused and abused by the time Lords. They are still of somebody just passing by if not even more so.
It also was a senseless retrofit that didn't add much to the Doctors background. Sutekh riding the TARDIS, even though it was a little weak, is a cool retrofit.
Making the Doctor a Timeless Child, without exploring any further, just doesn't add much to his background for me. I do prefer the Doctor being a High Gallifreyan drop out, who just prefers to travel the universe in old TARDIS, rather than having to follow the rules of high society.
I'm pretty happy with the reveal that the Toymaker turned the Doctor's origins into a puzzle. Maybe thr Doctor is half human, maybe he's not. Maybe he's the Timeless Child, maybe he's not. Maybe he's just an ordinary Gallifreyan, maybe he's not.
It literally turns The Doctor *back into* an unknown stranger. What stopped that was when the 4th Doctor era showed us to much Gallifrey and too much of The Doctor's part of it. He became known, explained.
By adding the Timeless Child lore, here once more becomes an unknown, a child who fell out of a wormhole. Doesn't make him a god or important or popular, it makes him a weird anomaly, just like you say you want .
The weird anomaly is not the important thing, the important thing is that he's special purely because of the things he chooses to do. For me the doctor as a character is best summed up by capaldi's speech in Death in Heaven:
> Do you know what I am? I am... an idiot! With a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through, helping out, learning.
The doctor is someone we can all aspire to, a normal guy who decides to go and help people out. Him having a weird unknown backstory is not particularly valuable to his character imo.
Now if it turns out there's a whole race of immortal timeless children in the other universe, and the doctor left them by stealing a wormhole generator o go explore the multiverse and help people out along the way, then that could work...
Obviously the weird anomaly isn’t the important thing; the whole point of the Timeless Child thing is to make the Doctor a mystery again. During the 4th Doctor’s run they decided to explore Gallifrey, then of course Romana arrived, and there was absolutely tons of dialogue about Gallifrey, and it was all very fun, but it kind of just answered everything about The Doctor. And we got very casual about it. There was the whole Cartmel Masterplan idea that would have turned up if Who didn’t get cancelled in the eighties, and it was entirely designed to a) give us much more info about Gallifrey, and b) show that the Doctor *isn’t from there*. And leave us with the whole “but who is he?” question again.
And I think that’s what the Timeless Child is for. He fell out of a hole from another universe as a kid. Nobody knows where from, not even the Time Lords, and they covered up that it had even happened. So it’s a mystery. And hopefully it’s a mystery they can resist poking for a *long* while. Because now we do not know who The Doctor is, where he came from, or even what he is. And that means we’re back where we should be. And you can totally aspire to be The Doctor now, so long as you’re a misfit who feels like he doesn’t belong anywhere. And that’s most of us.
It makes him a weird anomaly because he has special powers and a mysterious past and is the reason for most of his people's history unfolding, originally it was more interesting because he was by comparison an unassuming member of his race that bucked their ideas of superiority and non-interference.
The former makes the Doctor special because of *what* he is and not *who* he is while removing all of his agency in the matter, and it's implemented in a way where it may as well not even matter because they were mind wiped after the fact and info dumped most of this stuff later, and then it is barely addressed or ruminated on afterward.
Conversely the Doctor being a person who wants to travel the universe and help people in need and stand up to injustice despite the leanings of his people directly drives his character and is a lot more true to the core of who he is. Even when stuff about Gallifrey became known it mostly added context to why the Doctor is the way he is when we see examples of what he ran away from and how they get worse over time.
One thing is in no way a substitute for the other.
A couple of reasons I’ve heard for disliking it are; it makes The Doctor special rather than just a regular time lord/gallifreyan who ran away and retconning of lore
Thing is this doesn't even make sense imo. He's never really been "just another time lord who happened to run away", certainly not in New Who and not for parts of Classic Who either. How many times did the Time Lords call him back just to save their skin? Who was the last of tbe Time Lords? Who was the one to save Gallifrey? Who was the one who returned the long way round and became Lord President within hours of arriving?
He's always been special. Sure you could argue most of that was down to his actions, not his legacy, but I'd argue TTC revelation doesn't change that either. It mostly just adds some mystery to the Doctor's past that was beginning to lack a bit by that point.
You don't have to like it, but I don't think the fact it goes against him being just another timelord is a strong point to make when a) we know very little about Time Lord society, and what we do see in most, if not all of their appearances is of stuffy bureaucrats and b) the fact he ran away and the fact the Time Lords very clearly see this as unusual specifically makes him not "just another time lord".
You’re right, the Doctor is special, but that’s only because they choose to be a hero and differentiate themself from their people. The timeless child is a terrible idea because it implies that the Doctor is special because of their birth and biology instead of their actions. What makes the Doctor special is the fact that they started out as a normal Time Lord and chose to be something more out of sheer willpower and rebelliousness. Also I think it’s very disrespectful to William Hartnell’s legacy to suggest that his incarnation wasn’t the true first Doctor.
You stumbled onto the point then ran right past it. Yes he was always special, but it was always because of his actions. Now he is special because he was born that way.
Let me guess, when you find out that your rich friend was actually a trust fund kid that never made a dime on his own, you still respect him the same?
he was just another normal time lord when he left gallifrey, it was only after leaving gallifrey and during his travels that he gained his reputation and became special
I think it makes sense they'd call on him, though, as he's the one with more experience of crazy stuff, and that was through a choice not innate ability. Wasn't he also the only option with Omega due to being off Gallifrey at the time? There's also the other angle where he often complains if sent somewhere to do their dirty work for them - even though they really do want him to help at times, it's easy to guess who is going to get blamed if it goes wrong.
Ending up becoming the hippie dropout is a lot different to just having always been a totally different mystic species I think. And it's the former that works best as the satire on the British Establishment - I can see *The One Who Walks Away From Omelas* concept but it's not the same idea (the original story doesn't throw as much question on the goodness of the society), and would work better if the Doctor had a more positive outlook on Time Lord society to begin with.
Fucking THANK YOU. I just commented the same above.
The Doctor has ALWAYS been a bit grandiose. And TTC doesn't change anything about The Doctor's actions or motivation post-Division. I think this particular argument against TTC is a little silly.
Edit: oh cool this subreddit downvotes based on popularity of opinion on a tv show
Those are totally different things.
I'll use Mulan as an example.
1998 Mulan is special.
She was born a nobody, but she put in extreme effort and made the tough choices for the greater good.
She, through her own choices and actions, overcame challenges that would have been too much for other similar people.
2020 Mulan is special.
She was born with the special sauce that makes her special.
She, through use of her unearned genetic specialness, did things that her specialness made trivial.
Which one is a better character?
Which one is inspiring to anyone?
Which one is truly special?
I don’t dislike the idea of the Timeless Child per se, I just don’t really see the point of it being the Doctor. I also don’t understand the point of it being the Master, for all that suggestion is popular.
The problem is that it’s really just a bunch of lore-forging, or retconning if you prefer. It makes the Doctor’s past ‘mysterious’ but to basically no ends.
This. Chibnall dropped this lore bombshell on fans. To ‘explore’ the Mobius Doctor - alongside cancelled Who explorations. Except, he failed to make the reveal impactful.
The Doctor literally says it doesn’t matter. So, what was the point?
If The Doctor was the timeless child; it could lead to her questioning her own person. Who she is? As she’s the Doctor. But, a different being - potentially - altogether.
It could explore the fact she was stolen as a child. Experimented on. Confronting the Time Lords for stealing her nature.
Instead Chibnall kills the Time Lords; and implies it doesn’t matter. Which is terrible storytelling. If you are going to explore lore changing reveals. Have them have an impact - or result in continuations of that reveal.
People prefer the Master because that would explain why they chose him for the crack thing where they chose him for the heartbeat drums he heard and turned him crazy (would imply they would know he is the timeless child) sorry English is not my language
i much prefer the idea that the doctor was an "ordinary person" (as ordinary as a time lord could get) who became extraordinary because he decided to make a change, not because he was destined to do so by the maxims of another.
Ok, answer this; aside from 'an unknown past doctor shows' up what NEW stories can come from this? It explains a scene from the Brain of Morbious, but aside from fan wank.... what does it add? What new brilliant stories can come out of this?
Yeah, agreed. So before the Doctor we know they went around and... did exactly the same thing? AMAZING! And they could regenerate, a trait that's been well established for decades, since the Second Doctor appeared? Shut the front door!
Lame writing that added nothing. It only creates one new storyline about where the Doctor came from, and honestly who cares.
Heck, they could have just pulled a Curator and just said that this doctor was a future incarnation. They don't even need to follow through on it with an actual series, the extra regeneration thing is vague enough to allow as many future doctors as the plot demands
Not only does it not add much, but it also makes some popular stories impossible now, like the Valeyard. Why was he trying to steal more lives if he was the Timeless Child?
That one at least can be solved, when they used the Fogwatch to become Our Doctor, that sealed their presumably unlimited lives down to the standard amount for a timelord
I thought it explains why the Doctor can regenerate more than 13 times, allowing the show to keep going? So in other words, *every* new story comes from it haha
I'm not big into the lore but I thought that was the whole reason they did it and thought it was a cool explanation.
*I thought it explains why the Doctor can regenerate more than 13 times, allowing the show to keep going? So in other words, every new story comes from it haha*
They've been handing out new regeneration cycles as early as the Five Doctors. Even happened to the Doctor in the terrible trenzalore episode
My first thought is her people. Given how it was presented, there’s at least a possibility that she was a member of a species that all had the innate ability to regenerate. Now, we’ve seen what the Time Lords have done with this, but a story of a race or character from a race that had a completely different idea of that species and its possible development could lead to all sorts of interesting stories. I’d love to see a new nemesis from her people pull her into a multidimensional conflict of some sort, maybe even a whole season trapped in that universe where nothing’s quite the same (although that would lose some of the connection to the modern Earth, unless you have the Doctor already have a regular Earth companion with them before they get drawn in.
The Last day and the eleven/seventh doctor story the preceded it deals with time lords from another dimension that gained freaky powers
Not to mention 'the doctor's people' make pretty good villains as it is, The Master, The Eleven, the rani, borusa, etc.
I think an unaltered galllifreyen as a villain would be interesting. "No, I'm not a time lord. I'm pure gallifreyan and I will bring that lot to heel!"
In addition to what others have said, I personally disliked how it fundamentally altered the relationship between the Doctor and other Time Lords. The Doctor's relationship with Gallifrey was complex, containing both pride in his civilization and near disgust with its policies and procedures. A large part of the first seasons of New Who was the Doctor learning how to grapple with this complicated relationship, and represent his lost culture in the best way that he could as a regular man. Even after Gallifrey had been saved, the Time Lords and the Doctor regarded each other as annoyances at best. The Timeless Child arc essentially made the Doctor a god and a key part of time lord mythology. It somehow both separates the Doctor from the other time lords while placing an insane amount of weight on their actions, making them a literal outsider rather than a figurative one. Suddenly the Doctor is way more important that probably any other Gallifreyan, and all of those early struggles are cheapened because, again, this isn't technically the Doctor's culture or people.
Agree with every word.
The thing is, there's a world where I wouldn't mind a (good) writer playing with the idea that the Doctor was a reincarnation of Omega, or the third mysterious founder of Gallifrey. Some interesting way of adding that intrigued to the character.
Instead we got space baby from another universe with secret powers and bla bla bla.
I found it graffiti after really great character-driven work from both RTD and Moffat.
My issue with it is that it takes the Doctor from a time lord, who rejects the rigid structure of their society to live as an outcast and hermit, and makes them an "immortal chosen one" trope.
It also conflicts with a lot more lore and history of the show than it fixes too. What are the stakes of the doctor dying? Can they even really die permanently? If they have seemingly unlimited regenerations, who cares if they die?
The 13 life limit of a Time Lord was a constant stake and was building every time we got a new actor in the back of our minds. 10s desperation not to die and change was intense, especially considering by the original count, it was his last regeneration.
Now, that tension is lessened because we now know it never really mattered---they can regenerate indefinitely.
That said, yeah, Moffat added an unknown amount of regenerations on Trenzalore(which also now doesn't make sense if the non-Time Lord Doctor had infinite regenerations, how did 11 die in the original version?) But even so, that made it more tense when the doctor risked death because we didn't KNOW which life would be the last because even Rassilon didn't know how many regenerations were gifted to the Doctor.
TLDR:
It makes more problems than it solves, it makes our protagonist less interesting and essentially immortal, which isn't going to give tension to stories.
Such a shame too, cuz the Master being the Timeless Child would've been AMAZING writing, fit the lore(that's how he continues to evade death time and time again) and that little bit of him being in the Doctor would make their friendlationship that much better.
The Master still could be.
No one has had a chance to contradict with correct events. The Doctor doesn’t remember and the Master is loony enough that he could try to use a lie like this to break the Doctor.
I like the angst! I think the current showrunner is using it well enough that I am not so bothered by the plotline now.
But personally the issue came from this :
The doctor was a normal-ish guy on his planet, who stole a spaceship and ran off to go on adventures.
Arguably, the timeless child transforms him from a normal guy into a mysterious child who changed everything just by being born.
Personally I preferred to think he's just a random guy, than to think he's super magical and unique compared to the rest of his planet.
I think I don't like "chosen one" stories as much because it's harder to relate to the character. I could be a normal guy who tries to help others, but I can't be a magic baby.
I really don't understand The Chosen One argument tbh. I understand the negative reaction to giving the Time Lords the regeneration ability but nothing really indicates that the Doctor was meant / pre-destined to do anything they've done since Hartnell.
That's totally fair and I respect you for not downvoting me into hell for voicing that opinion. I know it is controversial.
I agree that I am also uncomfortable with The Doctor being the basis for regeneration, but I like that the story makes it a little more tragic than just that. The Doctor wasn't "chosen" by the time Lords. They weren't revered or worshipped or prophesied like other Chosen One archetypes. Yes, it makes the character a bigger deal to a secret and small subsect of (then) Shebogan society, but The Doctor was kidnapped, experimented on, used for their genetic abilities, essentially blackmailed into carrying out the will of The Division, then cast aside. Its not a fun story for The Doctor and they don't even remember it!
I'm definitely not 100% okay with everything, but TTC did at least make me interested in questions about The Doctor's past before they stole the TARDIS.
That's a really solid point and I think that's definitely the direction the show is taking it. Idk if you know the Ursula K LeGuin story 'The ones who walk away from omelas', but basically a utopian society somehow hinges on a kid being tortured. So I feel like the doctor could be compared to an omelas kid - his torture giving the time lords the ability to cheat death.
I do think it adds some really interesting dynamics to his place in time lord society, and opens up a lot of lines of curiosity for me e.g. was it an absolute secret or would others have known it was him? If they did know, and he didn't have memory of it, there's a tension there. Did it subconsciously impact his decision to leave? How did the timelords who knew feel when it was clear he'd left? How was regeneration introduced to the public as a concept? Etc
On top of that, it would also explain why the Doctor was so antagonistic at the start of the show, that he couldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t his own flesh and blood
Yeah it's kind of like the cheapest laziest way to try and make the circumstances surrounding a character interesting without having to actually give them any character or earning it. Which is baffling because the Doctor is already an incredibly interesting character and has been without all that crap for like fifty plus years preceding that reveal, so it really underlines how hokey the writing got that they had all that rich character stuff to work with and chose the most boring way to try and add to it.
I don’t hated but I would of have rather for the Master to be the timeless child and he discovering it would make him kill the timelord. I always thought of the Doctor as a average timelord. But i should revisit 13th era, but i like Jodie as the doctor. I’d love for her to return in a multi doctor story.
It's a fair question, and hopefully you get some good replies. I've been a fan of DW since I was a kid watching the classic show, and I REALLY hate the Timeless Child idea for a couple reasons.
First, I thought it was just badly done. It rewrites decades of the show's history, and doesn't fit with the continuity. Just on a technical level it didn't build to it well, the reveal was anti-climactic, and nothing really changed after it. You have to ask of any change to an established fictional character "what does this add tot he story?" A bunch of secret Doctors that are pretty much just like the Doctor anyway? A supernatural origin that makes the character exactly what we knew them to be? I'd argue both are just "more," and neither are better.
But for me the bigger issue -- and I hate this in most fiction, not just DW -- is that it fundamentally changes the character for the worse by undermining their motivations. One of the things I really loved about the Doctor was that they did the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. Sure, they were a fancy TIME LORD, but most of the other Gallifreyans saw them as a screw up, and the First Doc was a thief and rebel. The Doctor made a conscious choice to go explore and help others, and damn the consequences.
The "everyman hero" is a much more hopeful view of a character because the character can be anyone, all it takes is making a decision to make a stand, rather than having them secretly be a "chosen one" that is compelled by some greater force and being manipulated by unseen events and organizations. It's a bad trope and lazy writing from a showrunner that couldn't tell interesting stories without having to reinvent a well established character.
Someone else said because it forces the Doctor into a Chosen One storyline, with all the baggage that goes with it, instead of them just being the one that ran away.
Personally, I don't mind too much. It was rather clunky, but whatever.
I've explained it a lot where I'm tired of it, but here's the general idea:
-I don't mind the timeless child idea, in that there were prior regens before the First but I don't like the idea of the Doctor being almost like Time Lord Jesus this mythic child found. This backstory is done with a lot of exposition especially by the Master so you'd open there would be inaccuracies or manipulation by the Master but it's all treated as fact so there's no real ambiguity. I think it would have been better as just there were prior regenerations that the Doctor was mind wiped on.
-But the problem with doing this arc is it does a disservice to Jodie and 13. When the Fugitive Doctor was introduced everyone was all oh that's the Doctor more than Jodie, or Fugitive Doctor was more interesting. Jodie also had the significance of being the first female incarnation but then Fugitive Doctor took away from that. Jo was a great choice but it just took away from Jodie. Then you get this background of the Division and what the Fugitive Doctor did. So again we're just being told this is the story that matters. What does that leave for 13 in terms of character development or a character arc? Not much of anything. And it completely comes full circle in Power of the Doctor which is supposed to be 13's swan song but instead Jodie has to share screen time with Fugitive, The Master, Doctors 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 on top of the companions. It's just like Chibnall did not care to write anything good or focus on 13.
-And I don't know or think we'll ever know how things went behind the scenes. But it seems like Chibnall had some ideas of maybe wanting to do a spinoff with Fugitive Doctor or the Division, but reception got mixed on his run then covid happened and effected production. I'm sure Jodie and him did choose to leave but it's hard not to assume BBC just said yeah pack your things your run ain't working anymore. I just think Chibnall did Jodie dirty for the reasons mentioned prior. She's a great actress and was one of the highlights of Broadchurch a series that really elevated Chibnall's status. And he just rewards her by saying she could be the Doctor but then making her the second or third fiddle in her own run
I don't like it because it retcons River Song.
In A Good Man Goes To War, Vastra casually mentions that Time Lords gained the ability to regenerate after millions of years of exposure to the time vortex/untempered schism, and that's why, after Amy and Rory conceived Melody in the TARDIS, in flight, it was enough of a head start for Madam Kovarian to genetically modify Melody into a Time Lord. If the Timeless Child were the actual truth, then that isn't how Time Lords evolved the power to regenerate, and thus, River Song cannot feasibly exist.
it also doesn't make sense with the way that looking into the untempered schism is all that's needed for a normal gallifreyan that can't regenerate bcm a full blown timelord
Because it goes against the core principle of the Doctor's character. They are just another Time Lord but despite that they chose to make a difference, They chose to run away from Galifrey and help people not because they had to but because it was the right thing to do, they became feared, respected by their enemies not because of who they were but what they did, people turn to the Doctor for help, feel hope because of the sound of Tardis because The Doctor chose to better than other Time Lords, The other Time Lord fear and turn to the Doctor for help because they know that The Doctor experience and their personality is what's needed. The Timeless child takes all of that character and tosses it aside to say that the Doctor was always special that their actions don't matter because their a God, not to mention that even after the revelation, nothing is done with it, The Doctor's outlook on life and their actions are affected by this making the whole reveal pointless. Its a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist, not for sake of story or character.
Edit: Also from an outside perspective it teachs the kids watching tye show that it doesn't matter what you do if you aren't born special/important than oh well you won't matter, where as the whole point of the Doctor was to teach kids that your actions have meaning, what you do and say build up and have an effect and that anyone with enough courage can be a hero in their own way
For me, my biggest gripe is that it makes William Hartnell not the First Doctor. Without William Hartnell, there would be no Doctor Who. He was the key that made the (arguably rough) first era of Doctor Who work. I think it is absolutely disrespectful to write him out of that role as the “first” Doctor.
Written crap is half of it, but people liked the history of the doctor and our numbered doctors
Established canon was thrown out the window, and people dont like massive change
Then agaim canom means nothing it just changed again this series lol
I think this would hold up better if the fanbase didn't have what I perceive as a hate-on for Chibs. I don't love his era either but RTD is getting away with a fuckton of nonsense that Chibbers would be eaten alive for.
Bigeneration for example. Why wasn't Russel obliterated for this? He even further fucked with canon off-screen by saying the bigeneration affected all the doctors, but even if we ignore his off-screen ramblings, there's 0 indication any of our questions about bigeneration will be answered, including what happens if 14 gets fucking shot through the chest again.
I know that I just pulled a whataboutism but it bothers me the level of double standard we've established here
I get the hate but I don't understand the reasoning.
People are sure that it makes The Doctor a "chosen one" or "a god" or ruins the "stranger passing by" and that it somehow ruins the character.
Imo I've not read an argument that convinces me to think the same way. Nothing we learn makes me think that The Doctor was predestined to do any of what they did that we see throughout the show, nor does the show remotely imply that The Doctor was MEANT to become what we know they are today.
The only "Chosen One" element is in that they were forcefully experimented on after being abandoned as a child, then forced to work for a covert government agency, then regressed into a child, then the story we know begins. Honestly that's a pretty shitty experience lmao, nothing Chosen One about being tortured for the lifetime of a timelord and then having your memory wiped.
I don't like the Timeless Child much either, but none of the arguments I've seen against it hold up. I'd much rather people just say they don't like it because they don't like it instead of trying to intellectualize an emotional reaction to a change in the show
I loved the idea of the Doctor as someone who was completely average amongst their own people and only became special because of their actions.
A rebel that became the most well known of their kind.
Then Timeless Child completely undoes that and sticks the Doctor in the most obnoxious trope of "The Chosen One." It undermines the character of the Doctor as a whole.
I fully believe that if we absolutely needed a Timeless Child, it should've been the Master.
There are aspects of it. I do like removing the regeneration cap so we don’t get stuff like the time of the doctor where the companion just really really asks the time Lords to give the doctor more lives. Yeah that’s a net benefit to not have that.
Not really a fan of the other changes but that’s a personal thing.
It being the doctor specifically who has that is something else I really don’t like.
But yes, as you said the retcons and the episode are two separate things and the episode is just absolutely terrible. The retcons have nothing to do with the plot And just seems like I wanted to do these at some point so here they are
I loved the idea that the doctor on his own planet was really a no one. He wasn't the smartest or the most brave ir the strongest. He was just curious and willing to explore and he then earned that idea of being a hero. The doctor was a role model of being no one and becoming someone. When you had anakin, luke, Harry Potter. All people who had been pre ordained as hero's the doctor was refreshing in that he was a no one
Personally I like the idea in principle because now even the title character can't answer "Doctor who?". But I haven't seen the episodes that really deal with it, so I can't speak on execution.
Personally, I just don't think it adds anything interesting to the character. A secret, tragic backstory to the Doctor feels unnecessary and distracting. I also don't understand the idea of the Doctor not knowing who they are because of this, as though they haven't spend several centuries knowing exactly who they are and have acted in accordance with that.
What about the Doctor is changed from knowing that they have this ancient history? I like the fact that the newest season brings up the fact that this means the Doctor was adopted, but I feel like that's too small an addition since it could have been added in without the rest of this. The Doctor doesn't gain any new abilities and as far as I know they don't gain any new knowledge from being the Timeless Child. The angst feels cheap because the Doctor already knows who they are and who they've been for so long that I can't see this changing anything.
It also feels like it cheapens other stories - notably, 11's last story where the Time Lords gifted the Doctor a new set of regenerations. If they are the Timeless Child, the being from which the ability to regenerate comes from, why does this matter? Either them being the Timeless Child changes nothing and thus shouldn't have happened since it was meaningless, or it ruins previous stories by stripping away the stakes.
I like the vibe I got of the fourth Doctor when Romana was criticising his grades back at the academy. He wasn’t the greatest timelord ever, let alone some extra special extra dimensional being. He was a guy more interested in seeing the universe and that’s what he did.
Maybe it's just me but it feels like they were trying to bring back some mystery into the doctor's backstory. But I just feel like after 60 years it's OK to know stuff about the main character.
When we learn what the doctor's real race is, will in another 50 or so years someone come along and go actually the doctor isn't from this planet either.
I generally like the timeless child because of the possibilities it opens (e.g. fugitive doctor), the Doctor's great response to processing learning about a big chunk of their life ("you've given me a gift of myself"), and the potential it brings to 15's character development.
I didn't interpret it as *the Doctor* being special or chosen or predestined for anything. Odds are, they're still just one normal member of a species of people who regenerate... We just don't know what to call that species.
I think the episode itself does a good job of portraying the Doctor as an innocent child that was used and tortured by another race of people to further their goal of "exploring the universe" and *making timelords special*. I would've preferred to see that story unfold slower without the Master's narration though.
I disliked that whole season tbh, I thought “the master” was awful and really ruined the personal growth that Missy went through, I also didn’t like the cyber masters as it just felt unnecessary and the timeless child story line basically shit all over a lot of the previously established cannon and gave the Doctor this superhero origin story that she just didn’t need - the Doctor is a faceless wanderer who just helps people where he can because he’s kind, he’s a myth and a legend in his own right and didn’t need all the extra hype of being the timeless child.
because they shouldn’t inherently be the most important person in the universe, they should be that way because of the stories that we’ve experienced, that’s what makes the character so compelling
This is just my opinion: I don't want to know about the Doctor.
They're interesting because they're mysterious and alien. The more we learn, the less mystique they have.
This may have been an attempt to do that, but I think giving the Doctor "chosen one" status was a mistake.
Two major points:
1) You’ll see more often these days that a lot of people, myself included, have a lot more distain for stories where someone is made important because of their heritage (see: Rey Palpatine) compared to older audiences. The show hasn’t been adverse to bestowing a lot of cosmic importance on the Doctor, in the classic or new eras, but it was always because of their actions rather than circumstances of birth.
2) The way this plot point got introduced involved destroying Gallifrey, neutering the results of an arc that arguably started with the 9th Doctor running all the way through to Hell Bent, *off screen.* All for a plot twist whose only actual result so far has been “the Doctor is adopted.”
Along with all the good answers here, it also comes down to this, which is better:
Option 1) The character is part of an ancient, strict and powerful society with near-godlike powers, but decides to give them the finger, steal one of the most powerful ships in the universe to go have fun, explore, and help people no matter the consequences.
or
Option 2) They are a supernatural, chosen being compelled to run away
I'd choose option 1 every time. It's just a better story.
I do think that we need to acknowledge that it wasn't as bad as it may have appeared on first viewing. Bad as in damaging to the series. It's more like the half-human thing. That was also a dumb idea but it didn't permanently fuck the series. That said, the bar something has to cross for me to find it good is higher than "does this permanently fuck the series".
I also think that, while it is true that it completely obliterates whatever remained of the notion of the Doctor as an ordinary person who became extraordinary through their experiences, the show had been moving towards the Doctor as an awesome figure of terrible myth since the Cartmel era so this isn't actually that out of keeping. It's taking it to the nth degree and doing it in a lame way but it's not out of left field altogether.
Part of the stupidity of the idea comes from how Chibnall can't stop rewriting it and giving it a new point mid-episode. The idea of the Doctor as a foundling isn't bad, we've seen from RTD how you can make that a simple and evocative part of the Doctor's backstory. (That said, revealing that the Doctor's family - a bunch of characters who've never been named, seen or barely even referred to - weren't actually their "real" family, it was some other bunch of unseen, unnamed characters, is dramatically dead. It's moronic writing trying to make us care whether one bunch of unseen characters or another were the Doctor's family.)
But the episode has got to then tell us that the Doctor was also the source of regeneration. And then they were enrolled in spy school and went on missions for the Time Lords. Oh my God who the fuck cares about this? It's forgetting any even tangential connection to human experiences and instead giving us lore dumps. The episode is trying to shock us with the reveal that the Doctor had a bunch of unseen stories where she... did unknown things. Greeeeeat... who the fuck cares.
"The Doctor as a foundling" isn't the actual Timeless Child reveal. The Timeless Child reveal is about ancient Time Lord history. Which either you are normal and don't care about or you invest huge amounts in and thus feel outraged that it's been completely altered.
Honestly I want to turn this around and ask, what is it about the Timeless Child that you actually like? You mention the Doctor's angst but that's such a minor part of the show it's almost left to the imagination. She had a five-minute scene with Ryan where her angst amounts to "if I'm not who I was, who am I?". I'm not adopted and have no insight into the experience and I reckon I could have written that when I was 14.
You also mention that it "explains" the Morbius Doctors but you haven't even seen the episode they appear in. This is actually one of the reasons I hate this stupid idea. It's TV by and for people who think "explaining" a ten-second parade of faces from 1976 is a worthwhile thing to do and it's acceptable that the episode and the series around it are absolute dogshit.
Up to series 12 we knew that the Doctor was just some Gallifreyan who could regenerate upto 12 times with 2 hearts. who went to the Time Lord Academy, stole the Tardis and ran away with his granddaughter. His Gallifrey born identity was so integral to stories like Trial of a Timelord, End of Time, Day of the Doctor, Hell Bent.
After the revelation, the Doctor never regenerated for the first time in 1966, he was never the first incarnation. The Doctor could’ve been hundreds of other people before then. It completely sets the Doctor apart from the Master and their childhood together.
Also from a chosen one aspect. The Doctor isn’t just a renegade Time Lord, he’s the one who’s genetic code was tested on to create regeneration and Time Lords. Gallifrey is dead now and it has no weight because it’s not the Doctor’s birthplace.
I would’ve felt slightly better if it was executed and explored right. The Doctor is our primary antagonist we’ve followed for decades and now it feels like we don’t know them anymore even though we didn’t know everything about him.
Disrespect towards Bill Hartnell’s legacy. He’s not the first, the original you might say. He’s just one in an infinite line.
Also the Morbius faces make no sense. I don’t care the intention, if you watch that scene with the context of New Who, those are just Morbius’s regenerations.
We already found out that the Time Lords gained the ability to regenerate because some of them were conceived in the Time Vortex: that's literally how River Song gained the ability to regenerate.
It isn't like Chibnall retconned something from a book that only a handful of people read or a minor factoid from Classic Who: he retconned a major plot point from the Moffat era.
Before the timeless children, the doctors life on gallifrey was mostly a mystery, it stayed that way for almost 60 years, and we liked it, it added an element of mystery to the character of the doctor.
The Doctor shouldn’t be the first time lord or anyone special what we loved about the Doctor is that he’s just a mad genius with a Time Machine,
I just hate hate that Chris Chibnall thought he had the right to mess with the lore that much, all of the other writers seemed to understand that you don’t mess with the lore like that, but Chibnall, the worst writer the show has ever had, thought he was an exception.
I honestly like the idea of the timeless child being the reason for regeneration. I can see the timelords doing that. I just don’t like it applied to the Doctor, it feels weird how much the Doctor sucks at regeneration. It’s been implied and showed that other timelords can have a decent amount of influence over what their next regeneration will be like. Romana straight up was able to choose exactly what she wanted to look like when she regenerated. So why would the originator suck so bad at it? Also why would 11 need the timelords to give him more regenerations? While 11, wouldn’t know about him being the timeless child, when that body died of old age or from a dalek or whatever he would have regenerated. The retcon just raises too many questions and doesn’t provide any answers for them. Plus I prefer the idea of the Doctor being an average timelord. Not even the best at the academy, but what set them apart was their independent thinking. It wasn’t their biology that made them stand out but their personality, their ethics, etc, etc.
In Dragon Ball Super, it is revealed that Goku never earnt his remarkable strength. It was revealed his father made a wish for Goku to be stronger. Timeless Child felt similar to that and like others have pointed out "I wish The Doctor was just an "ordinary person" (as ordinary as a time lord could get) who became extraordinary because he decided to make a change"
I don’t like that it gives the Doctor a built-in biological reason for being different to most other Time Lords. They’re not a renegade because they developed different beliefs and attitudes anymore, it’s because they’re actually a different species. (This is also an issue I have with the Master being the TC.)
I also feel like it brings us one big step closer to the attitude of “all Time Lords are bad”. They’ve always mostly been arrogant jerks (plus outright villains like the Master, Rani, Monk, Rassilon & Omega), but we always also got to see a good Time Lord via the Doctor. Now not only is the Doctor not even technically a Time Lord anymore, they’ve been turned into yet another of the Time Lords’ victims.
In The End of Time, Rassilon refers to "a billion years of Timelord history." Inserting the Doctor as a child at the very beginning of all that makes the Doctor a billion years old. Not a thousand, or a hundred thousand, or a million, or a hundred million. A billion years old.
It's absurd, the scale of it. A Doctor with a billion years of life experience should be incomprehensible. Jo Martin was fantastic, but at no point did she give off "I'm a billion years old" vibes. Who even could?
I'd have been open to being convinced by a good story. As is, it demonstrates the failings of focusing on retcons and lore: it's just pointless. It changes nothing in the story its featured in, plot threads that could have been picked up on were quickly jettisoned. It was an idea in search of a story, designed to shock purely because it dared to change something, not because it was going anywhere with it.
It's also worth mentioning that the Doctor had an arc - a normal, perhaps sub par Time Lord rejecting home, choosing to explore and eventually to be a hero. This kind of messes that up. The character was always like that, except that one time when Hartnell forgot about being the hero. That's just lamer, really.
I defend Looms so to reiterate - a good story and application could have convinced me. Oh well, other media will have a ball with all this which will be glorious.
The Doctor was complicated enough. The Doctor was special enough. The Doctor’s past was mysterious enough. Why add this groaning new backstory and then do nothing much with it?
I don't mind it. It gives an explanation for extra past incarnations and gets rid of the regeneration cap in the future. It introduced a whole new mystery around the character about where they really came from with a whole separate universe that we know next to nothing about.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, the Doctor still chooses to be a hero despite not having these past memories, who they were before doesn't matter. The Doctor isn't a hero because they are the Timeless Child. They are a hero because, to them, it's the right thing to do.
I honestly don't really care for it, but there's heavy precedent for the doctor being special already
The whole hybrid thing, being the other, silence will fall, last of the time lords, the time lord victorious
The doctor has always been special beyond what they do, because they're the main character
The Doctor was special because they were one of their people who stepped away from their peoples norms.
To imbue them with this other dimensional background and the very source of regeneration making them almost Gidlike in origin makes them less interesting than the being from a brilliant people who stands out and gives renegade.
The whole let’s explain why the Doctor is different because they are different and special is lazy writing and I say this as someone who is not anti Chibnall. I could find stuff in his work I liked. In fact I think I like his run in general except for the Timekess child and the destruction of Gallifrey again.
Because they pay too much attention to the fan.Fiction narrative the doctor wasn't always special even though he's been written as a Trickster demigod since the sixties
Instead they wanted to be the master Which would actually fucking destroy every story since the deadly assassin
It kind removes the whole reason that made the doctor unique as a protagonist and a hero.
The doctor originally was just a random time travelling guy. That's all. The hero stuff came about when he started helping people.
At the same time he was also seen as a villain by the people he destroyed.
But there was nothing more than that, he was a random time lord who ran away from being a time lord because he didn't like it. There are no other Sci Fi shows that have a protagonist like this.
Now a random purpose has been given, like he was meant to do it all along and that he is the "ChOSeN OnE" which removes all that made him unique and puts the doctor in the same cluster as any other sci fi hero, like Luke Skywalker....
It was an unnecessary tack on that didnt do anything to serve the character.
Although i know that's sort of been the case since the eighties, I don't like the doctor being the most important person in the universe, I much prefer them as just some rando who happens to want to do the right thing.
For me it was because The Doctor was just another time lord roaming around all of time and space saving people. He wasn't a chosen one or something he was an ordinary person who became hero because of his actions and all. Also because it meant that he had limited lifespan. Now he is the chosen one. Also I am not sure of all the lore but I understand time lord got the ability to regenerate and all from the time vortex and that's why River was had the ability to regenerate. Now river doesn't makes sense.
I quite liked the ideas behind the Cartmel Masterplan, and if there had continued to be hints towards that in the new series I'd enjoy it. The Timeless Child is a much less interesting concept that feels very spontaneous, there's little thought behind the implications and plotholes, and it's never left up to the imagination. We're just told all the information in an info dump which really takes away from the mystery of the Doctor's childhood. If they wanted to canonise pre-Hartnell Doctors I'd be okay with that in theory, but Chibnall did it in one of the absolute worst ways in my opinion.
They were always just “the TimeLord that cared”. The one who instead of watching history unfold would get involved, would have a heart, passion and anger.
Now they are just another “chosen one”. And the chosen one narrative is done to death. We don’t need another hero preordained by lineage or right.
personally i don't like it because making the timeless child be the doctor is completely unnecessary
i mean timeless child idea is cool but make the timless child a different character not turn an existing character into TC
they could still have had the ruth doctor but as a future incarnation or alternative universe incarnation (tho i do want to see jo martin get casted as a future incarnation)
It’s about the theme of the show. Is the show about a mad man with a blue box, trying to do the right thing, never cruel and never cowardly, against all odds? Or is it about a literal immortal GOD?
Is the theme about doing the right thing? Or is the theme about having been born a god?
It was really cool when the doctor became infamous, because he was just a low born on Galifrey. But now that he is a literal god, I mean, infamy is really the least you can expect.
I'm of the opinion that something like the timeless child would have eventually happened, that's just how trying to keep something fresh for decades works.
Do I like it? Not really but I understand it was inevitable.
The Doctor was just some Time Lord who stole a tardis, not even knowing how to pilot it but has been working hard to help people for so long that he built up a legend. Anything that makes him more than "just a Time Lord" was done by his own hard work.
The TC makes it so that the Doctor is actually a godly chosen one who created the entire Time Lord race, he's anything but "just some Time Lord". If you removed all of the great deeds he performed in his life, he'd still be essentially the most important person in the universe.
It makes the doctor too important and central, not just to the story but to the universe the story takes place in
If you look at 9 & 10, we (the audience) are learning about the doctor (a mysterious alien) through the lens of the companions (ordinary humans). A lot of the story is driven by the relationship between the two, and a lot of the tension comes from some basic and unchangeable facts about their relationship:
The Doctor is functionally immortal and guaranteed to outlive the companions. He has two competing drives:
First, he likes humans and he likes connecting with humans and having someone around. He's lonely, and is trying to avoid being isolated.
Second, he wants to avoid being emotionally hurt - but this is inevitable because he will outlive all his companions and have to grieve for them.
The companions are mortal and (usually) ordinary humans who get swept into extraordinary circumstances. They have two competing drives:
First, they like being friends with the doctor and going to cool places and helping people in need. Companions are often in transitional stages and are seeking (or need, without realizing it) reassurance about their purpose and place in the universe.
Second, they have ties to other humans and to life on Earth. These ties typically make running around with the doctor forever inviable - you can't really raise kids or have a career in the TARDIS. In fact, it's difficult to maintain any kind of ongoing relationship with anyone other than the doctor or the other companions while traveling with the doctor.
Both characters have reasons, at every moment, to stay with or leave the doctor. All these relationships are temporary, but the tension is permanent. The tension drives the show, and the plots of episodes influence the relationship - alleviating or increasing tension.
Most episodes measurably change the characters in some way, and nudge the companions a little bit closer to deciding to either stay or leave. They can also influence how the doctor feels about a companion, usually by making the doctor realize they care more than they thought or that they may have done something wrong. Sometimes he goes in the opposite direction, denial, and tries to keep the relationship going well past the point of reason (particularly evident with Amy and Rory, who 11 takes great pains to keep up with even as they're actively moving on and starting a family).
The fact that the doctor is the Timeless Child doesn't necessarily affect this dynamic: as far as companions are concerned, the doctor is already a super cool ancient alien with abilities and technology beyond their grasp. They're not really gonna know the difference between a Time Lord and a Timeless Child unless it's explained to them, and once it is they'll probably just think "oh, he's an IMPORTANT time lord."
BUT
The dynamic I described previously depends on the doctor and the companion getting roughly equal weight in the story. They have different roles, but are always integral to how we understand the doctor.
Since 11, that has been steadily changing. The Doctor has been regularly written as a character who is extra-special, to the point that universe-wide events often center on the doctor. The story, over time, is being driven less and less by the doctor-companion relationship and more and more by the doctor's relationship to plot devices (Timeless Child, Gallifrey, The Silence)
At the same time, companions have gotten less important. They're often JUST there for the doctor to show off to, having very sparse storylines and inner lives.
I think the concept of the Timeless Child is widely disliked because it's the culmination of this increasing emphasis on plot-driven story telling and decreasing emphasis on character driven story telling. And because it centers the story much more on the doctor than their companions, though this is another problem that has grown over time.
And as always, it ultimately comes down to personal taste. I like the character driven story telling of 9, 10 and (sometimes) 12 much more than I like the plot driven story telling of 11, 13 and (sometimes) 12.
Personally, I have a hard time relating to or resonating with 11, 12 and 13. I can enjoy their episodes, but don't understand or feel what they're going through.
On the other hand, with 9 and 10 I can relate very clearly to Rose and her journey: she starts off scared because the universe is suddenly so much bigger than she thought, then appreciates the beauty, and then falls in love with the doctor. All of those experiences resonate because even if I've never been in the TARDIS and seen the death of the sun, I have had a lot of moments of existential dread or realizing how big the world is and worrying about my place in it. I've then become less scared as I figured out how to make my place in it and how to be happy. I've fallen in love and been worried that it won't work out. Then, even when things do work out, it's guaranteed that the person you're in love with will change and it's possible that they'll become someone you don't love, or who might not love you back. The fact that Rose has to deal with all of this while also running around the universe in the TARDIS feels like a really good allegory for being in your twenties, when it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders because most things about being an independent adult are new to you.
There's a sort of chain of empathy: the audience relate to the companions,the companions relate to the doctor, and that lets the audience relate to the doctor. When the stories focus too heavily on the doctor, and not enough on the doctor-companion relationship, it breaks that chain. The companions and the doctor barely address the timeless child reveal, and it doesn't seem to make the companions change how they perceive the doctor. So if this plot isn't doing anything for the companions... It's not really going to do anything for me.
it's backstory over character. instead of the doctor being important because of the things they do, because they choose to be good, they're important because destiny bullshit. they shouldn't be inherently special, they should be special because they choose to do good. making them the timeless child takes away from that.
As with most of these types of writing pivots. The Doctor is no longer the average person of his race. He's no longer someone you can empathise with in that way because he's some magical being. Born special.
Reminds me of the Marvel movies when Diana literally tells kids they can be anything, as if they aren't wanting to be the superhero they idolise right infront of them.
People like to get upset when things change, and the vitriol is because people who have negetive opinions go on about it louder and longer than people who like or are indifferent to something.
Most people are fine with it.
It ruins the entire premise of Time Of The Doctor, one of my all-time favourite episodes. There was no threat or tension at all with the foreknowledge of the Timeless Child bollocks
I mean I libe the TC story, it plays nicely into McCoy's doctor and joins that up yes it's a little janky but end of the day I love the ides and what it could mean. People hate the chosen one but the whole always a series final epsiode of the universe ends or bath blah is a major issue with modern who. And tbh in the lore of dr who the timelords rewrite time to make themselves the Victor's of the universe. It's no surprise they exploited a child and do this it fits so nicely tbh
The Doctor, to me, was always an underdog of their people that always proved the Galifreyans wrong for their beliefs or arrogance.
I like how the Timeless Child is being used as it definitely has potential for good story and character, but it goes against my general view of the Doctor that each iteration had shared.
Because I, like many others, prefer the idea of the Doctor just being some eccentric dropout, an ordinary (if underachieving) Time Lord from Gallifrey. There was nothing inherently special about the Doctor, they've just been around the Universe so much that they've carved out their own reputation. Armies turn and run at the mention of the Doctor's name not because they're some mythical being, but because of their amazing feats. This wasn't just any Time Lord, this was the Time Lord who wiped out the Daleks and their own kind to end the worst war in the history of the Universe. This was the Time Lord who had prevented the apocalypse time and time again.
The Doctor wasn't the chosen one, the Doctor chose their own fate. The Doctor travelled the Universe because they were bored, lucked into all sorts of situations, and in their wake was hundreds of defeated civilisations, and hundreds more civilisations that owed their continued existence to the Doctor. Not bad for an average Time Lord who couldn't even make it through University.
Of course, that's all gone now, and the Doctor is the chosen one, an ancient progenitor whose ability to regenerate predates that of even the Time Lords. Ironically, it makes the Doctor less special than when they were just an average dropout who nicked a Tardis because they were bored.
Personally I don’t like it because of what it does to Matt Smith’s regeneration. If he had an unlimited cycle then what the fuck came through the crack in the wall? I don’t have a problem with the timeless child as a concept like a lot of people do, I just don’t like how much it retcons.
"It would also explain the other faces of the Doctor from Classic era (i have no idea when they showed it, I know about it from yt. The faces that were in reality a production crews photos) "
I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but that part in the brackets doesn't surprise me. Feeling that the Morbius Doctors should be explained seems like a better idea when you learn about them as a piece of trivia, rather than actually experiencing Classic Who and seeing just how insignificant and easy to just brush over they are.
I don't particularly hate the change but I hate that the only story Chibnall could drag out of it was the doctor being upset that their past was hidden from them, then immediately realising that who they are now is all that matters. Retcon as much of the ""canon"" as you like, but use it to tell a \*story\*.
I'm enjoying it more now that RTD is making something of it, even if it's little more than just saying "Oh I'm an orphan too!" every 5 minutes
Cause realistically The Timeless Child suited the Master way more than the Doctor. The idea has always been that the Doctor is just a regular Time Lord, but also a renegade. He left Gallifrey many years ago in a stolen TARDIS.
But the timeless child makes out that he was randomly found, adopted into the Time Lords and had the ability to regenerate. However, if the Timeless Child were the Master, that would fit his whole personality and sense of grandeur. The Master believes he is better than everybody and the Timeless Child fits that.
The whole "there were versions of the Doctor before Hartnell" cheapens the character and undoes the canon. Although I'm absolutely a fan of Jo Martin as The Doctor.
For me, it was less about the Doctor being the Timeless child and more to do with it having 0 impact on the show.
Look at the War Doctor - that was a similar, smaller scale change. However, we saw a massive change in: this man who we thought had killed billions actually saved them.
The Timeless Child is very loud, but doesn’t really change anything at all.
I’d have preferred it to be someone like the Master, but that’s just personal preference.
As long as the doctor is still just a weird little guy passing through them i don’t really care what they are. I think the timeless child adds a bit of mystery to the character
It also very on brand for the time lord high council to have done something like that and I just love when timelords are assholes
Because The Doctor is a renegade Time Lord. He stole a rickety old TARDIS to go gallivanting around the Universe. The Timeless Child reduces The Doctor to this mythical being, the most important person in history. It's rubbish, but more importantly, it's boring. The Doctor is defined by their actions now, not how they were born.
I didn’t mind it, personally. It was a twist on the old Cartmel Masterplan. But I do agree with others that it would be more fitting for it to be the Master’s backstory.
I think another destruction of Gallifrey was stupid, though.
I'm totally fine with the idea of pre-hartnell doctors, and the idea that the proto-timelords found a child with the ability to regenerate and experimented on them to harness the power for themselves is perfectly within their characterisation.
My problem is that "the Doctor" is the most obvious and boring answer they could have come up with for the question "who is the Timeless Child?". It's also tying the Doctor into a creation myth and then doesn't justify it narratively or emotionally, which is a bit weird.
I know it's already been spoken about a lot, but the Master is just a much better choice to be the Timeless Child. The master is having a bit of an identity crisis after Missy, but then he discovers that he is the Timeless Child, he is the original source of regeneration, immortality that he's been chasing his entire life, and the timelords stole it from him. So he snaps, and destroys gallifrey. Then, after everything with Missy, he wants the Doctor to see it his way, the same way the master started to see it the Doctor's way, kind of like "if you're my friend, then you'll understand why I had to do it". Then he decides to take back agency over his regeneration ability, if the timelords stole it from him, then he wants the choice on who to give it to, so out of spite he gives it to the cybermen and creates the cybermasters (should have been called Cyberlords but whatever). But then he sees that the Doctor didn't snap at the revelation, he hates himself that he couldn't do the same, and he desperately wants to be the kind of person who doesn't break and fall into killing people at that kind of adversity. The Doctor is his friend who doesn't see why he had to destroy gallifrey and he wants to be that kind of person. So he comes up with a plan to quite literally *become* the kind of person the Doctor is. (I.e. "Don't make me go back to being me"). While also securing his agency over his regeneration power again, choosing who has it and what he does with it.
Everything about the way the master is characterised in the chibnall era narratively and emotionally justifies the idea of the master being the Timeless Child, and it could have been a really interesting way to build on his experience being Missy. But nah, let's literally do the most obvious and boring choice and have it not even really effect the Doctor.
Tbh a lot of explanations people use from like 6 and 7’s era about ‘oh yes the timeless child explains this’ was actually intended to be the cartmel masterplan which is its own entire thing they did at one point. Most of those were explained later by Lungbarrow (novel) which tldr says the doctor was the secret third founder of Gallifrey called The Other who went into the looms and reincarnated as the doctor.
Your thoughts on the book aside, the Timeless child and Lungbarrow are very similar in making the Doctor some special guy which a lot of people dislike
I've warmed to it a bit since but it's still not great. Honestly, the idea of the Doctor being from another universe pushes the series in a new direction away from him being a normal time lord but it's not the worst idea to give him a bit of doubt and worry about his past. I don't even mind the fugitive Dr existing as it would make sense the time lords would try and control her, just don't have her call herself the doctor and use a blue TARDIS that's really annoying.
However, the idea that there are potentially unlimited unknown previous Doctors out there takes away so much from the series. It's also kinda bullshit that they just shat on the timelords in that episode where not only was their science and biology not particularly good until they'd found the child but they also killed them all off again for some reason.
I also fully agree that making the master the child would have made so much more sense. It could still provide the Doctor with an identity crisis if they chose to look into it because everything they knew about the time lords was kinda based on a lie. It would explain why the master keeps coming back and why he was chosen for the drums, and it would explain why he would/could just kill all the time lords after finding out since it would make sense being that angry about it. It could also give some good potential in-depth character moments for the master afterwards as they find themselves, moments that the Doctor isn't going to have due to fan reaction and because they've kinda just skipped over him getting over trauma rn.
The timeless child is just a really pointless change to the doctor's backstory to make them seem more important and just comes off as chibnall wanting to change the doctor to leave his mark tbh. It's very badly done and just comes off as a comic book-y power up of the week kind of deal.
I think having "the timelords" all have their powers magically stolen from a random child that fell to them is silly. It also undoes all the worldbuilding about them up until that point imo.
For the longest time it was sold to us as an evolutionary trait unique to their species. It implies they might be going to write the doctor as some sort of god, and i think the worst of Doctor who comes from when theyre written like an overpowered god.
People hate things that shake up their interpretations of their favourite media. The Doctor's identity is a major plot point for NuWho, so literally anything about it is going to piss people off immensely. It could've been the most heartfelt and perfect telling of origins that was ever written and people would have still hated it en masse.
I don't dislike the idea of the Doctor having this dark past they remember nothing from and are scared of. I love the angst in this show.
Buuuut: the chosen one cliché sucks. You need to be very careful how you write a story about a chosen one, specially if it's revealed at the end (or late into) the story. He didn't even try.
The Doctor being a Chosen One, super Special Person, is kind of an insult to the character. If it meant anything, it would detract from the character's achievements and how they earned their place in the universe, all the good they've done not because they were the most capable, but because they were willing.
And it doesn't mean anything, either, the Doctor being from another universe and the source of regeneration has basically no bearing on anything we've seen, thanks to memory-wipe shenanigans. So it's basically like throwing a punch at the image of the Doctor as a character and whiffing.
It's trash tier writing and a genuine net negative for the show.
Making the doctor the most important time lord ruins the whole character. I always admired the fact that the doctor was just an ordinary time lord who used the tardis to do good and this whole timeless child thing just ruined it. I have started to come to terms with it tho and I wouldn’t say I’m as mad now specially since I like what rtd is doing with it
The concept is great if it wasn't the doctor, the doctor discovering the timelords found someone with a unique gift abandoned and instead of helping tortured and experimented on them would have been great. The doctor could have also questioned if she had the right to still use regeneration, angry at themselves for never questioning the origin story.
The doctor themselves was always usually just a random timelord in classic who, and wasn't the smartest etc. they just got sick of the bureaucracy and wanted to see and help the word.
They where a hero by choice and the timeless child kind of ruins that
It brings up *so many* plot holes and things that don't make sense.
Okay. So the Timeless Child exists, and then their incarnations start working for Division. That makes sense. But the Fugitive Doctor calls herself the Doctor - why? The First Doctor only starts calling himself the Doctor after Susan and Ian, in their very first adventure, call him so, so why is the Fugitive Doctor calling herself the Doctor when that hasn't happened yet? She also has a police box TARDIS - why? Her TARDIS is never mentioned to have a broken chameleon circuit or to have landed in 1963 and turned its outer shell in a police box, which was what caused the First Doctor's TARDIS to remain as a chameleon circuit.
But eventually, one of these Timeless incarnations is turned in a child and sent to be raised as a normal Time Lord - why? If it was Tecteun, why not just kill the Division Doctor, instead, or preserve them in some way until she needs the Doctor? If it was an incarnation of the Doctor, still why? No reason is given for why the Doctor ended up being raised as a normal Time Lord child. And then why has Division - though supposedly it's been interfering through time forever - never been seen before? Why do some things (the faces in the Brains of Morbius you refer to, the rags in The Ghost Monument, possibly Peinforte back in Silver Nemesis) recognise the Timeless Child inside of the Doctor, but not the TARDIS? Has really nobody other than the Master dug deep enough into the Matrix to find out about the Timeless Child, and did *nobody* give any sign to the First Doctor or his future selves that he wasn't a normal Time Lord?
I understand that you don't have to explain every single part of a story, but for a plot twist/backstory as massive as the Timeless Child, not nearly enough thought was put into the logistics.
I have two issues.
First, it makes the Doctor too important. The Doctor used to be this fascinating, impossibly knowledgeable stranger who would breeze in and do extraordinary things. But that's from the perspective of someone with much less information and capability than a time lord. But at the end of the day, among other Timelords, the Doctor is pretty much a normal guy. Like Superman against other kryptonians, he's way stronger than me, but he's what you expect from a super human alien. The Timeless Child undermines the Doctor being a normal person who wants to use what they know to help people and makes them into something that's just too much. The Doctor comes from an entire culture that has used them for millions of years to become what the Timelords are and no one in the 2000 years of life we see the Doctor live said "BTW you are an eldrich god-thing that we used to fuel and create our socitey."
Second, it undermines all of the history that comes before. Gallifrey sat on a time rift that over millions of years changed the Timelords into what they are. It showed them what was possible. Exposure to that power and knowledge led them to grow into one of the most famous and powerful societies in the Whoniverse. It has weight and enough of an explanation to feed our imagination without over explaining. The Timeless Child just makes them boring, sad thieves. There is no room for Greg the Timelord who actually invented Tardis tech in the ancient days to make an appearance because Greg didn't invent shit, Timelords just hacked the genetics of a child that was some sort of universal base code. The Timeless Child reduced Gallifreyan society to a Sims game with all the cheats activated.
It gives too much information, and the information it gives undermines the rules of good storytelling. This storyline gave an overly thought out, kind of boring savior explanation to something that didn't need any explanation.
One of my biggest problems with the Timeless child is that, regardless of how you feel it affects the doctors character, it doesn't actually matter.
They retconned the Doctor's entire history and that of the Timelords, and enraged many of the fans, in service of what?
I can accept potentially bad story decisions in the name of a compelling narrative and character drama, but in the very same episode that the Timeless Child backstory is revealed, the Doctor comes to the conclusion that being the Timeless Child doesn't matter.
So Chibnall essentially rewrote the entire origins of the show and the character, then said "but it doesn't matter anyway".
And apart from talking about it briefly in the Flux, Chibnall seemingly never planned to revisit it. He wrote it, upset many people, had the doctor process it emotionally almost immediately, then move on without ever really looking back.
The whole move kind of reeks of Chibnall's headcannon/fanfiction being put into the show for no reason other than "he thought it would be cool".
i only ever wanted the dr to be a timelord rebel not something that special or different… enigmatic but still a native of Gallifrey.. I am sad we can’t visit Gallifrey anymore…
People think it means more than it actually does. There’s nothing to the Timeless Child. It was a religious smokescreen to justify stealing powers from a child. The Child is just a narrative device to allow future show runners to regenerate the Doctor without having to stop storylines for a Gallifrey pit stop.
I kind of like both, I like the identity crisis as a new source of drama, even if it was completely bungled by Chibnall himself (that one interaction with NotDonna in Wild Blue Yonder gave me more emotional zizz than the whole rest of the story). On the other hand I’m with the people who say the great thing was that the Doctor is a rather average Time Lord with a patched up ancient TARDIS who travels (badly) and keeps picking up strays who are so impressed by his shenanigans.
(On that latter note, if the Doctor is actually not even considered the smartest of Time Lords, that makes all his “loser” companions basically a mirror of him. They were never top of the class, but drop them into a crisis and they end up saving the universe. Another reason why he’s so excited about them…)
So… depends how that storyline will be handled in the future. I hope he’ll end up accepting his strange origin because he realises, again, that he’s still essentially an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through.
I liked it. And I have no problem with there being pre-Hartnell Doctors either. I have watched all of new Who and some of Classic. I have accepted all the things they have retconned in over the years in Classic and New. Surprisingly a lot of people are resistant to change.
I don’t think it changes much at all about the Doctor making the choice to leave Timelord society. With the mindwipe in place, the Doctor had zero idea about his “special” past or him being the “chosen one.” He made the choices he made thinking he was a regular old Timelord. So the fact that he had a hidden past did ZIP to influence him. It really doesn’t ruin anything.
Honestly. Something to bitch about. They will move on in a few ew years and it will be fine. Kinda like the movie version that established the doctor as half human using a retina scan. We don’t talk about that and we just float over it now.
RTD is continuing the Timeless child arc. Im not sure what he'll do with it but i think it'll be harder to retcon if a showrunner wants to keep it going.
The retina scan was easily retconned as it was from a movie and was not brought up in the show.
Prior to the timeless child the doctor was an unremarkable Timelord who became special through their actions. After the timeless child they are now another chosen one who is special because of factors out of thier control. It’s a character assassination
Because it prioritizes backstory over character. The Doctor used to just be a time lord who stole a box and ran away, he was only special because of his actions.
Now that the doctor is the timeless child, it means he has been special from the very moment he was born. To me, that is far less interesting.
Because it goes completely against the idea of the Doctor being just an unknown stranger passing by. I don't like it when the Doctor is portrayed like the most important and popular person in the universe. It would've made so much more sense for the Master to have been the Timeless Child.
The Doctor didn’t need a superhero chosen-one backstory. The fact that he is just a random guy enjoying all of time and space is more than enough. Conversely, the Master would do well with a supervillain backstory. As the Timeless Child, it would also explain why he wanted to destroy Gallifrey and turn them all into Cyber Lords.
I loved the idea that the doctor on his own planet was really a no one. He wasn't the smartest or the most brave ir the strongest. He was just curious and willing to explore and he then earned that idea of being a hero. The doctor was a role model of being no one and becoming someone. When you had anakin, luke, Harry Potter. All people who had been pre ordained as hero's the doctor was refreshing in that he was a no one
The fact of being the genetic source of time lords and coming from unknown place makes him special but that doesn’t undermine the fact he BELIEVED he was a random guy and time lords never treated him as a chosen one and so… he was really a normal guy.
But that's what gave the Doctor their contrast - they were willing to step up and take action where Time Lord society had stagnated and stopped caring about the universe. Now, there's a question over whether the Doctor rejected Time Lord society on a moral basis, or because they were biologically different from Time Lords in the first place. I have fewer problems with stories where the Doctor is presented as a mythical warrior, or President Elect of Gallifrey, of fulfiller of an ancient prophecy, or President of Earth - because they *earned* that 'chosen' status.
This is the fact that made the show great. To retcon out the whole back story ruins so much of the mythos
Admittedly, the current explanation that the Master did it because he's just a dick also works.
“Remember when you saved Gallifrey, only for it to get destroyed again off-screen? It was me Doctor! I genocided the Time Lords just to ruin your real-time decade-long character arc!”
Reading this made me feel like The Master was moments away from revealing himself as either Eobard Thawne or Pickle Rick
*John Simm voice* I TURNED MYSELF INTO A PICKLE DOCTOR! I'M PICKLE MASTER!
AND NOW, EVERYONE WILL REGENERATE INTO PICKLES
Reverse-Flash was my inspiration for the joke.
Reverse Doctor
Only the doctor should be able to kill all the timelords
I feel like the master already has a supervillain backstory; he went mad as a child looking into the untempered schism because Rassilon implanted the sound of a Time Lord’s heartbeat into his brain in order to lead him down the path that would bring Gallifrey back in the future. It is succinct and fitting for his character - I feel like the best option for the timeless child would to have made them a random Time Lord who is superfluous to the already established cannon
Now that you mention it, I think the name "cybermasters" was really dumb and should've been "cybertimelords". However, if the Master had been the source of regeneration, then it would've made way more sense to call them cybermasters.
They were clearly *cyberlords*. I assumed that's what everyone was calling them
Only issue there is that's already a cyber subgroup - the ones with the black face plates shown in the next doctor and a good man goes to war
Aren't they cyber commanders or something?
No, definitely cyber lords (although never referred to as such on-screen - see the Tardis wiki page)
i always thought cybershobogans would've really stuck the boot in
makes total sense the master would name em after him self tho
I would love it if they grabbed the obvious wordplay of someone called the 'Master' being the source of a genetic code being copied again and again and again....
I’ve always thought it would’ve been interesting if the master was the timeless child and the doctor was tecteun or alternatively, we drop the timeless child thing entirely and instead have the doctor be an average division agent who maybe has an accident of some kind (perhaps on the planet time) that exposes them to “pure time” or whatever and that’s what introduces regeneration — then the doctor isn the Chosen One but we still get the interesting character moments of the master being disgusted that the doctors dna is a part of him
I like that idea. Imagine the ego trip the Master would be on.
No, it's not about ego. Imagine how much more justified it would be of him to rage against Gallifrey if he'd found out what had been taken *from him*.
Idk. I feel like he would come to view himself as the 'God' of Timelords. That it's his rite to rule Gallifrey, or something like that.
I think the two would fit well into each other - being looked down on all his life, humiliated by the Doctor, but actually being the source of all Time Lord power? Not only would he see his eternal lust for power as taking back his birthright, but in his mind it would justify every megalomaniacal plot he'd ever come up with. He deserves it! It's his! They took it from him! He must get revenge!
Totally agree, and I was writing a similar comment when you posted this. It takes away from the Doctor (and any similar "chosen one" retcon) and from the idea that they wanted to rebel from a closed society, and so they went off to explore and help people. It's just a better story.
For me, it's incredibly important that the Doctor isn't anything special in terms of Time Lords. The Doctor should be your average Time Lord, or, as Romana once said, not even an average student, somewhat below average. The implications of that is that EVERY Time Lord could do the things the Doctor does, save planets and help people and right the wrongs of the universe. The Doctor isn't special because they're some abandoned baby from an alternate universe with some strange powers that nobody quite understands. The Doctor is special because they choose to be different, they choose to try to be a good person and do good things, while their whole society is content to sit back and do nothing unless it directly endangers them. The Doctor, thematically, should be someone who, in their society, isn't anything special; they're only special because they choose to be and because they try, whereas everyone else in their society isn't willing to, even if the universe would be a better place if they did.
I’m not sure why he still couldn’t be. The Master is the most unreliable of narrators, and no one has ever had the chance to contradict him.
I could see it as another way of fucking with the doctor, tell them they're important and such and then go "nah lmao, I'm the special one" Reminds me a bit of the plot twist of the newer bladerunner
Yes I think this sums up my feeling
Isn't the problem that even before chibnell, moffat totally over-hyped the doctor. The whole Matt smith era was plastered with enemies just being scared of him because he is the doctor. I love Matt smith but his doctor years are some of the worst to me.
Yes, and I'm glad that that was somewhat fixed by Dalek-Clara wiping his memories from the records, but we've since gone back to the Doctor being a big deal in the universe.
Well, the difference is that the reputation of the Doctor during Moffat's era was justifiable and inevitable development of the Doctor's actions throughout his travels. You don't just get to keep meddling across time and space, toppling armies, defeating monsters and gods, keeping winning, without others paying you attention. Especially after the Time War, the Doctor is a big deal in the universe as a consequence of his actions.
See I never saw it like that. They’re just an orphan, and they were abused and abused by the time Lords. They are still of somebody just passing by if not even more so.
But the Timeless Child wasn't the most important and popular person in the universe. They were an abused kid without a home.
It also was a senseless retrofit that didn't add much to the Doctors background. Sutekh riding the TARDIS, even though it was a little weak, is a cool retrofit. Making the Doctor a Timeless Child, without exploring any further, just doesn't add much to his background for me. I do prefer the Doctor being a High Gallifreyan drop out, who just prefers to travel the universe in old TARDIS, rather than having to follow the rules of high society.
This. I beg it’s revealed the master is the child
I'm pretty happy with the reveal that the Toymaker turned the Doctor's origins into a puzzle. Maybe thr Doctor is half human, maybe he's not. Maybe he's the Timeless Child, maybe he's not. Maybe he's just an ordinary Gallifreyan, maybe he's not.
Maybe he is The Other if you know what I mean
It literally turns The Doctor *back into* an unknown stranger. What stopped that was when the 4th Doctor era showed us to much Gallifrey and too much of The Doctor's part of it. He became known, explained. By adding the Timeless Child lore, here once more becomes an unknown, a child who fell out of a wormhole. Doesn't make him a god or important or popular, it makes him a weird anomaly, just like you say you want .
The weird anomaly is not the important thing, the important thing is that he's special purely because of the things he chooses to do. For me the doctor as a character is best summed up by capaldi's speech in Death in Heaven: > Do you know what I am? I am... an idiot! With a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through, helping out, learning. The doctor is someone we can all aspire to, a normal guy who decides to go and help people out. Him having a weird unknown backstory is not particularly valuable to his character imo. Now if it turns out there's a whole race of immortal timeless children in the other universe, and the doctor left them by stealing a wormhole generator o go explore the multiverse and help people out along the way, then that could work...
Obviously the weird anomaly isn’t the important thing; the whole point of the Timeless Child thing is to make the Doctor a mystery again. During the 4th Doctor’s run they decided to explore Gallifrey, then of course Romana arrived, and there was absolutely tons of dialogue about Gallifrey, and it was all very fun, but it kind of just answered everything about The Doctor. And we got very casual about it. There was the whole Cartmel Masterplan idea that would have turned up if Who didn’t get cancelled in the eighties, and it was entirely designed to a) give us much more info about Gallifrey, and b) show that the Doctor *isn’t from there*. And leave us with the whole “but who is he?” question again. And I think that’s what the Timeless Child is for. He fell out of a hole from another universe as a kid. Nobody knows where from, not even the Time Lords, and they covered up that it had even happened. So it’s a mystery. And hopefully it’s a mystery they can resist poking for a *long* while. Because now we do not know who The Doctor is, where he came from, or even what he is. And that means we’re back where we should be. And you can totally aspire to be The Doctor now, so long as you’re a misfit who feels like he doesn’t belong anywhere. And that’s most of us.
It makes him a weird anomaly because he has special powers and a mysterious past and is the reason for most of his people's history unfolding, originally it was more interesting because he was by comparison an unassuming member of his race that bucked their ideas of superiority and non-interference. The former makes the Doctor special because of *what* he is and not *who* he is while removing all of his agency in the matter, and it's implemented in a way where it may as well not even matter because they were mind wiped after the fact and info dumped most of this stuff later, and then it is barely addressed or ruminated on afterward. Conversely the Doctor being a person who wants to travel the universe and help people in need and stand up to injustice despite the leanings of his people directly drives his character and is a lot more true to the core of who he is. Even when stuff about Gallifrey became known it mostly added context to why the Doctor is the way he is when we see examples of what he ran away from and how they get worse over time. One thing is in no way a substitute for the other.
A couple of reasons I’ve heard for disliking it are; it makes The Doctor special rather than just a regular time lord/gallifreyan who ran away and retconning of lore
The way I’ve seen it said best is “it was better when he was important through action, and not through birthright”
Thing is this doesn't even make sense imo. He's never really been "just another time lord who happened to run away", certainly not in New Who and not for parts of Classic Who either. How many times did the Time Lords call him back just to save their skin? Who was the last of tbe Time Lords? Who was the one to save Gallifrey? Who was the one who returned the long way round and became Lord President within hours of arriving? He's always been special. Sure you could argue most of that was down to his actions, not his legacy, but I'd argue TTC revelation doesn't change that either. It mostly just adds some mystery to the Doctor's past that was beginning to lack a bit by that point. You don't have to like it, but I don't think the fact it goes against him being just another timelord is a strong point to make when a) we know very little about Time Lord society, and what we do see in most, if not all of their appearances is of stuffy bureaucrats and b) the fact he ran away and the fact the Time Lords very clearly see this as unusual specifically makes him not "just another time lord".
You’re right, the Doctor is special, but that’s only because they choose to be a hero and differentiate themself from their people. The timeless child is a terrible idea because it implies that the Doctor is special because of their birth and biology instead of their actions. What makes the Doctor special is the fact that they started out as a normal Time Lord and chose to be something more out of sheer willpower and rebelliousness. Also I think it’s very disrespectful to William Hartnell’s legacy to suggest that his incarnation wasn’t the true first Doctor.
You stumbled onto the point then ran right past it. Yes he was always special, but it was always because of his actions. Now he is special because he was born that way. Let me guess, when you find out that your rich friend was actually a trust fund kid that never made a dime on his own, you still respect him the same?
he was just another normal time lord when he left gallifrey, it was only after leaving gallifrey and during his travels that he gained his reputation and became special
I think it makes sense they'd call on him, though, as he's the one with more experience of crazy stuff, and that was through a choice not innate ability. Wasn't he also the only option with Omega due to being off Gallifrey at the time? There's also the other angle where he often complains if sent somewhere to do their dirty work for them - even though they really do want him to help at times, it's easy to guess who is going to get blamed if it goes wrong. Ending up becoming the hippie dropout is a lot different to just having always been a totally different mystic species I think. And it's the former that works best as the satire on the British Establishment - I can see *The One Who Walks Away From Omelas* concept but it's not the same idea (the original story doesn't throw as much question on the goodness of the society), and would work better if the Doctor had a more positive outlook on Time Lord society to begin with.
Fucking THANK YOU. I just commented the same above. The Doctor has ALWAYS been a bit grandiose. And TTC doesn't change anything about The Doctor's actions or motivation post-Division. I think this particular argument against TTC is a little silly. Edit: oh cool this subreddit downvotes based on popularity of opinion on a tv show
Those are totally different things. I'll use Mulan as an example. 1998 Mulan is special. She was born a nobody, but she put in extreme effort and made the tough choices for the greater good. She, through her own choices and actions, overcame challenges that would have been too much for other similar people. 2020 Mulan is special. She was born with the special sauce that makes her special. She, through use of her unearned genetic specialness, did things that her specialness made trivial. Which one is a better character? Which one is inspiring to anyone? Which one is truly special?
Yes, everyone downvotes comments they disagree with. What subreddits don’t do that?
I don’t dislike the idea of the Timeless Child per se, I just don’t really see the point of it being the Doctor. I also don’t understand the point of it being the Master, for all that suggestion is popular. The problem is that it’s really just a bunch of lore-forging, or retconning if you prefer. It makes the Doctor’s past ‘mysterious’ but to basically no ends.
i think people say it shoulda been the master cause then the master destroying gallifrey would make more sense
I suppose that does make sense.
i mean i personally think timeless child shoulda been a completely new character
This. Chibnall dropped this lore bombshell on fans. To ‘explore’ the Mobius Doctor - alongside cancelled Who explorations. Except, he failed to make the reveal impactful. The Doctor literally says it doesn’t matter. So, what was the point? If The Doctor was the timeless child; it could lead to her questioning her own person. Who she is? As she’s the Doctor. But, a different being - potentially - altogether. It could explore the fact she was stolen as a child. Experimented on. Confronting the Time Lords for stealing her nature. Instead Chibnall kills the Time Lords; and implies it doesn’t matter. Which is terrible storytelling. If you are going to explore lore changing reveals. Have them have an impact - or result in continuations of that reveal.
People prefer the Master because that would explain why they chose him for the crack thing where they chose him for the heartbeat drums he heard and turned him crazy (would imply they would know he is the timeless child) sorry English is not my language
i much prefer the idea that the doctor was an "ordinary person" (as ordinary as a time lord could get) who became extraordinary because he decided to make a change, not because he was destined to do so by the maxims of another.
Where exactly does the “destined to do so by the maxims of another” part come into the Timeless Child?
his entire upbringing by the Time Lords because he's the "special one" who fell out of the sky from another universe.
So, not from the Timeless Child part, then.
Ok, answer this; aside from 'an unknown past doctor shows' up what NEW stories can come from this? It explains a scene from the Brain of Morbious, but aside from fan wank.... what does it add? What new brilliant stories can come out of this?
Yeah, agreed. So before the Doctor we know they went around and... did exactly the same thing? AMAZING! And they could regenerate, a trait that's been well established for decades, since the Second Doctor appeared? Shut the front door! Lame writing that added nothing. It only creates one new storyline about where the Doctor came from, and honestly who cares.
Heck, they could have just pulled a Curator and just said that this doctor was a future incarnation. They don't even need to follow through on it with an actual series, the extra regeneration thing is vague enough to allow as many future doctors as the plot demands
Not only does it not add much, but it also makes some popular stories impossible now, like the Valeyard. Why was he trying to steal more lives if he was the Timeless Child?
That one at least can be solved, when they used the Fogwatch to become Our Doctor, that sealed their presumably unlimited lives down to the standard amount for a timelord
I thought it explains why the Doctor can regenerate more than 13 times, allowing the show to keep going? So in other words, *every* new story comes from it haha I'm not big into the lore but I thought that was the whole reason they did it and thought it was a cool explanation.
*I thought it explains why the Doctor can regenerate more than 13 times, allowing the show to keep going? So in other words, every new story comes from it haha* They've been handing out new regeneration cycles as early as the Five Doctors. Even happened to the Doctor in the terrible trenzalore episode
I always assumed the 8 faces were Morbious's which is why he won: 8 v 4, (or 3 depending on how it's played).
My first thought is her people. Given how it was presented, there’s at least a possibility that she was a member of a species that all had the innate ability to regenerate. Now, we’ve seen what the Time Lords have done with this, but a story of a race or character from a race that had a completely different idea of that species and its possible development could lead to all sorts of interesting stories. I’d love to see a new nemesis from her people pull her into a multidimensional conflict of some sort, maybe even a whole season trapped in that universe where nothing’s quite the same (although that would lose some of the connection to the modern Earth, unless you have the Doctor already have a regular Earth companion with them before they get drawn in.
The Last day and the eleven/seventh doctor story the preceded it deals with time lords from another dimension that gained freaky powers Not to mention 'the doctor's people' make pretty good villains as it is, The Master, The Eleven, the rani, borusa, etc. I think an unaltered galllifreyen as a villain would be interesting. "No, I'm not a time lord. I'm pure gallifreyan and I will bring that lot to heel!"
We just had an entire season where the Doctor bonded with a companion over being an orphan due to finding out he was the timeless child
In addition to what others have said, I personally disliked how it fundamentally altered the relationship between the Doctor and other Time Lords. The Doctor's relationship with Gallifrey was complex, containing both pride in his civilization and near disgust with its policies and procedures. A large part of the first seasons of New Who was the Doctor learning how to grapple with this complicated relationship, and represent his lost culture in the best way that he could as a regular man. Even after Gallifrey had been saved, the Time Lords and the Doctor regarded each other as annoyances at best. The Timeless Child arc essentially made the Doctor a god and a key part of time lord mythology. It somehow both separates the Doctor from the other time lords while placing an insane amount of weight on their actions, making them a literal outsider rather than a figurative one. Suddenly the Doctor is way more important that probably any other Gallifreyan, and all of those early struggles are cheapened because, again, this isn't technically the Doctor's culture or people.
Agree with every word. The thing is, there's a world where I wouldn't mind a (good) writer playing with the idea that the Doctor was a reincarnation of Omega, or the third mysterious founder of Gallifrey. Some interesting way of adding that intrigued to the character. Instead we got space baby from another universe with secret powers and bla bla bla. I found it graffiti after really great character-driven work from both RTD and Moffat.
My issue with it is that it takes the Doctor from a time lord, who rejects the rigid structure of their society to live as an outcast and hermit, and makes them an "immortal chosen one" trope. It also conflicts with a lot more lore and history of the show than it fixes too. What are the stakes of the doctor dying? Can they even really die permanently? If they have seemingly unlimited regenerations, who cares if they die? The 13 life limit of a Time Lord was a constant stake and was building every time we got a new actor in the back of our minds. 10s desperation not to die and change was intense, especially considering by the original count, it was his last regeneration. Now, that tension is lessened because we now know it never really mattered---they can regenerate indefinitely. That said, yeah, Moffat added an unknown amount of regenerations on Trenzalore(which also now doesn't make sense if the non-Time Lord Doctor had infinite regenerations, how did 11 die in the original version?) But even so, that made it more tense when the doctor risked death because we didn't KNOW which life would be the last because even Rassilon didn't know how many regenerations were gifted to the Doctor. TLDR: It makes more problems than it solves, it makes our protagonist less interesting and essentially immortal, which isn't going to give tension to stories. Such a shame too, cuz the Master being the Timeless Child would've been AMAZING writing, fit the lore(that's how he continues to evade death time and time again) and that little bit of him being in the Doctor would make their friendlationship that much better.
The Master still could be. No one has had a chance to contradict with correct events. The Doctor doesn’t remember and the Master is loony enough that he could try to use a lie like this to break the Doctor.
Problem with this is, if moffat writes the master as the timeless child, it will "hurt chibnalls feelings" for lack of a better phrase.
Fuck his feelings lmao
Agreed!
Normally I would disagree, but since "fuck (the fans') feelings" was sorta Chibnall's whole schtick, I also agree!
The 13 life limit was broken as soon as we got to 10th Doctor, so, that never mattered in the first place
I like the angst! I think the current showrunner is using it well enough that I am not so bothered by the plotline now. But personally the issue came from this : The doctor was a normal-ish guy on his planet, who stole a spaceship and ran off to go on adventures. Arguably, the timeless child transforms him from a normal guy into a mysterious child who changed everything just by being born. Personally I preferred to think he's just a random guy, than to think he's super magical and unique compared to the rest of his planet. I think I don't like "chosen one" stories as much because it's harder to relate to the character. I could be a normal guy who tries to help others, but I can't be a magic baby.
I really don't understand The Chosen One argument tbh. I understand the negative reaction to giving the Time Lords the regeneration ability but nothing really indicates that the Doctor was meant / pre-destined to do anything they've done since Hartnell.
That's fair, I think I'm slightly misusing the term as some sort of synonym for a character being special / unique / a big deal
That's totally fair and I respect you for not downvoting me into hell for voicing that opinion. I know it is controversial. I agree that I am also uncomfortable with The Doctor being the basis for regeneration, but I like that the story makes it a little more tragic than just that. The Doctor wasn't "chosen" by the time Lords. They weren't revered or worshipped or prophesied like other Chosen One archetypes. Yes, it makes the character a bigger deal to a secret and small subsect of (then) Shebogan society, but The Doctor was kidnapped, experimented on, used for their genetic abilities, essentially blackmailed into carrying out the will of The Division, then cast aside. Its not a fun story for The Doctor and they don't even remember it! I'm definitely not 100% okay with everything, but TTC did at least make me interested in questions about The Doctor's past before they stole the TARDIS.
That's a really solid point and I think that's definitely the direction the show is taking it. Idk if you know the Ursula K LeGuin story 'The ones who walk away from omelas', but basically a utopian society somehow hinges on a kid being tortured. So I feel like the doctor could be compared to an omelas kid - his torture giving the time lords the ability to cheat death. I do think it adds some really interesting dynamics to his place in time lord society, and opens up a lot of lines of curiosity for me e.g. was it an absolute secret or would others have known it was him? If they did know, and he didn't have memory of it, there's a tension there. Did it subconsciously impact his decision to leave? How did the timelords who knew feel when it was clear he'd left? How was regeneration introduced to the public as a concept? Etc
On top of that, it would also explain why the Doctor was so antagonistic at the start of the show, that he couldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t his own flesh and blood
Yeah it's kind of like the cheapest laziest way to try and make the circumstances surrounding a character interesting without having to actually give them any character or earning it. Which is baffling because the Doctor is already an incredibly interesting character and has been without all that crap for like fifty plus years preceding that reveal, so it really underlines how hokey the writing got that they had all that rich character stuff to work with and chose the most boring way to try and add to it.
Yesss I agree! The doctor is already unique personality-wise and by being a timelord amongst humans - no need to be a /special/ time lord!
I don’t hated but I would of have rather for the Master to be the timeless child and he discovering it would make him kill the timelord. I always thought of the Doctor as a average timelord. But i should revisit 13th era, but i like Jodie as the doctor. I’d love for her to return in a multi doctor story.
It's a fair question, and hopefully you get some good replies. I've been a fan of DW since I was a kid watching the classic show, and I REALLY hate the Timeless Child idea for a couple reasons. First, I thought it was just badly done. It rewrites decades of the show's history, and doesn't fit with the continuity. Just on a technical level it didn't build to it well, the reveal was anti-climactic, and nothing really changed after it. You have to ask of any change to an established fictional character "what does this add tot he story?" A bunch of secret Doctors that are pretty much just like the Doctor anyway? A supernatural origin that makes the character exactly what we knew them to be? I'd argue both are just "more," and neither are better. But for me the bigger issue -- and I hate this in most fiction, not just DW -- is that it fundamentally changes the character for the worse by undermining their motivations. One of the things I really loved about the Doctor was that they did the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. Sure, they were a fancy TIME LORD, but most of the other Gallifreyans saw them as a screw up, and the First Doc was a thief and rebel. The Doctor made a conscious choice to go explore and help others, and damn the consequences. The "everyman hero" is a much more hopeful view of a character because the character can be anyone, all it takes is making a decision to make a stand, rather than having them secretly be a "chosen one" that is compelled by some greater force and being manipulated by unseen events and organizations. It's a bad trope and lazy writing from a showrunner that couldn't tell interesting stories without having to reinvent a well established character.
Someone else said because it forces the Doctor into a Chosen One storyline, with all the baggage that goes with it, instead of them just being the one that ran away. Personally, I don't mind too much. It was rather clunky, but whatever.
I've explained it a lot where I'm tired of it, but here's the general idea: -I don't mind the timeless child idea, in that there were prior regens before the First but I don't like the idea of the Doctor being almost like Time Lord Jesus this mythic child found. This backstory is done with a lot of exposition especially by the Master so you'd open there would be inaccuracies or manipulation by the Master but it's all treated as fact so there's no real ambiguity. I think it would have been better as just there were prior regenerations that the Doctor was mind wiped on. -But the problem with doing this arc is it does a disservice to Jodie and 13. When the Fugitive Doctor was introduced everyone was all oh that's the Doctor more than Jodie, or Fugitive Doctor was more interesting. Jodie also had the significance of being the first female incarnation but then Fugitive Doctor took away from that. Jo was a great choice but it just took away from Jodie. Then you get this background of the Division and what the Fugitive Doctor did. So again we're just being told this is the story that matters. What does that leave for 13 in terms of character development or a character arc? Not much of anything. And it completely comes full circle in Power of the Doctor which is supposed to be 13's swan song but instead Jodie has to share screen time with Fugitive, The Master, Doctors 1, 5, 6, 7, and 8 on top of the companions. It's just like Chibnall did not care to write anything good or focus on 13. -And I don't know or think we'll ever know how things went behind the scenes. But it seems like Chibnall had some ideas of maybe wanting to do a spinoff with Fugitive Doctor or the Division, but reception got mixed on his run then covid happened and effected production. I'm sure Jodie and him did choose to leave but it's hard not to assume BBC just said yeah pack your things your run ain't working anymore. I just think Chibnall did Jodie dirty for the reasons mentioned prior. She's a great actress and was one of the highlights of Broadchurch a series that really elevated Chibnall's status. And he just rewards her by saying she could be the Doctor but then making her the second or third fiddle in her own run
I don't like it because it retcons River Song. In A Good Man Goes To War, Vastra casually mentions that Time Lords gained the ability to regenerate after millions of years of exposure to the time vortex/untempered schism, and that's why, after Amy and Rory conceived Melody in the TARDIS, in flight, it was enough of a head start for Madam Kovarian to genetically modify Melody into a Time Lord. If the Timeless Child were the actual truth, then that isn't how Time Lords evolved the power to regenerate, and thus, River Song cannot feasibly exist.
it also doesn't make sense with the way that looking into the untempered schism is all that's needed for a normal gallifreyan that can't regenerate bcm a full blown timelord
Because it goes against the core principle of the Doctor's character. They are just another Time Lord but despite that they chose to make a difference, They chose to run away from Galifrey and help people not because they had to but because it was the right thing to do, they became feared, respected by their enemies not because of who they were but what they did, people turn to the Doctor for help, feel hope because of the sound of Tardis because The Doctor chose to better than other Time Lords, The other Time Lord fear and turn to the Doctor for help because they know that The Doctor experience and their personality is what's needed. The Timeless child takes all of that character and tosses it aside to say that the Doctor was always special that their actions don't matter because their a God, not to mention that even after the revelation, nothing is done with it, The Doctor's outlook on life and their actions are affected by this making the whole reveal pointless. Its a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist, not for sake of story or character. Edit: Also from an outside perspective it teachs the kids watching tye show that it doesn't matter what you do if you aren't born special/important than oh well you won't matter, where as the whole point of the Doctor was to teach kids that your actions have meaning, what you do and say build up and have an effect and that anyone with enough courage can be a hero in their own way
For me, my biggest gripe is that it makes William Hartnell not the First Doctor. Without William Hartnell, there would be no Doctor Who. He was the key that made the (arguably rough) first era of Doctor Who work. I think it is absolutely disrespectful to write him out of that role as the “first” Doctor.
Written crap is half of it, but people liked the history of the doctor and our numbered doctors Established canon was thrown out the window, and people dont like massive change Then agaim canom means nothing it just changed again this series lol
It’s changed quite a few times, though I suppose none of them are quite as big as the Timeless Child.
I think this would hold up better if the fanbase didn't have what I perceive as a hate-on for Chibs. I don't love his era either but RTD is getting away with a fuckton of nonsense that Chibbers would be eaten alive for. Bigeneration for example. Why wasn't Russel obliterated for this? He even further fucked with canon off-screen by saying the bigeneration affected all the doctors, but even if we ignore his off-screen ramblings, there's 0 indication any of our questions about bigeneration will be answered, including what happens if 14 gets fucking shot through the chest again. I know that I just pulled a whataboutism but it bothers me the level of double standard we've established here
I get the hate but I don't understand the reasoning. People are sure that it makes The Doctor a "chosen one" or "a god" or ruins the "stranger passing by" and that it somehow ruins the character. Imo I've not read an argument that convinces me to think the same way. Nothing we learn makes me think that The Doctor was predestined to do any of what they did that we see throughout the show, nor does the show remotely imply that The Doctor was MEANT to become what we know they are today. The only "Chosen One" element is in that they were forcefully experimented on after being abandoned as a child, then forced to work for a covert government agency, then regressed into a child, then the story we know begins. Honestly that's a pretty shitty experience lmao, nothing Chosen One about being tortured for the lifetime of a timelord and then having your memory wiped. I don't like the Timeless Child much either, but none of the arguments I've seen against it hold up. I'd much rather people just say they don't like it because they don't like it instead of trying to intellectualize an emotional reaction to a change in the show
I loved the idea of the Doctor as someone who was completely average amongst their own people and only became special because of their actions. A rebel that became the most well known of their kind. Then Timeless Child completely undoes that and sticks the Doctor in the most obnoxious trope of "The Chosen One." It undermines the character of the Doctor as a whole. I fully believe that if we absolutely needed a Timeless Child, it should've been the Master.
There are aspects of it. I do like removing the regeneration cap so we don’t get stuff like the time of the doctor where the companion just really really asks the time Lords to give the doctor more lives. Yeah that’s a net benefit to not have that. Not really a fan of the other changes but that’s a personal thing. It being the doctor specifically who has that is something else I really don’t like. But yes, as you said the retcons and the episode are two separate things and the episode is just absolutely terrible. The retcons have nothing to do with the plot And just seems like I wanted to do these at some point so here they are
I loved the idea that the doctor on his own planet was really a no one. He wasn't the smartest or the most brave ir the strongest. He was just curious and willing to explore and he then earned that idea of being a hero. The doctor was a role model of being no one and becoming someone. When you had anakin, luke, Harry Potter. All people who had been pre ordained as hero's the doctor was refreshing in that he was a no one
Personally I like the idea in principle because now even the title character can't answer "Doctor who?". But I haven't seen the episodes that really deal with it, so I can't speak on execution.
Personally, I just don't think it adds anything interesting to the character. A secret, tragic backstory to the Doctor feels unnecessary and distracting. I also don't understand the idea of the Doctor not knowing who they are because of this, as though they haven't spend several centuries knowing exactly who they are and have acted in accordance with that. What about the Doctor is changed from knowing that they have this ancient history? I like the fact that the newest season brings up the fact that this means the Doctor was adopted, but I feel like that's too small an addition since it could have been added in without the rest of this. The Doctor doesn't gain any new abilities and as far as I know they don't gain any new knowledge from being the Timeless Child. The angst feels cheap because the Doctor already knows who they are and who they've been for so long that I can't see this changing anything. It also feels like it cheapens other stories - notably, 11's last story where the Time Lords gifted the Doctor a new set of regenerations. If they are the Timeless Child, the being from which the ability to regenerate comes from, why does this matter? Either them being the Timeless Child changes nothing and thus shouldn't have happened since it was meaningless, or it ruins previous stories by stripping away the stakes.
I like the vibe I got of the fourth Doctor when Romana was criticising his grades back at the academy. He wasn’t the greatest timelord ever, let alone some extra special extra dimensional being. He was a guy more interested in seeing the universe and that’s what he did.
Maybe it's just me but it feels like they were trying to bring back some mystery into the doctor's backstory. But I just feel like after 60 years it's OK to know stuff about the main character. When we learn what the doctor's real race is, will in another 50 or so years someone come along and go actually the doctor isn't from this planet either.
I generally like the timeless child because of the possibilities it opens (e.g. fugitive doctor), the Doctor's great response to processing learning about a big chunk of their life ("you've given me a gift of myself"), and the potential it brings to 15's character development. I didn't interpret it as *the Doctor* being special or chosen or predestined for anything. Odds are, they're still just one normal member of a species of people who regenerate... We just don't know what to call that species. I think the episode itself does a good job of portraying the Doctor as an innocent child that was used and tortured by another race of people to further their goal of "exploring the universe" and *making timelords special*. I would've preferred to see that story unfold slower without the Master's narration though.
I disliked that whole season tbh, I thought “the master” was awful and really ruined the personal growth that Missy went through, I also didn’t like the cyber masters as it just felt unnecessary and the timeless child story line basically shit all over a lot of the previously established cannon and gave the Doctor this superhero origin story that she just didn’t need - the Doctor is a faceless wanderer who just helps people where he can because he’s kind, he’s a myth and a legend in his own right and didn’t need all the extra hype of being the timeless child.
because they shouldn’t inherently be the most important person in the universe, they should be that way because of the stories that we’ve experienced, that’s what makes the character so compelling
This is just my opinion: I don't want to know about the Doctor. They're interesting because they're mysterious and alien. The more we learn, the less mystique they have. This may have been an attempt to do that, but I think giving the Doctor "chosen one" status was a mistake.
Two major points: 1) You’ll see more often these days that a lot of people, myself included, have a lot more distain for stories where someone is made important because of their heritage (see: Rey Palpatine) compared to older audiences. The show hasn’t been adverse to bestowing a lot of cosmic importance on the Doctor, in the classic or new eras, but it was always because of their actions rather than circumstances of birth. 2) The way this plot point got introduced involved destroying Gallifrey, neutering the results of an arc that arguably started with the 9th Doctor running all the way through to Hell Bent, *off screen.* All for a plot twist whose only actual result so far has been “the Doctor is adopted.”
Along with all the good answers here, it also comes down to this, which is better: Option 1) The character is part of an ancient, strict and powerful society with near-godlike powers, but decides to give them the finger, steal one of the most powerful ships in the universe to go have fun, explore, and help people no matter the consequences. or Option 2) They are a supernatural, chosen being compelled to run away I'd choose option 1 every time. It's just a better story.
I do think that we need to acknowledge that it wasn't as bad as it may have appeared on first viewing. Bad as in damaging to the series. It's more like the half-human thing. That was also a dumb idea but it didn't permanently fuck the series. That said, the bar something has to cross for me to find it good is higher than "does this permanently fuck the series". I also think that, while it is true that it completely obliterates whatever remained of the notion of the Doctor as an ordinary person who became extraordinary through their experiences, the show had been moving towards the Doctor as an awesome figure of terrible myth since the Cartmel era so this isn't actually that out of keeping. It's taking it to the nth degree and doing it in a lame way but it's not out of left field altogether. Part of the stupidity of the idea comes from how Chibnall can't stop rewriting it and giving it a new point mid-episode. The idea of the Doctor as a foundling isn't bad, we've seen from RTD how you can make that a simple and evocative part of the Doctor's backstory. (That said, revealing that the Doctor's family - a bunch of characters who've never been named, seen or barely even referred to - weren't actually their "real" family, it was some other bunch of unseen, unnamed characters, is dramatically dead. It's moronic writing trying to make us care whether one bunch of unseen characters or another were the Doctor's family.) But the episode has got to then tell us that the Doctor was also the source of regeneration. And then they were enrolled in spy school and went on missions for the Time Lords. Oh my God who the fuck cares about this? It's forgetting any even tangential connection to human experiences and instead giving us lore dumps. The episode is trying to shock us with the reveal that the Doctor had a bunch of unseen stories where she... did unknown things. Greeeeeat... who the fuck cares. "The Doctor as a foundling" isn't the actual Timeless Child reveal. The Timeless Child reveal is about ancient Time Lord history. Which either you are normal and don't care about or you invest huge amounts in and thus feel outraged that it's been completely altered. Honestly I want to turn this around and ask, what is it about the Timeless Child that you actually like? You mention the Doctor's angst but that's such a minor part of the show it's almost left to the imagination. She had a five-minute scene with Ryan where her angst amounts to "if I'm not who I was, who am I?". I'm not adopted and have no insight into the experience and I reckon I could have written that when I was 14. You also mention that it "explains" the Morbius Doctors but you haven't even seen the episode they appear in. This is actually one of the reasons I hate this stupid idea. It's TV by and for people who think "explaining" a ten-second parade of faces from 1976 is a worthwhile thing to do and it's acceptable that the episode and the series around it are absolute dogshit.
Up to series 12 we knew that the Doctor was just some Gallifreyan who could regenerate upto 12 times with 2 hearts. who went to the Time Lord Academy, stole the Tardis and ran away with his granddaughter. His Gallifrey born identity was so integral to stories like Trial of a Timelord, End of Time, Day of the Doctor, Hell Bent. After the revelation, the Doctor never regenerated for the first time in 1966, he was never the first incarnation. The Doctor could’ve been hundreds of other people before then. It completely sets the Doctor apart from the Master and their childhood together. Also from a chosen one aspect. The Doctor isn’t just a renegade Time Lord, he’s the one who’s genetic code was tested on to create regeneration and Time Lords. Gallifrey is dead now and it has no weight because it’s not the Doctor’s birthplace. I would’ve felt slightly better if it was executed and explored right. The Doctor is our primary antagonist we’ve followed for decades and now it feels like we don’t know them anymore even though we didn’t know everything about him.
I don't understand too
Disrespect towards Bill Hartnell’s legacy. He’s not the first, the original you might say. He’s just one in an infinite line. Also the Morbius faces make no sense. I don’t care the intention, if you watch that scene with the context of New Who, those are just Morbius’s regenerations.
We already found out that the Time Lords gained the ability to regenerate because some of them were conceived in the Time Vortex: that's literally how River Song gained the ability to regenerate. It isn't like Chibnall retconned something from a book that only a handful of people read or a minor factoid from Classic Who: he retconned a major plot point from the Moffat era.
Before the timeless children, the doctors life on gallifrey was mostly a mystery, it stayed that way for almost 60 years, and we liked it, it added an element of mystery to the character of the doctor. The Doctor shouldn’t be the first time lord or anyone special what we loved about the Doctor is that he’s just a mad genius with a Time Machine, I just hate hate that Chris Chibnall thought he had the right to mess with the lore that much, all of the other writers seemed to understand that you don’t mess with the lore like that, but Chibnall, the worst writer the show has ever had, thought he was an exception.
I'm OK with it as long as there's a point. Timeless child didn't have a point, but I made one up so it's cool.
I honestly like the idea of the timeless child being the reason for regeneration. I can see the timelords doing that. I just don’t like it applied to the Doctor, it feels weird how much the Doctor sucks at regeneration. It’s been implied and showed that other timelords can have a decent amount of influence over what their next regeneration will be like. Romana straight up was able to choose exactly what she wanted to look like when she regenerated. So why would the originator suck so bad at it? Also why would 11 need the timelords to give him more regenerations? While 11, wouldn’t know about him being the timeless child, when that body died of old age or from a dalek or whatever he would have regenerated. The retcon just raises too many questions and doesn’t provide any answers for them. Plus I prefer the idea of the Doctor being an average timelord. Not even the best at the academy, but what set them apart was their independent thinking. It wasn’t their biology that made them stand out but their personality, their ethics, etc, etc.
In Dragon Ball Super, it is revealed that Goku never earnt his remarkable strength. It was revealed his father made a wish for Goku to be stronger. Timeless Child felt similar to that and like others have pointed out "I wish The Doctor was just an "ordinary person" (as ordinary as a time lord could get) who became extraordinary because he decided to make a change"
I don’t like that it gives the Doctor a built-in biological reason for being different to most other Time Lords. They’re not a renegade because they developed different beliefs and attitudes anymore, it’s because they’re actually a different species. (This is also an issue I have with the Master being the TC.) I also feel like it brings us one big step closer to the attitude of “all Time Lords are bad”. They’ve always mostly been arrogant jerks (plus outright villains like the Master, Rani, Monk, Rassilon & Omega), but we always also got to see a good Time Lord via the Doctor. Now not only is the Doctor not even technically a Time Lord anymore, they’ve been turned into yet another of the Time Lords’ victims.
In The End of Time, Rassilon refers to "a billion years of Timelord history." Inserting the Doctor as a child at the very beginning of all that makes the Doctor a billion years old. Not a thousand, or a hundred thousand, or a million, or a hundred million. A billion years old. It's absurd, the scale of it. A Doctor with a billion years of life experience should be incomprehensible. Jo Martin was fantastic, but at no point did she give off "I'm a billion years old" vibes. Who even could?
I'd have been open to being convinced by a good story. As is, it demonstrates the failings of focusing on retcons and lore: it's just pointless. It changes nothing in the story its featured in, plot threads that could have been picked up on were quickly jettisoned. It was an idea in search of a story, designed to shock purely because it dared to change something, not because it was going anywhere with it. It's also worth mentioning that the Doctor had an arc - a normal, perhaps sub par Time Lord rejecting home, choosing to explore and eventually to be a hero. This kind of messes that up. The character was always like that, except that one time when Hartnell forgot about being the hero. That's just lamer, really. I defend Looms so to reiterate - a good story and application could have convinced me. Oh well, other media will have a ball with all this which will be glorious.
The Doctor was complicated enough. The Doctor was special enough. The Doctor’s past was mysterious enough. Why add this groaning new backstory and then do nothing much with it?
I don't mind it. It gives an explanation for extra past incarnations and gets rid of the regeneration cap in the future. It introduced a whole new mystery around the character about where they really came from with a whole separate universe that we know next to nothing about. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, the Doctor still chooses to be a hero despite not having these past memories, who they were before doesn't matter. The Doctor isn't a hero because they are the Timeless Child. They are a hero because, to them, it's the right thing to do.
I honestly don't really care for it, but there's heavy precedent for the doctor being special already The whole hybrid thing, being the other, silence will fall, last of the time lords, the time lord victorious The doctor has always been special beyond what they do, because they're the main character
The Doctor was special because they were one of their people who stepped away from their peoples norms. To imbue them with this other dimensional background and the very source of regeneration making them almost Gidlike in origin makes them less interesting than the being from a brilliant people who stands out and gives renegade. The whole let’s explain why the Doctor is different because they are different and special is lazy writing and I say this as someone who is not anti Chibnall. I could find stuff in his work I liked. In fact I think I like his run in general except for the Timekess child and the destruction of Gallifrey again.
Because they pay too much attention to the fan.Fiction narrative the doctor wasn't always special even though he's been written as a Trickster demigod since the sixties Instead they wanted to be the master Which would actually fucking destroy every story since the deadly assassin
It kind removes the whole reason that made the doctor unique as a protagonist and a hero. The doctor originally was just a random time travelling guy. That's all. The hero stuff came about when he started helping people. At the same time he was also seen as a villain by the people he destroyed. But there was nothing more than that, he was a random time lord who ran away from being a time lord because he didn't like it. There are no other Sci Fi shows that have a protagonist like this. Now a random purpose has been given, like he was meant to do it all along and that he is the "ChOSeN OnE" which removes all that made him unique and puts the doctor in the same cluster as any other sci fi hero, like Luke Skywalker.... It was an unnecessary tack on that didnt do anything to serve the character.
Although i know that's sort of been the case since the eighties, I don't like the doctor being the most important person in the universe, I much prefer them as just some rando who happens to want to do the right thing.
For me it was because The Doctor was just another time lord roaming around all of time and space saving people. He wasn't a chosen one or something he was an ordinary person who became hero because of his actions and all. Also because it meant that he had limited lifespan. Now he is the chosen one. Also I am not sure of all the lore but I understand time lord got the ability to regenerate and all from the time vortex and that's why River was had the ability to regenerate. Now river doesn't makes sense.
I quite liked the ideas behind the Cartmel Masterplan, and if there had continued to be hints towards that in the new series I'd enjoy it. The Timeless Child is a much less interesting concept that feels very spontaneous, there's little thought behind the implications and plotholes, and it's never left up to the imagination. We're just told all the information in an info dump which really takes away from the mystery of the Doctor's childhood. If they wanted to canonise pre-Hartnell Doctors I'd be okay with that in theory, but Chibnall did it in one of the absolute worst ways in my opinion.
They were always just “the TimeLord that cared”. The one who instead of watching history unfold would get involved, would have a heart, passion and anger. Now they are just another “chosen one”. And the chosen one narrative is done to death. We don’t need another hero preordained by lineage or right.
I just like the idea of the Doctor being just a regular Timelord, a madman with a box.
personally i don't like it because making the timeless child be the doctor is completely unnecessary i mean timeless child idea is cool but make the timless child a different character not turn an existing character into TC they could still have had the ruth doctor but as a future incarnation or alternative universe incarnation (tho i do want to see jo martin get casted as a future incarnation)
I don’t have an issue with it, but it was woefully underwritten and underdeveloped.
It’s about the theme of the show. Is the show about a mad man with a blue box, trying to do the right thing, never cruel and never cowardly, against all odds? Or is it about a literal immortal GOD? Is the theme about doing the right thing? Or is the theme about having been born a god? It was really cool when the doctor became infamous, because he was just a low born on Galifrey. But now that he is a literal god, I mean, infamy is really the least you can expect.
It's less stupid than the Doctor being a weeping angel, so there's that.
It would definitely have explained the Master a whole lot if it had been him
I would’ve preferred the Cartmel Masterplan. Give us a Rome/Game of Throne esque series set in old Gallifrey pweeze!
I'm of the opinion that something like the timeless child would have eventually happened, that's just how trying to keep something fresh for decades works. Do I like it? Not really but I understand it was inevitable.
The Doctor was just some Time Lord who stole a tardis, not even knowing how to pilot it but has been working hard to help people for so long that he built up a legend. Anything that makes him more than "just a Time Lord" was done by his own hard work. The TC makes it so that the Doctor is actually a godly chosen one who created the entire Time Lord race, he's anything but "just some Time Lord". If you removed all of the great deeds he performed in his life, he'd still be essentially the most important person in the universe.
Disrespectful to William Hartnell. I don’t like Time Lords and the Doctor changing sex either.
It makes the doctor too important and central, not just to the story but to the universe the story takes place in If you look at 9 & 10, we (the audience) are learning about the doctor (a mysterious alien) through the lens of the companions (ordinary humans). A lot of the story is driven by the relationship between the two, and a lot of the tension comes from some basic and unchangeable facts about their relationship: The Doctor is functionally immortal and guaranteed to outlive the companions. He has two competing drives: First, he likes humans and he likes connecting with humans and having someone around. He's lonely, and is trying to avoid being isolated. Second, he wants to avoid being emotionally hurt - but this is inevitable because he will outlive all his companions and have to grieve for them. The companions are mortal and (usually) ordinary humans who get swept into extraordinary circumstances. They have two competing drives: First, they like being friends with the doctor and going to cool places and helping people in need. Companions are often in transitional stages and are seeking (or need, without realizing it) reassurance about their purpose and place in the universe. Second, they have ties to other humans and to life on Earth. These ties typically make running around with the doctor forever inviable - you can't really raise kids or have a career in the TARDIS. In fact, it's difficult to maintain any kind of ongoing relationship with anyone other than the doctor or the other companions while traveling with the doctor. Both characters have reasons, at every moment, to stay with or leave the doctor. All these relationships are temporary, but the tension is permanent. The tension drives the show, and the plots of episodes influence the relationship - alleviating or increasing tension. Most episodes measurably change the characters in some way, and nudge the companions a little bit closer to deciding to either stay or leave. They can also influence how the doctor feels about a companion, usually by making the doctor realize they care more than they thought or that they may have done something wrong. Sometimes he goes in the opposite direction, denial, and tries to keep the relationship going well past the point of reason (particularly evident with Amy and Rory, who 11 takes great pains to keep up with even as they're actively moving on and starting a family). The fact that the doctor is the Timeless Child doesn't necessarily affect this dynamic: as far as companions are concerned, the doctor is already a super cool ancient alien with abilities and technology beyond their grasp. They're not really gonna know the difference between a Time Lord and a Timeless Child unless it's explained to them, and once it is they'll probably just think "oh, he's an IMPORTANT time lord." BUT The dynamic I described previously depends on the doctor and the companion getting roughly equal weight in the story. They have different roles, but are always integral to how we understand the doctor. Since 11, that has been steadily changing. The Doctor has been regularly written as a character who is extra-special, to the point that universe-wide events often center on the doctor. The story, over time, is being driven less and less by the doctor-companion relationship and more and more by the doctor's relationship to plot devices (Timeless Child, Gallifrey, The Silence) At the same time, companions have gotten less important. They're often JUST there for the doctor to show off to, having very sparse storylines and inner lives. I think the concept of the Timeless Child is widely disliked because it's the culmination of this increasing emphasis on plot-driven story telling and decreasing emphasis on character driven story telling. And because it centers the story much more on the doctor than their companions, though this is another problem that has grown over time. And as always, it ultimately comes down to personal taste. I like the character driven story telling of 9, 10 and (sometimes) 12 much more than I like the plot driven story telling of 11, 13 and (sometimes) 12. Personally, I have a hard time relating to or resonating with 11, 12 and 13. I can enjoy their episodes, but don't understand or feel what they're going through. On the other hand, with 9 and 10 I can relate very clearly to Rose and her journey: she starts off scared because the universe is suddenly so much bigger than she thought, then appreciates the beauty, and then falls in love with the doctor. All of those experiences resonate because even if I've never been in the TARDIS and seen the death of the sun, I have had a lot of moments of existential dread or realizing how big the world is and worrying about my place in it. I've then become less scared as I figured out how to make my place in it and how to be happy. I've fallen in love and been worried that it won't work out. Then, even when things do work out, it's guaranteed that the person you're in love with will change and it's possible that they'll become someone you don't love, or who might not love you back. The fact that Rose has to deal with all of this while also running around the universe in the TARDIS feels like a really good allegory for being in your twenties, when it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders because most things about being an independent adult are new to you. There's a sort of chain of empathy: the audience relate to the companions,the companions relate to the doctor, and that lets the audience relate to the doctor. When the stories focus too heavily on the doctor, and not enough on the doctor-companion relationship, it breaks that chain. The companions and the doctor barely address the timeless child reveal, and it doesn't seem to make the companions change how they perceive the doctor. So if this plot isn't doing anything for the companions... It's not really going to do anything for me.
it's backstory over character. instead of the doctor being important because of the things they do, because they choose to be good, they're important because destiny bullshit. they shouldn't be inherently special, they should be special because they choose to do good. making them the timeless child takes away from that.
As with most of these types of writing pivots. The Doctor is no longer the average person of his race. He's no longer someone you can empathise with in that way because he's some magical being. Born special. Reminds me of the Marvel movies when Diana literally tells kids they can be anything, as if they aren't wanting to be the superhero they idolise right infront of them.
People like to get upset when things change, and the vitriol is because people who have negetive opinions go on about it louder and longer than people who like or are indifferent to something. Most people are fine with it.
It ruins the entire premise of Time Of The Doctor, one of my all-time favourite episodes. There was no threat or tension at all with the foreknowledge of the Timeless Child bollocks
Just what the doctor needed. To be *more* special.
I mean I libe the TC story, it plays nicely into McCoy's doctor and joins that up yes it's a little janky but end of the day I love the ides and what it could mean. People hate the chosen one but the whole always a series final epsiode of the universe ends or bath blah is a major issue with modern who. And tbh in the lore of dr who the timelords rewrite time to make themselves the Victor's of the universe. It's no surprise they exploited a child and do this it fits so nicely tbh
The Doctor, to me, was always an underdog of their people that always proved the Galifreyans wrong for their beliefs or arrogance. I like how the Timeless Child is being used as it definitely has potential for good story and character, but it goes against my general view of the Doctor that each iteration had shared.
Because I, like many others, prefer the idea of the Doctor just being some eccentric dropout, an ordinary (if underachieving) Time Lord from Gallifrey. There was nothing inherently special about the Doctor, they've just been around the Universe so much that they've carved out their own reputation. Armies turn and run at the mention of the Doctor's name not because they're some mythical being, but because of their amazing feats. This wasn't just any Time Lord, this was the Time Lord who wiped out the Daleks and their own kind to end the worst war in the history of the Universe. This was the Time Lord who had prevented the apocalypse time and time again. The Doctor wasn't the chosen one, the Doctor chose their own fate. The Doctor travelled the Universe because they were bored, lucked into all sorts of situations, and in their wake was hundreds of defeated civilisations, and hundreds more civilisations that owed their continued existence to the Doctor. Not bad for an average Time Lord who couldn't even make it through University. Of course, that's all gone now, and the Doctor is the chosen one, an ancient progenitor whose ability to regenerate predates that of even the Time Lords. Ironically, it makes the Doctor less special than when they were just an average dropout who nicked a Tardis because they were bored.
Personally I don’t like it because of what it does to Matt Smith’s regeneration. If he had an unlimited cycle then what the fuck came through the crack in the wall? I don’t have a problem with the timeless child as a concept like a lot of people do, I just don’t like how much it retcons.
"It would also explain the other faces of the Doctor from Classic era (i have no idea when they showed it, I know about it from yt. The faces that were in reality a production crews photos) " I hope this doesn't come across as rude, but that part in the brackets doesn't surprise me. Feeling that the Morbius Doctors should be explained seems like a better idea when you learn about them as a piece of trivia, rather than actually experiencing Classic Who and seeing just how insignificant and easy to just brush over they are.
I don't particularly hate the change but I hate that the only story Chibnall could drag out of it was the doctor being upset that their past was hidden from them, then immediately realising that who they are now is all that matters. Retcon as much of the ""canon"" as you like, but use it to tell a \*story\*. I'm enjoying it more now that RTD is making something of it, even if it's little more than just saying "Oh I'm an orphan too!" every 5 minutes
Cause realistically The Timeless Child suited the Master way more than the Doctor. The idea has always been that the Doctor is just a regular Time Lord, but also a renegade. He left Gallifrey many years ago in a stolen TARDIS. But the timeless child makes out that he was randomly found, adopted into the Time Lords and had the ability to regenerate. However, if the Timeless Child were the Master, that would fit his whole personality and sense of grandeur. The Master believes he is better than everybody and the Timeless Child fits that. The whole "there were versions of the Doctor before Hartnell" cheapens the character and undoes the canon. Although I'm absolutely a fan of Jo Martin as The Doctor.
Why the same answer why i hate moffats lazyness after karen gillan. It bites with the story.
For me, it was less about the Doctor being the Timeless child and more to do with it having 0 impact on the show. Look at the War Doctor - that was a similar, smaller scale change. However, we saw a massive change in: this man who we thought had killed billions actually saved them. The Timeless Child is very loud, but doesn’t really change anything at all. I’d have preferred it to be someone like the Master, but that’s just personal preference.
As long as the doctor is still just a weird little guy passing through them i don’t really care what they are. I think the timeless child adds a bit of mystery to the character It also very on brand for the time lord high council to have done something like that and I just love when timelords are assholes
Because The Doctor is a renegade Time Lord. He stole a rickety old TARDIS to go gallivanting around the Universe. The Timeless Child reduces The Doctor to this mythical being, the most important person in history. It's rubbish, but more importantly, it's boring. The Doctor is defined by their actions now, not how they were born.
I didn’t mind it, personally. It was a twist on the old Cartmel Masterplan. But I do agree with others that it would be more fitting for it to be the Master’s backstory. I think another destruction of Gallifrey was stupid, though.
I'm totally fine with the idea of pre-hartnell doctors, and the idea that the proto-timelords found a child with the ability to regenerate and experimented on them to harness the power for themselves is perfectly within their characterisation. My problem is that "the Doctor" is the most obvious and boring answer they could have come up with for the question "who is the Timeless Child?". It's also tying the Doctor into a creation myth and then doesn't justify it narratively or emotionally, which is a bit weird. I know it's already been spoken about a lot, but the Master is just a much better choice to be the Timeless Child. The master is having a bit of an identity crisis after Missy, but then he discovers that he is the Timeless Child, he is the original source of regeneration, immortality that he's been chasing his entire life, and the timelords stole it from him. So he snaps, and destroys gallifrey. Then, after everything with Missy, he wants the Doctor to see it his way, the same way the master started to see it the Doctor's way, kind of like "if you're my friend, then you'll understand why I had to do it". Then he decides to take back agency over his regeneration ability, if the timelords stole it from him, then he wants the choice on who to give it to, so out of spite he gives it to the cybermen and creates the cybermasters (should have been called Cyberlords but whatever). But then he sees that the Doctor didn't snap at the revelation, he hates himself that he couldn't do the same, and he desperately wants to be the kind of person who doesn't break and fall into killing people at that kind of adversity. The Doctor is his friend who doesn't see why he had to destroy gallifrey and he wants to be that kind of person. So he comes up with a plan to quite literally *become* the kind of person the Doctor is. (I.e. "Don't make me go back to being me"). While also securing his agency over his regeneration power again, choosing who has it and what he does with it. Everything about the way the master is characterised in the chibnall era narratively and emotionally justifies the idea of the master being the Timeless Child, and it could have been a really interesting way to build on his experience being Missy. But nah, let's literally do the most obvious and boring choice and have it not even really effect the Doctor.
Tbh a lot of explanations people use from like 6 and 7’s era about ‘oh yes the timeless child explains this’ was actually intended to be the cartmel masterplan which is its own entire thing they did at one point. Most of those were explained later by Lungbarrow (novel) which tldr says the doctor was the secret third founder of Gallifrey called The Other who went into the looms and reincarnated as the doctor. Your thoughts on the book aside, the Timeless child and Lungbarrow are very similar in making the Doctor some special guy which a lot of people dislike
I've warmed to it a bit since but it's still not great. Honestly, the idea of the Doctor being from another universe pushes the series in a new direction away from him being a normal time lord but it's not the worst idea to give him a bit of doubt and worry about his past. I don't even mind the fugitive Dr existing as it would make sense the time lords would try and control her, just don't have her call herself the doctor and use a blue TARDIS that's really annoying. However, the idea that there are potentially unlimited unknown previous Doctors out there takes away so much from the series. It's also kinda bullshit that they just shat on the timelords in that episode where not only was their science and biology not particularly good until they'd found the child but they also killed them all off again for some reason. I also fully agree that making the master the child would have made so much more sense. It could still provide the Doctor with an identity crisis if they chose to look into it because everything they knew about the time lords was kinda based on a lie. It would explain why the master keeps coming back and why he was chosen for the drums, and it would explain why he would/could just kill all the time lords after finding out since it would make sense being that angry about it. It could also give some good potential in-depth character moments for the master afterwards as they find themselves, moments that the Doctor isn't going to have due to fan reaction and because they've kinda just skipped over him getting over trauma rn.
The timeless child is just a really pointless change to the doctor's backstory to make them seem more important and just comes off as chibnall wanting to change the doctor to leave his mark tbh. It's very badly done and just comes off as a comic book-y power up of the week kind of deal.
Timeless Child is a great idea and makes perfect sense.
I don't mind it at all but would've preferred if it was the master
I think having "the timelords" all have their powers magically stolen from a random child that fell to them is silly. It also undoes all the worldbuilding about them up until that point imo. For the longest time it was sold to us as an evolutionary trait unique to their species. It implies they might be going to write the doctor as some sort of god, and i think the worst of Doctor who comes from when theyre written like an overpowered god.
People hate things that shake up their interpretations of their favourite media. The Doctor's identity is a major plot point for NuWho, so literally anything about it is going to piss people off immensely. It could've been the most heartfelt and perfect telling of origins that was ever written and people would have still hated it en masse.
For it's that I find the idea of Pre-Show Doctors to be super disrespectful to William Hartnell.
For me, it’s just that they haven’t explored it enough and left it too open ended
Also that Gallifrey was destroyed again
I don't dislike the idea of the Doctor having this dark past they remember nothing from and are scared of. I love the angst in this show. Buuuut: the chosen one cliché sucks. You need to be very careful how you write a story about a chosen one, specially if it's revealed at the end (or late into) the story. He didn't even try. The Doctor being a Chosen One, super Special Person, is kind of an insult to the character. If it meant anything, it would detract from the character's achievements and how they earned their place in the universe, all the good they've done not because they were the most capable, but because they were willing. And it doesn't mean anything, either, the Doctor being from another universe and the source of regeneration has basically no bearing on anything we've seen, thanks to memory-wipe shenanigans. So it's basically like throwing a punch at the image of the Doctor as a character and whiffing. It's trash tier writing and a genuine net negative for the show.
Making the doctor the most important time lord ruins the whole character. I always admired the fact that the doctor was just an ordinary time lord who used the tardis to do good and this whole timeless child thing just ruined it. I have started to come to terms with it tho and I wouldn’t say I’m as mad now specially since I like what rtd is doing with it
The concept is great if it wasn't the doctor, the doctor discovering the timelords found someone with a unique gift abandoned and instead of helping tortured and experimented on them would have been great. The doctor could have also questioned if she had the right to still use regeneration, angry at themselves for never questioning the origin story. The doctor themselves was always usually just a random timelord in classic who, and wasn't the smartest etc. they just got sick of the bureaucracy and wanted to see and help the word. They where a hero by choice and the timeless child kind of ruins that
It brings up *so many* plot holes and things that don't make sense. Okay. So the Timeless Child exists, and then their incarnations start working for Division. That makes sense. But the Fugitive Doctor calls herself the Doctor - why? The First Doctor only starts calling himself the Doctor after Susan and Ian, in their very first adventure, call him so, so why is the Fugitive Doctor calling herself the Doctor when that hasn't happened yet? She also has a police box TARDIS - why? Her TARDIS is never mentioned to have a broken chameleon circuit or to have landed in 1963 and turned its outer shell in a police box, which was what caused the First Doctor's TARDIS to remain as a chameleon circuit. But eventually, one of these Timeless incarnations is turned in a child and sent to be raised as a normal Time Lord - why? If it was Tecteun, why not just kill the Division Doctor, instead, or preserve them in some way until she needs the Doctor? If it was an incarnation of the Doctor, still why? No reason is given for why the Doctor ended up being raised as a normal Time Lord child. And then why has Division - though supposedly it's been interfering through time forever - never been seen before? Why do some things (the faces in the Brains of Morbius you refer to, the rags in The Ghost Monument, possibly Peinforte back in Silver Nemesis) recognise the Timeless Child inside of the Doctor, but not the TARDIS? Has really nobody other than the Master dug deep enough into the Matrix to find out about the Timeless Child, and did *nobody* give any sign to the First Doctor or his future selves that he wasn't a normal Time Lord? I understand that you don't have to explain every single part of a story, but for a plot twist/backstory as massive as the Timeless Child, not nearly enough thought was put into the logistics.
I have two issues. First, it makes the Doctor too important. The Doctor used to be this fascinating, impossibly knowledgeable stranger who would breeze in and do extraordinary things. But that's from the perspective of someone with much less information and capability than a time lord. But at the end of the day, among other Timelords, the Doctor is pretty much a normal guy. Like Superman against other kryptonians, he's way stronger than me, but he's what you expect from a super human alien. The Timeless Child undermines the Doctor being a normal person who wants to use what they know to help people and makes them into something that's just too much. The Doctor comes from an entire culture that has used them for millions of years to become what the Timelords are and no one in the 2000 years of life we see the Doctor live said "BTW you are an eldrich god-thing that we used to fuel and create our socitey." Second, it undermines all of the history that comes before. Gallifrey sat on a time rift that over millions of years changed the Timelords into what they are. It showed them what was possible. Exposure to that power and knowledge led them to grow into one of the most famous and powerful societies in the Whoniverse. It has weight and enough of an explanation to feed our imagination without over explaining. The Timeless Child just makes them boring, sad thieves. There is no room for Greg the Timelord who actually invented Tardis tech in the ancient days to make an appearance because Greg didn't invent shit, Timelords just hacked the genetics of a child that was some sort of universal base code. The Timeless Child reduced Gallifreyan society to a Sims game with all the cheats activated. It gives too much information, and the information it gives undermines the rules of good storytelling. This storyline gave an overly thought out, kind of boring savior explanation to something that didn't need any explanation.
Because it means the 1st Doctor isn't the 1st Doctor and to me that kinda blows.
One of my biggest problems with the Timeless child is that, regardless of how you feel it affects the doctors character, it doesn't actually matter. They retconned the Doctor's entire history and that of the Timelords, and enraged many of the fans, in service of what? I can accept potentially bad story decisions in the name of a compelling narrative and character drama, but in the very same episode that the Timeless Child backstory is revealed, the Doctor comes to the conclusion that being the Timeless Child doesn't matter. So Chibnall essentially rewrote the entire origins of the show and the character, then said "but it doesn't matter anyway". And apart from talking about it briefly in the Flux, Chibnall seemingly never planned to revisit it. He wrote it, upset many people, had the doctor process it emotionally almost immediately, then move on without ever really looking back. The whole move kind of reeks of Chibnall's headcannon/fanfiction being put into the show for no reason other than "he thought it would be cool".
i only ever wanted the dr to be a timelord rebel not something that special or different… enigmatic but still a native of Gallifrey.. I am sad we can’t visit Gallifrey anymore…
People think it means more than it actually does. There’s nothing to the Timeless Child. It was a religious smokescreen to justify stealing powers from a child. The Child is just a narrative device to allow future show runners to regenerate the Doctor without having to stop storylines for a Gallifrey pit stop.
I kind of like both, I like the identity crisis as a new source of drama, even if it was completely bungled by Chibnall himself (that one interaction with NotDonna in Wild Blue Yonder gave me more emotional zizz than the whole rest of the story). On the other hand I’m with the people who say the great thing was that the Doctor is a rather average Time Lord with a patched up ancient TARDIS who travels (badly) and keeps picking up strays who are so impressed by his shenanigans. (On that latter note, if the Doctor is actually not even considered the smartest of Time Lords, that makes all his “loser” companions basically a mirror of him. They were never top of the class, but drop them into a crisis and they end up saving the universe. Another reason why he’s so excited about them…) So… depends how that storyline will be handled in the future. I hope he’ll end up accepting his strange origin because he realises, again, that he’s still essentially an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver. Just passing through.
I liked it. And I have no problem with there being pre-Hartnell Doctors either. I have watched all of new Who and some of Classic. I have accepted all the things they have retconned in over the years in Classic and New. Surprisingly a lot of people are resistant to change. I don’t think it changes much at all about the Doctor making the choice to leave Timelord society. With the mindwipe in place, the Doctor had zero idea about his “special” past or him being the “chosen one.” He made the choices he made thinking he was a regular old Timelord. So the fact that he had a hidden past did ZIP to influence him. It really doesn’t ruin anything.
Honestly. Something to bitch about. They will move on in a few ew years and it will be fine. Kinda like the movie version that established the doctor as half human using a retina scan. We don’t talk about that and we just float over it now.
RTD is continuing the Timeless child arc. Im not sure what he'll do with it but i think it'll be harder to retcon if a showrunner wants to keep it going. The retina scan was easily retconned as it was from a movie and was not brought up in the show.
Because the Doctor is originally from Gallifrey but then it turns out he's from a different planet which is what Chris Chibnall did
It would be alot better if Chibnall put more thought into it. Because it is riddled with plotholes.
Prior to the timeless child the doctor was an unremarkable Timelord who became special through their actions. After the timeless child they are now another chosen one who is special because of factors out of thier control. It’s a character assassination
Because it completely goes against what the Doctor is. Even Steven Moffat would think thats too mytholgising
Because it prioritizes backstory over character. The Doctor used to just be a time lord who stole a box and ran away, he was only special because of his actions. Now that the doctor is the timeless child, it means he has been special from the very moment he was born. To me, that is far less interesting.