The Timeless Children - The Final Rant
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- We've reached the end of Doctor Who series 12. The moment where Chris Chibnall lays out his biggest and most ambitious play when it comes to the franchise and his time running the Jodie Whittaker Era. The reveal of the Timeless Child... and if that was the only thing wrong with the episode then this video would be much shorter than it is.
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My video on the issue of the BBC's support of Transphobia: ua-cam.com/video/aN4uc0HZrWE/v-deo.html
My video on the BBC's response to complaints of its reporting: ua-cam.com/video/skh81N5lcYY/v-deo.html
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Shaun's 1st video, which includes some additional confirmed information: ua-cam.com/video/b4buJMMiwcg/v-deo.html
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Laura Kate Dale's protest speech outside the BBC offices: ua-cam.com/video/hBjGnWkwAjI/v-deo.html
While I don't hate the idea of The Doctor having lives before Hartnell, I don't like the way the Timeless Child twist was handled. Given how the twist was treated as a game changer for The Doctor but then ignored in Whitaker's final story, it created more story plot holes about The Doctor then it resolved. It also negated the significance of Whittaker being the 1st female Doctor since Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor came before Whittaker. If anything The Timeless Child would have been a more interesting twist with The Master instead of with The Doctor.
The doctor is human and so are all time lords and ladies. Tardis are real. Also th doctor is Christian and straight.
e always thought, if they were going to do this, it should have been the Master. It explains his madness. His running away. His hatred of the system and Timelords aside from the one who wasn’t directly involved. It makes waaaay more sense for it to be the Master. Plus you can preserve the Doctor’s agency.
It would also add further weight to the Master's long-running goal of acquiring additional regenerations. It would make it about more than just extending his own life. It would make it about throwing off shackles the Time Lords imposed on him and reclaiming a stolen birthright.
It would still be pretty stupid. In the grand scheme of things, the Master shouldn't be any more important the Doctor, but at least it would fit better for Master.
Agreed. Plus it fits right in with the Master having all sorts of superpowers that no other Gallifreyan has demonstrated: continuing to live despite a body literally falling apart, possessing a living person’s body in order to regenerate, surviving disintegration as a liquid snake (and possessing someone _again_ ), shooting energy blasts from his hands and super-jumping,…I’m probably forgetting a couple.
We can hope its actually the master lying to acree with the Doctor
I was expecting it to be both of them. Hence timeless *children*. Children as in 'more than one'. At least in that case we can have the master's anger at Gallifrey be truly personal, and that him telling the Doctor can come off as an attempt to get her to join him in this crusade of revenge against the universe.
The way Timeless Child throws the 50th, which was such a triumphant celebration of the show's history whilst still doing something new (and Clara's Impossible Girl arc too, now I think about it), into the fire so Chibnall can fulfil an idea he got watching The Brain of Morbius as a kid makes me feel ill. Thanks for vocalising some of that frustration.
how did it do that?
Yes!
@ThetaSigma1965 because it literally makes the entire result of the 50th pointless. Gallifrey just gets redestroyed anyway so it's a hollow victory. Council of geeks also explains why so I would think if you watched the video you would understand
@@madeleine5561TBF, it was never really about saving the planet, but it's people. And considering all the Master did was attack the planet, most of the Timelords themselves likely survived.. Between the matrix and the fact that The Master appears to have just attacked the planet with conventional weaponry it seems pretty safe to say...
And we know this is true because we have seen evidence of timelords still being around since. I mean the very next season we see The Division is still kicking and has a plan to leave the universe...
Going to be honest Gallifrey being destroyed again annoys me more than anything timeless child related, I hate it, I hate it so much
Like, from a writing standpoint, this is so much harder to fix because it already took 10 years to bring back Gallifrey once.
While I don't hate the idea of The Doctor having lives before Hartnell, I don't like the way the Timeless Child twist was handled. Given how the twist was treated as a game changer for The Doctor but then ignored in Whitaker's final story, it created more story plot holes about The Doctor then it resolved. It also negated the significance of Whittaker being the 1st female Doctor since Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor came before Whittaker. If anything The Timeless Child would have been a more interesting twist with The Master instead of with The Doctor.
I don't think it negated the significance of Whittaker at all. Sure, in terms of narrative she isn't the first, but she IS groundbreakingly first in real world time, and the first and currently only to play the role in full capacity whereas Jo Martin's Doctor was functionally little more than a reoccurring character. The historical significance of Whittaker's casting matters far more than the narrative chronology. It's also worth noting that Jo Martin is Black, but her casting doesn't take anything away from the significance of Ncuti Gatwa's recent casting in the lead role either.
I’ve always thought it would have been a better twist for The Master too.
i also think her reaction was very out of character. she reacts with dull shock and horror, but the doctor is an explorer first and foremost, i think they would be ecstatic to learn they had so many new selves to rediscover and learn about, even if they might be upset that these past lives were kept from them.
True, while the basic idea of the timeless child is actually not that bad at its core, the execution was really bad.
The Master would’ve been a much better candidate, and it could also have tied into why the time vortex screwed him up so badly.
Few more things for the pile of unanswered/unaddressed points:
- Why don't the companions (to my memory, anyway) react to Gallifrey being a still-burning wasteland? There's no moment after they find the Doctor where they acknowledge or offer comfort over her home being destroyed.
- How are the Cyber Masters able to regenerate when they're converted from dead bodies, and it's been made clear in other stories that when a Time Lord dies, then that's it, they're dead, no regeneration.
- Not really a fault of this epispde, but the Master explicitly says that regeneration is a 'genetic ability' and River Song was born with the ability to regenerate. Just think about that for a second.
I'm not a defender of this episode and I agree with your first point, but as for the two others, doctor who has never really cared too much about continuity lol
I've thought the same about the third point. Vastra specifically says "You're people developed the ability of regeneration from exposure to the Untempered Schism" as a justification for why River (aka Melody) could have that ability while having 2 human parents.
But now apparently it comes from genetic experiments on a single member of a species from another dimensions and there is no other way?
The power of regeneration can be passed genetically or be developed by exposure to the time vortex that the Tardis travels through. At least I hope so. Otherwise, Sweet Home Alabama.
Thank you for this rant. Having just sat through Chibnall crash Jodie's Gallifrey One panel half an hour ago and hearing snippets of his panel yesterday, I still cannot get behind so many of his choices as show runner. The timeless children shattered so many different aspects of cannon without having any lasting impact on her era or her character. I wish (if the storyline had to exist at all) that it was anyone other than the Doctor. Let's just have it fall into oblivion and forget it ever happened.
Agreed that the Cartmel Master Plan was always a bad idea, it's a funny thing about the Seven'n'Ace era: what happens on-screen is great, the underlying planned arc is not so great. It was better left as mysterious implications that went nowhere.
12:55 I think in a similar way, the death of Roger Delgado also nullified some of the plans for the relationship between the Doctor and the Master. Which all sounded quite bad in hindsight.
I think in fairness the plan with the Cartmel Masterplan was always to make this stuff subtext but never actually say it for certain. Like, they'd occasionally allude to the Doctor being older or more powerful than we thought but never explictly say how or why. The closest they got to doing that on TV was Ghost Light, which was reworked from Lungbarrow precisely because they didn't want to reveal too much. Chibnall did precisely the opposite, having the plot come out of absolutely nowhere then explaining it in excruciating detail.
@@craigcharlesworth1538 Lungbarrow was awesome! I loved that story when it was finally published. Apart from the Other and Susan, it really works. The House and his cousins and looming and the Doctor being a disappointment to the kithriarch, all of that was lovely. Badger! Innocet, just great stuff. Rework the Other & Susan or leave that bit vague and unmentioned and it would have been amazing to see on TV.
@@R_SENAL_WHO but it tried to make looms canon. Yuk.
@@TheGerkuman I love the Loom idea, but then I read all the books that led up to that idea too, with the curse of the Pythia and the Sisterhood leaving Gallifrey, and the curse, I loved all of that, was so much more interesting than just making it all Earth-like.
My headcannon is that the Timelords continued experimenting on the Timeless Child long after they learned to regenerate, and actually duplicated the Timeless Child in order to get more test subjects. Most of them had their memories erased to keep them placid, something that's repeated as necessary to keep them in their place. This way they became a kind of underclass, although one only the elite of Gallifrey are aware exist as a distinct group, all originally a single person. The Master is another Timeless Child duplicate, although he kept this from the Doctor, so he is basically the same person and the Doctor could easily have ended up like him were things different.
This makes the Doctor less special for being the Timeless Child, and also gives the Master more motivation for destroying Gallifrey, while maintaining much of the mystery the Timeless Child reveal was supposed to add to the Doctor.
I could only see the timeless child thing working if the timeless child was revealed to be the master instead of the doctor this wouldn't really break new who canon.
It would explain the masters sheer survivability and could explain their madness if they kept getting their mind wiped and staring into the time vortex repeatedly.
It could also keep the idiot in a box theme for the doctor being this rebel timelord who actually inspires the master to escape from the timelords and live their own life. Missy is the result of the master finally having closure and accepting there death but them being recalled to galifrey causes them to snap and destroy the place.
I feel like a broken record here, but the whole thing would be fixed if the Timeless Child had just been the Master!
Something I've been thinking about after rewatching Clever Dick Films' (CDF) Doctor Who Era documentaries is this. When covering the costume of the 6th Doctor, CDF stated that Peter Davison (5th Doctor) said he thought the loud and flamboyant coat was in part due to John Nathan Turner (The then man in charge of the show) trying to put himself in the show - or to put a part of himself in the Doctor as I translated it.
Fast forward to Chibnall. I'm pretty sure he said the fact he was adopted was part of what fuelled the Timeless Child storyline? But rather than apply this adoption or orphaned background story to a companion (Which could have been interesting) he does it with the Doctor, who he probably idolised and wanted to be in someway. I don't mean the 13th Doctor specifically, but just the character in general. So maybe that's why he did all this and ultimately was content with what he did, because he got what he wanted. He turned the Doctor into him.
Anyone else think this makes sense?
When you said that it would be more interesting if the child had just been some random child from another dimension the time lords found and tortured to get regeneration and time travel powers, I immediately thought "Yesssss that's so much more story shaped." It took another minute to realize that would be Dr. Who doing "The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas" but that's a very Dr. Who-shaped story. It's so much angst, and I can see so clearly how the Doctor would be so much more enraged by this child being a regular person while none of the other time lords would care, or would think they at least gave this nobody a great purpose even at a terrible cost. But the doctor would scoff at the "big picture", she'd just see a child.
Does anyone else feel that it’s only now the Chibnall era has finished that real Whovians can be free to give their honest opinion.
Previously we had to defend the series, in spite of its shortcomings, because of the hateful, misogynistic campaign waged by people like Nerdrotic.
They deliberately split the fandom; to them it was their way or you were a “Jodie-bot”.
The sad truth is, that although their reasoning was wrong, downright bigoted, some of their criticisms about the writing and the Doctor’s mischaracterisation were correct.
But true Whovians couldn’t acknowledge that at the time.
The division created by the hate meant we had to stick up for our beleaguered program, especially at a recognised time of weakness.
But now it’s over, and we can separate the haters from the criticism, we have to admit that some of what they said was true 😢
Referring to the people who didn't like the show for the right reasons as 'real whovians' comes off badly to me, unless you're including the people who like it or are mixed about it in the true whovian category too, and it's the nerdrotics of the world that you're saying are the fake fans.
@@TheGerkuman You’re absolutely right; I did consider going in to edit out the ‘real’ part.
By that, I meant basically anyone who wasn’t a ‘nerdrotic type’ but I accept that in using that wording I’m being divisive also.
In my head, the Fugitive Doctor exists between 2 and 3. Troughton's Doctor found out about the Timeless Child (NOT the Doctor; possibly the Master) whilst working for the Time Lords post-War-Games, Two-Doctors-style, tried to help them escape, regenerated into Jo Martin, then went on the run, and was eventually caught by the Time Lords, memory wiped + forcibly regenerated into Pertwee. Would even possibly offer an explanation then for why the Master followed him to Earth.
How beautiful would it have been. In a very melancholy way. That the timelords did essentially steal the regeneration ability from another being. And this event being a fixed point in time, a doctor meets this being and can't stop the fate from happening. But by learning the stories of the doctor has done with this ability is okay with their own death.
I'm guessing CoSharmas doesn't question where his people went because there's no one to ask except maybe The Master. For the most part the people meant nothing to the master so probably wouldn't care less where they went so long as it wasn't Gallefrey. I think JayExci addressed the question of why The Timelords lied in the 5 hour essay but it's been a while since I saw it. Stubagful summarised this episode as "The Master gave a Powerpoint presentation which ended with you are adopted". When it first aired I did hope it would turn out The Master lied but then her mother showed up in Flux. I agree Moffat had already resolved the whole regeneration thing. I also agree the previous episode wasn't edited properly. The whole death particle thing apparently didn't work because nearly everyone showed up in The Power Of The Doctor. For The Jadoon to appear, all I can think of is Chipnall suddenly remembered he needed a cliff hanger for Revolution Of The Daleks. Although it wouldn't make sense from a story perspective it does make sense from a filming perspective. They knew they already had the costumes in storage, and people would be able to recognise them in the last 10 minutes with little explanation.
just saw this video. you know that feeling of having an itch that you can't scratch because you don't exactly know where to scratch?
same as being angry but don't know exactly how to express it.
well, this rant is exactly what i need to scratch that itch
i find it baffling when people compare this to hell bent. hate the reveals or don't, this is simply an episode of incredibly poor quality. the writing and directing and acting and cinematography in hell bent ain't the thing that divides people about hell bent. sometimes within the doctor who fandom I'm confused by how far removed people get from analysing the content critically.
not talking about you, vera! loved your take on the episode-and your reviews in general. your comment just ignited a flame in me that is always there.
The thing is that there was never any point to this. It would have just introduced a new race of Not Time Lords that had no reason to not be the Time Lords
"No he didn't...No he didn't...NO HE DIDN'T!"
My headcanon for the destruction of Gallifrey is that the Kasaavin destroyed it while allied with the Master. They're extradimensional beings and seem pretty powerful. It would have been cool if they said this on-screen because what we have now doesn't make sense...
Ok I'm super late to this but I had an idea that could maybe make some of the timeless child thing not work but be interesting and not make the Doctor so special: she was not the only kid taken and it took many many of them for the Time Lords to develop the regeneration, and the only reason she is even alive is because *she* was one of the last taken, so most of the study was already done, so she wasn't experimented on for long.
Like this could also use the "master is one of the timeless children" *and* "Susan is one of the timeless children" in some ways, hell, have the reason why the Doctor had her memory wiped is that she found that there were other survivors and got them out, it wasn't the time lords that did it, she did it to herself so she could not betray where they were after they escaped! idk I'm just throwing spagetti at the walls, this is more of a fanfic idea that anything.
Great video!
100% agree with you on this, all of it was just stuffed in there with no thought as to it’s possible effects….
The only time I would like to see the timeless child brought up again, would be to change it to being the master as the timeless child….
That would make so much more sense !!!!
Honestly, my biggest problem with the Timeless Child that I haven't seen _ANYBODY_ talk about -- though I know it's unpopular -- is that it erases the possibility the Doctor is half-human. Yeah, I know, that concept is "objectively bad, and you're stupid if you like it!!" I guess I'm stupid then. Honestly, the reason I loved that twist when it was revealed is because, as a mixed-race fan, it gave the Doctor more of a marginalized status I could relate to.
Like, people can forget the Doctor was originally a political refugee fleeing to exile on Earth when the show started, and that marginalized status was slowly lost over the course of the series. I liked the half-human concept, because as a mixed-race person it allowed me to relate to and look up to him even more as someone I had something in common with (and I suspect that was also true of other mixed-race fans). Honestly, what always bothered me about the backlash to that idea is that the whole criticism about why it "doesn't work" is... like, just that it makes him mixed race. That's it. Just him being mixed-race. Like, I have never heard a single criticism of that idea that boiled down to a narrative or storytelling issue, and solely boiled down to the Doctor _SIMPLY BEING MIXED RACE._ That always bothered me, as if it was like the Doctor being a "genetically non-pure" being wasn't acceptable.
And now that concept is gone. Like, in a world where he's the Timeless Child, that implied backstory now can't have happened. So the show has now gone and taken away that beautiful idea that allowed me, and potentially other mixed-race fans, to relate to him on a personal level. And honestly, taking that away... yeah, honestly, that's an actual thing that I think "ruins" the character, at least for a certain demographic of fans. Like, Doctor Who has always been about a "yes and" approach to adding new concepts, not taking old concepts away. So here I not only feel Chibnall disrespected a previous writers work by saying it "doesn't count," I actually think he carelessly ruined a certain amount of bare-minimum allegorical representation for some fans.
At least I still have Spock, I guess.
Just not my favorite character of all time.
EDIT: also, to clarify in terms of the Cartmel masterplan... what many people don't understand is that _Cartmel was never going to explicitly reveal that onscreen._ Like, even he knew that was a bad idea. It's kinda like Quentin Tarantino has developed backstories he knows about for his characters, such as how Colonel Raine got his neck scar, but that doesn't mean it needs to be revealed in the plot. Cartmel developed this, so that there would be a "secret show bible" of new things to hint at about his past, but he recognized the _MYSTERY_ was what made it great and never intended to actually explicitly reveal it (just to keep in mind when writing the character). Not to say it wasn't arguably a stupid backstory, as you put it, but therein lies a crucial difference.
I would have preferred the Master being the Timeless child, and experiments to steal their regeneration is what drove them mad.
Makes me wonder what a TARDIS really looks like
I hated this episode, but held out hope that all the many plot threads still could be wrapped. What they did was basically throw them down the TARDIS's systems, or kill off everyone who had answers. As for cruelty, I'll never understand how having the giant spider in Arachnids in the UK die by suffocation was better than just shooting it! I do know of a lifelong Who fan who quit the show after that.
she never said it was better. She called Robertson out because he didn't mercy kill it. He didn't know it was dying when he barged in and pumped it with bullets.
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk It was still a better outcome than dying slowly, and that would have been a cruel way to let it die.
@@scottboswell6406 how do you know she was just going to leave? she called Robertson out for murdering it, it wasn't a mercy killing because there wasn't a shred of mercy from him.
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk She didn't say "I have to figure out a way to save this spider", she just stood watching it die.Robertson's intent wasn't mercy, but the result was. There was also all the spiders left all over London, and the room full of spiders cannibalizing each other.
I'm guessing you're not a fan of lungbarrow/cartmel masterplan
Thanks for summing up all my annoyances with this storyline! I just want to draw a line under it all and start again with the new episodes in November!
At this point, I’m not a fan of what happened here because it never was paid off.
However, the Doctor I never saw being “special”. For all we know, there are MILLIONS of people or even BILLIONS of people just like the Doctor.
To me, it’s a tragic story. A child was oppressed and studied on, and potentially kid napped from their family… and that is what makes them special? How twisted is that?
To me, it could have created new possibilities. New places to travel. New discoveries to be made. A new race of people that could very well have a bone to pick with the Time Lords for kidnapping one of their own and stealing a very unique gene they have. For killing and studying one of their kids.
But the BBC never did this. And that’s also tragic. This should have been fleshed out.
Don't blame the BBC. This was entirely Chibnall's baby and his responsibility.
If it went somewhere I wont be as angry with this episose as you are ...trust me we are same boat here. If Chinball did anything with it I wouldnt as angry, but The Timless Child is nothing but hot air.
Im so thankful the Chinball is era is done because looking back he had 0 idea what he wanted HIS Doctor Who era to be.
This IMHO worse finale than Hellbent because at least Hellbent is one and done and doesnt break Who lore like this does and it isnt called backed to in Series 10 . This is my top 3 worst Modern Who episodes the more I think on it
I rated _The Timeless Children_ far lower than _Hell Bent_ - and I didn't enjoy _Hell Bent_ at all. I can also think of whole scenes in _Hell Bent_ that were quite good - which is why I merely rated it as "Shit" while _The Timeless Children_ got rated as "Utter Shit"...
Thank you so much for this video I have already watched it twice but I enjoy it so much
You seem to understand Dr who and how the character and show should work more than anyone else I follow.
Apparently it been slightly mentioned throughout dr who histroy
What regeneration is this rant on right now? :-D
I have some different reasons than you, some are the same but I almost fully agree with you. You hit all the reasons why I can't stand and why it should be ignored. The one point I sort of disagree with is the Doctor being the most important thing in the universe. Yes, there's all of time and space but they also travel within very close proximity to known things most of the time. How many times has Earth featured? So I was okay with but it was dealt with in Eleven's era, it didn't need to be touched on again.
I said, right from when we started to get the details of the TC, that Chibnall did it for attention to get people talking. He had no idea of it's implications or where to go with it. He had nothing, and nothing came out of it.
Are the Daleks the greatest enemy of the Doctor? Nope, Chris Chibnall takes that crown.
I had a headcanon that "the Doctor" was a name chosen for anonymity's sake. Like whenever something violent goes down of course there's a doctor on the scene.
Anything more specific than a professional title would be too suspicious.
I’ve rewatched this a few times to try and untangle my feelings and ultimately: I think Jamie Magnus Stone, as director, did a great job polishing this turd. But it is a turd.
I hope Stone gets brought on to direct some Gatwa episodes.
I previously liked the doctor being the timeless child but I listened to what you had to say and you charged my mind. The only reason I liked the doctor being the timeless child is because of the limitless amount of regeneration for the doctor. But if the time of the doctor fixes that then I really don't like this episode. And I agree with everything you said. Especially the R.T.D. should ignore it . But if the doctor is not the timeless child then he couldn't of have the regeneration energy to heal River Songs hand. In the angles take Manhattan. Just a thought. But you're right. The Doctor should not be the most important person is the universe. Anyway thank you for your video and I have changed my mind about the timeless child. It's a very bad idea and they should not of done it.
Kind of ironic for a show about an alien with 2 hearts to become heartless
I’ve no love for the Timeless Child plot development, in either concept or execution, for many of the same reasons you’ve described here….
BUT
I have no problem with the Fugitive Doctor’s TARDIS being in the shape of a police box. Here’s my headcanon:
It’s the same TARDIS. During Martin’s era, it discovered that it had an affinity for appearing in that particular shape, and Martin’s Doctor had a tendency to indulge it. Once Martin’s Doctor was apprehended, her TARDIS was too. While the Doctor’s memory was erased (and they would eventually regenerate (be regenerated?) into Hartnell), the TARDIS was similarly restrained, and somehow fettered to remove its agency over its own outward appearance.
The Doctor and the TARDIS have both described the flight from Gallifrey as “I stole you and set off to see the universe,” but in reality, it was like a mutual prison break. And once clear of Gallifrey, the Doctor immediately began to hotwire the TARDIS to prevent the Time Lords from tracking them down. This on-the-fly rewiring is responsible for the TARDIS being able to choose its own appearance (along with other early-series TARDIS weirdness in stories like Edge of Destruction, Marco Polo, Planet of Giants, Space Museum, and others). At the first opportunity, the TARDIS went to where it could scan its form of preference (Totter’s Lane), and with a few exceptions, has never looked back since.
I think if this episode had been two parts it wouldn't have been quite as bad. because so many elements are rushed, unexplored and poorly wrapped up because not only does the matrix stuff have to compete with what the companions are doing, but you have to satisfyingly wrap up ashad's character, deal with the master and what he's done to gallifrey, and not just have those elements be bare bones. the actual timeless child reveal was executed about as well as it could've been, as it requires a lot of exposition, but the idea is terrible. it goes against what the doctor as a character is. if it had been the master it would've made more narrative sense but honestly neither characters' origins should be explained in that level of detail, nor the origins of time lord society, because the intrigue in those ideas comes solely from the fact that they are unexplained.
I strongly believe that the ruth!doctor is 6b, but one thing about why there can't be prehartnell doctors, because not only the tardis exterior only appears that way during an unearthly child, but he hasn't been referred to as the doctor before then either! he's listed as dr foreman on susan's school records, and is confused as to why he's being called that by ian and barbara initially. it's like. incredibly nitpicky, but if we're going to base whole swathes of lore (no matter how unexplored) off of a single shot in a kinda mediocre serial from forty-five years prior, I can be nitpicky.
one thing I wonder about chibnall's writing for the show, aside from whether there was internal issues or pressures from higher up, is whether he wrote it for fans who like to endlessly speculate about the most minor things, because considering that the timeless child thing is because he wanted to explain the other faces from the brain of morbius - and bringing that up, it retroactively ruins that scene as it was meant to be vague as to whose faces they were - but because he didn't lay enough groundwork, it becomes frustrating to everyone rather than a source of fun and speculation. it doesn't excuse it, but I have to wonder. the reason it's a horrible example of the showrunner's headcanons being inserted into 'canon' is because it's such a drastic alteration to the character. it's on the level of something like leela and andred being the doctor's parents, but not executed as well and also front-and-centre because it's the tv show, not in one of the books.
it's like hell bent, in a way. that suffered from veering off into pointless, half-baked mystery box shenanigans instead of solely focusing on the doctor not being able to let clara go because of their sense of responsibility, and clara asserting that she needs to be let go of, and instead of turning clara into a knockoff of the doctor with her immortality and tardis, she, of her own free will, heads back to gallifrey and dies properly. if the timeless children had focused on the actual plot that needed to be wrapped up with the cybermen, and given some lines and hints to that one guy (sharmas? idk) at the end so his twist at the climax doesn't come out of nowhere, it wouldn't have been a total mess.
it's just frustrating that the episode is just. so messy. I can see so many things that could've made this, and a lot of other episodes in the chibnall era, good. and none of the opportunities are taken. maybe it's because I've been studying creative writing and I like torturing myself, but I feel like I could rewrite this episode and fix it, but could I actually do it? I don't know. I don't know if it's fixable. and that's frustrating!
With all the oppurtunity the showrunners have. They're awful writing hurts so much. Killing the time lords was brutal and heartbreaking.
Would’ve been better if they had made The Master the timeless child which would explain his hatred for the time lords.
Plus have it so that the Fugitive Doctor played a hand in experimenting with them, that’s why The Master hates The Doctor
Plus just make the Fugitive Doctor pre Hartnell but show her in a Tardis with her Chameleon Circuit working, if they did this I would love a special showing her before the 1st Doctor and her fleeing Gallifrey with Susan but something happens which causes her to regenerates into Hartnell.
In the DVD of Silver Nemesis it was mentioned that the explanation of 'who' the Doctor was supposed to be was revealed, he's God. But it's not something that should be said explicitly that kind of ruins it.
Can I just say, I've recently started listening to your B5 podcast and am slowly catching up (end of season 2 now). The contrast between how charitable, optimistic and generally positive you have been to the Chibnall era vs. how nit-picky and agressively negative you come across to me in the B5 podcasts was really frustrating for me. It just felt really off, like either you were insincery there or here. I get that your persona is different on UA-cam and that you're playing off another person in the podcast, still it felt weird to me.
So thanks for this amazing rant. I kinda needed to hear this from you!
I could feel your anger very strongly while watching this. I feel the exact same way. Thank you so much for pointing out how pointless The Timeless Child plot was and is. I sincerely hope RTD ignores it and it becomes what the 8th Doctor's half human twist became. Thank you for saying your piece, it must have been so draining.
The idea of William Hartnell not being the actual First doctor just makes me disgusted, I mean, why call him the first doctor then? Why number the doctors then?
If I were to give this reveal a bit of an Olive Branch…
…the idea isn’t a bad one but it should’ve be delved into at least. Like the idea that she was important at some point but was then cast aside from the Time Lords seemed like a decent angle. Emphasis on the tragic element would have worked if, say, Gallifrey wasn’t destroyed... yet.
Say... the Master took the Doctor to Gallifrey before he destroyed it and showed her the truth. He goads her into confronting the council and nearly making a move that'd cause the planet to be destroyed in her present.
The Doctor's importance to the universe was often appealing because of the idea of just being an idiot with a big, blue box was all it took to make a difference. I never felt that was ever an issue... because they did something with it. The consequences of influencing ordinary humans into, as Davros put it, soldiers. Clara adopting his best and worst aspects as a human yearning for more out of life. Amy becoming emotional damaged due to his TARDIS malfunction.
The Timeless Children reveal should've lead to something bigger.
I like it as an interesting fanfic/theory but it breaks old who so I don’t like it for canon but I love the music from the timeless child act of the show
The pointless children
... the countless children ;)
@@ftumschk the wholess children 😥
After all the crap that’s is going on in dr who now, MAYBE the one of the two doctors will regenerate into a little girl and fall through some the present universe into a parallel universe and create hisself??
I can’t hate hell bent because of moments like this. ua-cam.com/video/a93BccmoYyI/v-deo.html. We were so lucky to have both these actors.
I'm split on your initial argument about the Doctor being important: I agree that the Doctor being important simply because of who they are is a problem, but I am not opposed to the Doctor getting a reputation due to their actions - it's what you do for others, not what you are or where you come from. I feel Moffatt leaned too heavily on that at times (especially in the final arc of 11, leading to Trenzalore), though I think things like the Daleks, Cybermen, and other common foes having an idea who the Doctor is and maybe being wary or recklessly aggressive in response works (the Pandorica worked for me, Good Man Goes to War too). Something like The Timeless Child focuses on the wrong part for me: it's too much about how the Doctor is important because they're innately special not because they choose to do good and strive to do what's right (again, I'd turn to 12's talk with the Master & Missy in particular) - it's just too Chosen One for me (on a related tangent that might elucidate my feelings: I feel Star Wars was actually hurt by Luke being the son of Vader and Anakin being a big subject of a prophecy, as the original film worked so well as a "heroes can come from the humblest origins" narrative rather than "only the special chosen ones have any real meaning" that the series turned into, briefly dodged in TLJ then embraced in RotS). As highlighted in this video, the idea that the Doctor is evidently a key reason for all of Timelord society (regenerations & time travel) just by being a magical McGuffin is a big problem for me - at the very least, it would've been nice if the Doctor was Tecteyun (however that's spelled, I don't care) so that at least it was by their actions that they became so important, and maybe view their good acts more as penance for the bad (not a big fan of that idea, but I'd've liked it a lot more than what we got). I also agree that the Doctor (despite doing all the good they do, and rightfully getting a reputation through legends/myths/interaction with recurring villains) should not be THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON EVER, something the Timeless Child makes them.
I'll admit to being one of those people who was at least skeptical of what the Master tells the Doctor for the exact reason mentioned - there isn't really any good evidence presented for the conclusion that the Doctor was the Timeless Child and not the Master or the Rani or Rassilon or a random Timelord we never met.
Again, as said here: some aspects of the Timeless Child's big reveal might've been easier to swallow if the entire implementation hadn't been so sloppy. Not addressing the Fugitive Doctor's TARDIS (the only true indicator we had about where the character places in the Doctor's timeline, given the non-linearity of the character means they could've made ancient enemies who'd come after them at any point in linear time, and their memory could likewise have been erased between "now" and "then") is a major issue, but also the clunky exposition dump (of questionable authority) which also seems to be so detached from everything else that was happening in the episode until the climax. Again, this does have a retroactive negative effect on the Fugitive Doctor story and lead up to the Timeless Child reveal (as well as Moffatt's giant "Let's Bring Back Gallifrey" arc), and Flux (and subsequent specials) has a further retroactive negative effect on the already bad reveal by failing to do anything interesting with it in the followup before tossing it away so another writer can maybe follow up on it later. It feels like a lot of Chibnall's writing for his "big moments" focused on giving us the "big reveal" without thinking through any consequences, at most with the idea that it'll be explained away later (and then not).
On the Gallifrey situation, it's something that angers me so much on a few fronts, including that they just go "oh, the Master did it somehow, don't worry about it", what it means for the last several years and for the Doctor, who does grieve a bit earlier with some minor ripples in her attitude but maybe we needed some more overt mourning with reference to the children and how they'd done so much to save/bring back Gallifrey - television's not the best medium for people to just keep all their thoughts and feelings to themselves, sometimes they need to actually state them.
As for Cosharmus (again, I just don't care to look up the spelling) reacting to the portal/fate of the previous human refugees: I'd taken his "it hasn't looked like this before" reaction to mean either he'd never seen the destination or (what I initially thought and still believe is the most reasonable reading) that Gallifrey hadn't looked destroyed previously - either way, it definitely should've been followed up, and we should've had him at least ask/try to find out what happened. Maybe if the Master had said "oh, I hijacked the portal this time to direct you to me" there wouldn't be the same confusion, but that still would've made a "but what about the other people?" response reasonable. It's something that I'd even have begrudgingly accepted if they'd covered in the next episode/special.
Yeah, this was a bad episode and a bad conclusion/movement in arcs from an era that could've been (and occasionally was) much better. I don't think I ever got as angry as you did in this video, but mainly because my friends and I just shook our heads and just laughed at/made fun of all the horrible choices, partly as we'd already lost much hope/regard for this era so it was more of a "let's see how ridiculous it gets".
yep, this was a bad idea, story-wise and character-wise. I suspect we will either get a retcon or else it will be ignored as if it never existed, and have the continuity go on from there, a reset button for that thread. -- I'd like to think this is a long lie exposition dump from the Master. I'd go with Jo Martin's Ruth Doctor being an alternate reality version or something similar. (And I liked her portrayal of the Doctor.)
Perhaps Jo Martin's Doctor is from the Parralel universe in Season 2?
I wish this two-parter had started with the Master allowing the Cybermen to invade Gallifrey and convert all the Time Lords into something new, something not even the Master can control. Instead they are upgraded about ten minutes after they arrive, and they have pretty collars and they regenerate. What a waste! This stupid, stupid story should be consigned to the same place they sent SeaQuest DSV and forgotten about forever. Bless you for diving into its misery once more and for making me laugh out loud several times. Packing peanuts, ha!
When you suggested they just ignore this travesty of a story I couldn't help but remember that scene in... I think Avengers where Fury is talking to that council.
The Council: The Council has made a decision.
Fury: Yes but given that it was a stupid ass decision, I've chosen to ignore it.
Also as I was watching I was going to ask where you rank this in comparison to Hell Bent but you mentioned it lol.
I actually stopped watching Doctor Who after this story....mostly because we got rid of our Dish and so I couldn't watch it but I just....wasn't that interested after this story. I think you summed it up very well the reason why to be honest. I didn't feel they could come back from that and it's sad really. I don't think Whitteker is a bad Doctor, in fact I like her in the part I just don't like most of the stories she's in. She was cheated from being as good as she could have been and that's not fair.
We already knew that there were personalities before the first doctor. One of the early episodes had the doctor playing a game indicating that there were past regenerations before him. And it plays into the lore about "The Other" and how he fits into the origins of the TimeLords ect. -chuckles- You didn't like the Other theory? I'll respectfully disagree with you there. I like the glimpses we got of the previous universe.
Granted I'll admit it makes things complicated with the fact that that makes the woman who raised him, the Other's wife, who he later had a relationship with even more complicated beyond the mom/wife strangeness. What's your thoughts about the Guardians and that the Doctor is supposed to become the White Guardian, while the Black Guardian is the reason for the drums driving the Master insane?
But ultimately I blame the Sphinxes for creating the bottle universe and starting a war over it and the Doctor's tossing it into the time space vortex and opening it to allow total retcons like this to exist. -wants the Sphinxes back-
And yes, I agree with you about the grim dark burn out of DCU movies.
I wish I could like a video a thousand times more. This perfectly summarizes all of my feelings about this whole freaking nonsensical mess. I'm hoping beyond anything that RTD just doesn't acknowledge any of it, because otherwise I'll just watch the 60th to see David Tennant as the Doctor one more time, and nothing else.
You explained your points really well and it’s hard to disagree, although the concept doesn’t bother me. But the execution of the episode is lame.
I will still say Hellbent is worse, which is, in fact, a hill I'm willing to die on because the whole Hybrid arc was a nothing burger from beginning to end with nothing but a shrug. The Timeless Child is at least something I like and actually opened up new ideas for us to talk about, even if unfortunate circumstances prevented Chibnall from fully exploring them before his tenure inevitably closed. Plus, the Timeless Children at least had the Master and Cybermen to keep it entertaining, though that also hurts the finale severely as it was trying to be several things at once and didn't give it's plot-threads enough room to breath.
Just saying this because I refuse to take part in the "Chibnall Bad/Chibnall Hack" circle jerk the comment section has become.
I cant disagree with you. I don’t like the Doctor being very important. I only want the doctor to matter to the people they as made difference to. I want the doctor to be this random guy with a box fixing stuff that goes wrong doing their best. The Doctor doesn’t even want people to thank them or he famous. Just does it because it’s right and decent to help people
the doctor is still that though
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk What we are saying is that we don’t like it when writers make the Doctor this big massive important person in the universe. We like it when the Doctor is just a random person in a box fixing stuff when it goes wrong with no praise for what he did expect for the important people around them they have personally made a difference to
You are so brave in going through the Chibnall era again. I really cant stand any of it. Flux is a mess, Season 12 whilst better than 11 is utterly awful & season 11 is a total dumpster fire.
**The Master, one of the most untrustworthy and scheming individuals known to the Doctor, shows her Matrix records that are completely devoid of any tangible connection to the Doctor herself and then claims that the Doctor is the person shown in the records**
**The Doctor, having nothing to base the Master's claim off of whatsoever** Yes, this thing must be 100% true and I will therefore let it affect me deeply despite there being nothing to suggest what I just saw/heard was in any way factual.
👏👏👏👏
The Master WAS just lying. In fact, the Master wrote these episodes. That's what I believe. Thank you.
Tom Bakers Doctor entered the matrix at the risk of dying and did not find any past lives.
The Master is lying?
Is The Doctors mother also lying
CC has confused 60 years of Dr Who
There is too much evidence that the Doctor is a Time Lord born on Galifrey and William Hartnell was the first and only Doctor until he regenerated
Excellent rant. 14/10. (Yes, that's a David Tennant joke).
"That's not mystery, that's packing peanuts!" may be the best single-line assessment of Chibnall's writing I've ever heard.
Brilliant.
I really like your point about preferring the Doctor as a bit of a nobody (or alternately, "an idiot"). I don't like the notion of either the Doctor or the Master being smarter or somehow more powerful or important than the rest of the Time Lords. I'd rather see stories where the rest of Time Lord society is mostly indifferent but terrifying when roused - if they finally choose to call you on the carpet, then on the carpet you will be called. And then you spend most of a regeneration tooling around England in a stylish roadster.
What makes the Doctor special is not their abilities but how they use them. They want to help others. The Time Lords don't. It's sort of like Kirk's line from Wrath of Khan about how Spock's soul was the "most human." The Doctor is very much like the best of us.
The Doctor should be special for what they've done and what they do, not who they are. That just gets into Chosen One crap, which is lazy storytelling.
Perfect summation, Vera!
And whilst I agree that this whole sorry (series of) episode(s) should be ignored, should RTD - or anyone - wish to put a lid on it and bury it a thousand feet deep, they could do it with just a couple of lines of dialogue...
Doctor (to some future Rassilon): "You survived? All of you - Gallifrey, the Time Lords... How? I saw you destroyed - the Master showed me the Matrix. All of it... what you did to me, what _he_ did to _you_ ... Why would he lie?"
Rassilon: "He didn't _lie_ , Doctor. D'you genuinely think that we couldn't control the Matrix? That we couldn't implant whatever we wanted in it? The Master is childishly easy to manipulate. He saw what we wanted him to see. He believed what we _wanted_ him to believe. What better way to get him out of our hair - make him believe he'd destroyed us, finally?"
etc etc
Or something like that.
You seem to be suggesting that even the Doctor's past would be retconned as false in this scenario, but that can't be the case because then you also have to explain Tecteun's appearance in Flux where the Doctor outright asks her if it's all true and she plainly confirms it. Then there's also the fob watch containing her past memories, and the existence of the Fugitive Doctor, the enemies in The Ghost Monument being able to see her past as The Timeless Child, and the Doctor's own flashbacks to herself being discovered as a child. Add the survival of Gallifrey as a whole on top of this, and this whole thing would either need an entire episode or two to resolve dedicated to it or it would be a very out-of-place insert into a loosely-related episode.
Either way, I don't think it should be retconned. If they ever touch on this again, I think it should be explored more deeply. The Timeless Child plot has done absolutely nothing good nor bad for the series. It simply exists as a concept that nothing has been done with, and until something is actually done to make me actually care that it happened at all I'll remain indifferent on it.
@@BlueSparxLPs Hmm... good point, Blue! Hadn't thought of all of that... Hey ho, back to the drawing board - LOL
@@BlueSparxLPs You could conceivably come up with some ludicrously over-complicated scenario (well hello there Mr Chibnall!) whereby it turns out EVERYONE involved in this sorry charade has had their memories tampered with, just to maintain the illusion, even Tecteun and the Doctor. But then you end up with something sillier (if possibly more streamlined) than the original guff.
@@BlueSparxLPs mostly agree with you.
After this episode, I’m pretty sure we could chalk the whole thing up to the Master being the Timeless Child, since all the info we get is through him. Even the whispers in the Ghost Monument don’t “prove” that The Doctor is the Timeless Child, do they? I recall they’re vague enough that they could be explained as either warning The Doctor, or as the psychic rags having been manipulated by The Master or picking up false memories the Master had beamed into the Doctor’s head at some point?
Frankly, it would make _so_ much more sense: we’ve already seen the Master do loads of stuff that no other Time Lord (or Gallifreyan) can do, he’s twice on-screen and at least once off-screen been able to keep living despite being out of regenerations, and we’ve never really gotten a satisfactory or unambiguous explanation for why he’s sociopathic and also specifically out to get the Time Lords. (I realize sociopathy doesn’t need an explanation in a real-world context-sometimes people just are. But Doctor Who isn’t exactly hyper-realistic, and sociopathy usually serves a narrative purpose and follows narrative, rather than psychological, logic.)
And the Master using his own trauma to inflict trauma on the Doctor by lying (with tech) to make the Doctor _think_ its _their_ trauma? That’s like the most Master thing ever.
But then The Flux made that explanation impossible, having independent parties confirm the version of events the Master gave. 😡
OMG! Thank you for pointing out the cruelty of this era!
And the Doctor is cruel, too. She deliberately keeps every single companion at arm’s length (hell, 35 foot pole length), none of them even know about what actually happened with the Timeless Child story except for Ryan in what could be looked at as a manipulative tactic by the Doctor to keep him traveling with her, and she’s downright abusive to Yaz throughout the entire last series and specials. I was partly hoping that we’d get a scene in Power of the Doctor where Yaz comes to realize this and decides makes a hard “eff this, I’m outta here” statement. And I’m a Thasmin shipper.
But no.
I don’t even think that Chibnall even realizes that he’s written the era in that way. In every interview and commentary with him, he makes it sound like they’re all one happy family, even to the point of putting in the whole “the REAL power of the Doctor is the friends she’s made” in 13’s final episode.
It’s unbelievable.
My god this video was satisfying to watch
Let's also not forget the utter devastation in the wake of the Flux, is never addressed in a single subsequent episode. A one off line is given by Dan that the Doctor "saved" the universe. Except nothing save Earth is shown to still be in one piece by the stories conclusion.
What's more annoying is that in the final scene in Flux, it seems like the Doctor has actually learned her lesson, and is finally going to let Yaz in and tell her the truth about everything. And then, in the very next episode, she goes right back to being evasive and dismissive, and the final episode actually confirms that the Doctor never told Yaz anything! Character development? What's that?
@@christianwise637 Character development would be another facet of storytelling Chibnall is oblivious to. Like callously glossing over how the Lupari were wiped out by the Sontarans.
@@pious83 While there are a lot of questionable character decisions, I don't think the Lupari issue is necessarily one of them. That struck me as something more along the lines of being far too dark to explore more on-screen than they did.
@@BlueSparxLPs To me, the complete lack of dramatic weight given to Karvanista being informed and the cold reaction of the Doctor. That is worse from a writing perspective than the genocide itself.
The Thirteenth Doctor's passivity throughout this era has always been a massive issue for me, from her refusal to interfere in acts of historical injustice to her actively letting villains get away scot free at the end of the episode. But this episode really takes it to a whole new level - this is the season finale, and I don't think she has any actions that actually impact the trajectory of the story. She gets dragged off to Gallifrey by the Master and then shoved into the exposition machine (as you aptly put it) for the majority of the episode; she's incapable of breaking herself out of said exposition machine without the help of the Fugitive Doctor; she even proves herself to be incapable of resolving the episode's story without someone else coming in to sacrifice themselves in her place. I really don't think Chibnall considered the implications of what he was writing this era, because having the first female Doctor prove herself to be so inept and lacking in agency is honestly a really bad look.
As a whole, this episode was the point where I really checked out of Chibnall's era. Prior to this episode, even though I wasn't fully enamoured with it, I was still willing to keep giving it chances. After it though, I still kept watching, but always with a sense of obligation and duty as opposed to actual enjoyment, like I was saying "alright let's get this over with" before watching each new episode. It's a dull meandering mess of an episode that offers no meaningful character moments, no exciting action setpieces, nothing except loads of stupid contradictory pointless lore, which I knew was going to be dominating the rest of this era. Add to that the complete lack of cohesion this episode had with its predecessor and the way it actively discarded major plot points from Moffat's era just so it could spin its own half-baked narrative, and I was left feeling hollow and dejected and thoroughly disappointed with a series I had actually been largely enjoying up to this point
Sums up a lot of my feelings perfectly, this comment, thank you
the doctor has never gotten with historical injustices. and when did she let a villain get away?
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk the guy from Spyfall that wasn't The Master comes to mind.
To be honest, I think it's less that The Doctor lets them get away and more that Chibnall put them into situations where they could easily come back. (Krasko in the past, Jack Robertson (twice), the rich guy from Ghost Monument)
@@TheGerkuman Jack Robertson was never a villain. He was just an asshole. Same with the guy from Ghost Monument. You saying the Doctor lets villains go and giving them as examples is dumb logic. By this logic, Nine let villains go by letting Henry Van Statten go. Ten let villains go by letting the dad from the Idiot's Lantern go, the racist student from Human Nature, Rickston Slade from Voyage. Want a real example of the Doctor letting villains go? Eleven let the daleks in series 5 go and did nothing to stop them afterwards. He also let Madame Kovarian go in series 6, despite kidnapping his best friends daughter and brainwashing her. Twelve let the Master go in series 10, despite the fact he's the whole reason why Bill was turned into a cyberman.
And unless you forgot, Krasko was sent back to the lowest setting on his device by Ryan. He could've been sent back to the Jurassic era and be eaten by dinosaurs or killed by cavemen.
@@ThetaSigma-vu1sk regardless, I think my point that Chibnall hated killing characters in case he wanted to bring them back is well established.
Also, I'm not buying the Krasko thing. If they're not dead on screen, they could come back. On a related note, sure, Vinder left that snake guy on the asteroid at the end of time, but there's nothing stopping future writers bringing him back.
I'm still convinced that, if anyone is the Timeless Child, it's the Master. Otherwise, I was just confused why we never got any resolution for the Brendan plot.
Huh, cool idea 🥰🥰
i thought it should’ve been Susan
@@toasterroast7678 Ok the master or Susan. Either of them could have been the timeless child and it build the character
It would make a lot more sense. The Master could be mad and furious at the time lords. Both for that and the drums. It would make his genocide so much sweeter
18:34 yep, cruel is a good way to describe Chibnal’s era. It’s what frustrated me about Rosa - the first episode where the new Doctor has her TARDIS and her (POC) companion’s first full fledged adventure with her is to the Jim Crow South. The Doctor should never be in those types of situations where they literally can’t save the day. The Doctor has landed on alien planets with a similar oppressive society and they usually free the oppressed. They don’t say “Oh, well the bad guys will eventually lose in a few decades.”
I'm honestly glad we're getting a Man of Colour to play the Doctor after the second set of David Tennant specials.
It's not entirely comparable but looking at that episode next to Planet of the Ood, it's hard to believe that's the same timelord. I mean I know Donna kinda spearheaded that episode but still
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: The Timeless Child is to Doctor Who what Highlander 2 was to Highlander.
That's a really good way of putting it. Nice one.
“There should have been only one!”
@@speakgeekstudio1867 Damn, why didn't I think of that. 🙂
Oh, no! I still remember my frustrated bafflement walking out of the cinema after seeing Highlander 2.
It will probably be entirely ignored going forward just like highlander 2 as well 😂
If it were up to me I’d still frame this as the Timeless Child being the Master instead of the Doctor, and in this episode the Master is making the Doctor THINK she’s the Timeless Child to torture her while at the same time get some sympathy for what he’s going through. I would make the Fugitive Doctor an early version of the Master, perhaps dating back to when he and the Doctor were friends. I just think it makes more sense for the Timeless Child to be the Master as he has always been weird. He’s been a corpse, a catman, a ghost snake. He just seems to play by different rules, so it makes sense to me that he should be the special one.
100% agree! Prior to The Timeless Child 'reveal,' the Doctor was the thorn in the side of the other Time Lords - that one awkward, black sheep of the family who couldn't stick to The Rules and, once they realised they probably never would or could, decided to split and make their own way in the world. Now they're Cosmic Time Jesus, and it sucks.
Just the simple premise of the _Cosmic Hobo_ travelling through time and space, helping people. That was enough.
I've always likened the Doctor to Gandalf. Like Gandalf, they're part of an ancient and powerful race but they can't be bothered with it and prefer to muck about with the 'lesser' races and as a result are thought of as a disappointment.
"Cosmic Time Jesus." I've not heard that one before. Not sure how any of this makes the Doctor that, but sure...
The coward or killer thing in Parting of the Ways was about killing innocent humans, and the Doctor having grown so much that he didn’t want to do the whole double genocide thing again. As horrible as it is, you could make the argument that it still would have been the least bad option. This time it just comes off as the Doctor herself being scared to die to save the universe, or scared to that her friend, who had just committed genocide, would be collateral damage. And THAT is real cowardice.
While I don't mind the doctor being well known to others, my issue is that the doctor shouldnt matter to the universe, outside of their actions. The whole episode was everything people complain about moffat for turned up to 11. Like okay cool she's space Jesus or whatever
What does it matter? It doesn't change anything
That’s how I feel, the Doctor should be important because of what they chose to do. Now the Doctor is important just through existing and the entire history of the universe itself is the way it is because without the Doctor the Time Lords could never have become so powerful.
The sheer rage in this video is what I feel every time I think about this episode... this era wasn't all bad, but this is easily my least favourite episode ever
I feel like Joe Brennan explained the problem with The timeless child concept the best: that it takes the Doctor's which made the Doctor so relatable away turning them from a random outcast with a dream who ran away from their controlling people to the most important being in the Universe.
Except it doesn't. All the Doctor did was to be the involuntary donor of "regeneration genes" to the Gallifreyans... and they're not the only beings who regenerate (the Minyans and Kastrians do, and the Eternals and Guardians might also have the ability). In actual fact, the Doctor isn't particularly different to other Time Lords, because _every_ Time Lord since Tecteun's intervention has the same "regeneration genes" as the Timeless Child.
If I were *forced* to write something like The Timeless Children, neither the Doctor nor the Master would be the Child. What if the Master sadistically revealed that the Child is still there, trapped, and the Time Lords have continued to siphon regenerative energy from them for millennia? All the good the Doctor has done has been made possible by the suffering of this innocent person, now what?
I'll admit it's just a rough outline of an idea, but introducing a moral dilemma around the ethics of regeneration sounds more interesting to me than what we got.
I can think of a way to fix the climax with Ko Sharmus dying. Have the choice to die a coward or killer be _taken away_ from the Doctor. In the episode The Poison Sky, the Tenth Doctor threatens to destroy the Sontaran ship, but gives the Sontarans a chance to leave. The Sontarans basically call his bluff, but I truly believe that Ten _would_ have killed himself as well as the Sontarans in order to protect the Earth. But that choice is taken away from him, when Luke Rattigan uses the Sontaran teleporter (Doctor Who REALLY loves teleporters) to take his place. In the episode Eaters of Life, the Twelfth Doctor tries to make the sacrifice play again, by offering to step into the time dilation portal to fight off the light eaters. But again, that choice is taken away when he gets knocked out. Just have Ko Sharmus, like, materialize a TARDIS around the Doctor, then exit the TARDIS and activate the Death Particle. Ko Sharmus appearing out of nowhere to make the sacrifice play instead of the Doctor is a deus ex machina, but it could've WORKED as a deus ex machina if the Doctor had no choice in the matter. The Doctor I know would have refused to let Ko Sharmus take her place. She would've fought for her right to sacrifice herself. That's why the Doctor always needs to be knocked out and/or handcuffed so the supporting character can make the sacrifice instead. Here, it's like the writers took the path of least resistance. The sacrifice play SHOULDN'T be easy.
Thank you! This is the same person technically that wouldn't let wilf die even though he begged him not to sacrifice himself and let him die. The REAL doctor wouldn't have said "OK sounds good you do it" and just left
Man, I had forgotten how bad it was as well 😅 I knew it was bad but PHEW. Me and my partner were flabbergasted watching it at the time, just in awe of how much it bungled everything. As fellow not-fans of the "most important person ever" versions of the Doctor, this was a real eye roller.
There's a potentially fun explanation they could have given for the police box.
We know the TARDIS can remember things that haven't happened yet and has somehow archived console rooms that haven't been made yet. A similar thing can happen with the exterior and the earlier Doctor could just explain that it sometimes changes into that shape for some reason like it's preemptively changing into a shape that will be important in its future. Sometimes she just lets it stay like that for a while to get it out of its system.
I rarely comment on videos but this made me laugh out loud (in a good way!) Your “WHYYY” had me in stitches 😂 And you expressed my thoughts about the Timeless Child story perfectly. Thanks for another great video
It sounds like you hate the Timeless Child(ren? there's only 1??) for all the same reason I do. I quit the show after that travesty aired. Before November I'll watch Flux & the specials, but I'm not ready yet. Soon. I liked Series 11 more than 12 though, 12 was just a dumpster fire. 11 was soulless but not as incendiary.
I actually liked parts of the Cartmel Masterplan. I LOVED Lungbarrow, that was Marc Platt though being the genius he is. He took a wonky Cartmel idea and polished that turd into an amazing lore building story that made the Doctor just another Time Lord, but more than that, a disappointment to his family, and established the cousins and looming and all kinds of cool concepts that fit well with existing lore and made sense!! Where it fell apart was making the Doctor somehow aware of his pre-Loomed self as the Other and picking up Susan, all that was a bit rubbish and needed a rework, but thankfully that bit was kind of hand waved with enough wiggle room you could rejigger that part to refit better again easily at some point, presumably.
The Timeless Child though is Cartmel's worst ideas on Crack! It's a giant wrecking ball and I hate it. For ALL the reasons you gave and more!
That said, I'm TRYING to mitigate the hate in my mind, tidying it up a bit. Maybe if the Doctor isn't aware of these other lives, then they still essentially happened to someone else, not them, with body changing and memory wipe the Doctor is essentially no more the TImeless Child than Jenny is the Doctor! She's just a clone, and the Doctor is just the current owner of the vessel? That's my Copium at the moment. Probably the only thing that is gonna get me through finally watching the rest of the Chibnall era, with it's crappy plot, hollow placeholder characters, and destruction of damn near everything in the universe (that I know of from you and others).
I despise what they've done with the Time Lords, The Master, and the Cybermen though, this whole plot(?) sets fire to all of them! I love the Time Lords as enemies/rivals/sometimes allies - Gone. After YEARS of plots to bring them back, just for nothing!! The Master... we FINALLY had character development after ages, Missy was changing, becoming something Interesting Again - Gone. Now we get Snidely Whiplash tying Mel to the train tracks again. Grrrrr. The Cybermen? Moffatt started their ruination with Death In Heaven being his worst episode EVER, but this just furthers them along the path of stupidity. Remember when the Cybermen were actually Cyber cause they had to be converted from Living Beings? That was Cybermen! Now they're just robots with a skeletal fetish! The Cyber Masters/Time Lords... it's an idea I would expect from a child with too many Doctor WHO action figures! It's just LAME AF!!
AND furthermore, since my blood is up now that I'm typing, I'm still ticked that Marc Platt is never given even a line in the credits of Haunting of Village de blahblahblah, when it is all the same basic plot as his audio the Silver Turk. If you steal an idea, don't even mention the original creator in the credits, I'm sorry, that's plagiarism. Chibnall & Maxine Alderton took someone else's work and passed it off as their own, and that's not cool. Yes, there are differences, but c'mon! Mary Shelley bases Frankenstein on an encounter with a damaged Cyberman? Pffffftttt!! He deserved at least a mention in the credits: "based on a story idea by Marc Platt," but no, not even that. Criminal. I only bring it up because the season finale started with that episode, and it was god awful from the start... I like Platt's original version of the same story way better.
The whole season was awful. I can't think of a single episode of Series 12 that was worth watching... Maybe the Tesla one, I need to rewatch it I Guess... ugh..
😮💨🙃😅
Thank you for acknowledging the children on Gallifrey. It has annoyed and frustrated me that the Master has not faced poetic justice for what he did (off screen no less) to the kids on Gallifrey.
Chibnall is just a poor writer. When the timeless child thing first happened everyone said just wait he has a plan for this story. Recently Chibnall admitted he has no idea where the doctor/timeless child actually came from and he had no plans to ever expand on it lmao. I'm purging seasons 11-13 from canon.
It says it all when the Doctor finally got hold of that fob watch and effectively dropped it into the Tardis' bin.
I love the outrage because it is so relatable to me and the people I know tell me I dont need to be that worked up about something thats just a story. Its nice to not feel alone in caring, critiquing, and not being able to "just accept it." Being told to just accept especially when it comes to major inconsistencies and bad writing just makes me feel so much the outsider. Thank you for sharing all this with us.
Thanks for mentioning why Moffat decided to save Gallifrey at 17:13
It bothers me whenever Gallifrey as a planet is conflated not just with the Time Lords but the Time Lord government. It’s like believing all of Earth’s population deserves to die bc of the actions of its ruling governments
How to fix the Timeless Child.
Step 1: Drop the Cybermen. The new designs were cool, but they should have been in their own story separate from the timelords and the Master.
Step 2: Make the Doctor being the Timeless Child a red harring set up by the timelords to protect the real timeless child. Also, don't make the timeless child responsible for regeneration. That conflicts with River Song's origins.
Step 3: Profit.
_Alternate_ Step 2: Make the Master the Timeless Child. Someone who has gone to such incredible lengths to prolong his own life. To discover that none of that effort was necessary, would drive him insane. Also addressing the plot hole that is any further regeneration beyond the fate of Missy.
Ah the Underpants Gnomes! Yummy Tai Yummi Tai Yay!
@@pious83 Yes! This! For the Master to discover that Time Lord society and regeneration had been built on something taken from _him_ before he was then ejected from Gallifrey and considered a bad 'un would be the perfect motive for his destruction of them.
Making the Master the timeless child would be better tbh
I lowkey hope that when they retcon this whole thing they make the master be the the timeless child
@@jvictor001 That would be one way to go - but as Blue Sparx has pointed out in a comment responding to my earlier post, it would require retconning Tecteun's memory, the memories in the fobwatch, the Fugitive Doctor and the Doctor's own memories. Not that it couldn't be done, but I reckon it would be clunkier than the original, and far clunkier than just pretending it never happened.
I'm less bothered about the idea, for me the biggest issue with this story is lack of originality or commitment to the idea, it's clear it was never the plan to have it go anywhere, just to be an arc like every other modern season that doesn't go anywhere much like the Hybrid or the Impossible Girl. Ironically these game changing reveals about the status quo have happened so often, they themselves are just part of the status quo. In terms of the episodes, it's a bunch of random strands that don't come together. If I was writing this, I'd have the Fugitive Doctor be a future incarnation from a potential darkest timeline where Ashad won and the Cyberlords are the ones who destroyed Gallifrey, making them the Timeless Children tying everything together. So instead of Koshamus being the one who sacrifices themselves, it's the Fugitive making up for running away from the war. Plus it gave future showrunners to recast Jo Martin but without the pressure of writing her the same as Chibnall.
I'm fine with The Doctor being special to their actions like under RTD and Moffat but not to be literal space Jesus due to effectively their birth.
Something I’ve noticed with Chibbers. To keep The Doctor pristine in her morals, any decisive conflict, violence or plot moving action is usually performed by other characters. It makes Jodie’s Doctor seem weak and ineffective.
I hate this episode. I hope to God or whatever deity exists that somehow the whole situation with the Timeless Child was all an elaborate lie or a misinterpreted event from some parallel universe. I hope that Gallifrey is restored SOMEHOW in order to make all that the Doctor achieved prior to this arc not have been in vain. I hope that Russell T Davies either redirects the show's narrative as far away from this as possible OR creates a well written explanation for how the Timeless Child was an elaborate lie. I'm rambling because this episode made me so angry. This undoes so much, and yet creates nothing to replace it. It's so lazily written and so catastrophic for the lore and emotional core of the show that I just cannot acknowledge it as canon.
The best thing they could do in the new series is to retcon this whole thing- it was the master manipulating the Doctor and tricking them or something.
Gallifrey falls no more -- no more.
I disagree that the Fugitive Doctor is pre-Hartnell, for multiple reasons. The main one being, of course, that the TARDIS is in the shape of a Police Box, in which - as you rightly pointed out - it first became stuck in The Cave of Skulls. Q.E.D.
With this in mind, the Fugitive can only be between Troughton and Pertwee. There are further examples to support this placement: firstly, the interior of the Fugitive's TARDIS appears to be an amalgam of the Second and Third Doctor's interiors. Secondly, she calls herself The Doctor, a title the character adopted in their first incarnation, as played by William Hartnell. Thirdly, when 'Ruth' fights with Judoon in Gloucester Cathedral, it is shot in a manner that's reminiscent of similar moments in the Third Doctor era, i.e. The Curse of Peladon and The Time Warrior. The inference could be made that this is where the Third Doctor picked up Venusian Aikido; it was part of the training the Fugitive received while enrolled at Division, with 3 retaining some subconscious muscle memory.
I've mentioned the 68% battery on 'Ruth's' mobile phone as being a subtle clue pointing towards a 6B placement (68 and 6B looking remarkably similar at first glance), so I shan't reiterate that point too heavily here. However, I will point out that Chris Chibnall himself stated in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine that Jo Martin's incarnation does indeed fit somewhere within the Doctor's first regeneration cycle (Hartnell to Smith, for clarity), although he's reluctant to confirm exactly where. Saying that, there's only really on place she can fit, in all honesty.
I'm aware there are potential flies in the ointment regarding a 6B placement, but I'll attempt to address them here: 1) she doesn't recognise the Sonic Screwdriver, despite having used it in their second incarnation. My answer to this is fairly straightforward; she'd only just got her memory back at that point, so she can be forgiven for it slipping her mind temporarily. 2) the Tenth Doctor regenerated twice, at least according to the Eleventh Doctor. However, I suggest that 11 was simply wrong. Having no memory of his Fugitive incarnation, he simply assumed he'd wasted a life, given that he was on his final life at that point. 4) the Fugitive Doctor's clothes are different to the Third Doctor's (which, if we're being honest, weren't identical to Second Doctor's clothes, but that's neither here nor there). I would suggest it's not beyond the wit of Division to change the clothes back before forced regeneration and total mind-wipe. 5) While not mentioned on telly, I know there's a comic book that appears to suggest that the Fugitive is indeed pre-Hartnell. Now, I haven't read said comic, but I have seen a few panels. From these, I think it's ambiguous enough to be dismissable; I certainly think it would be extremely weird to have such a placement confirmed outside the TV show - in an American comic, no less - especially when it contradicts Chibnall's own assertion regarding her placement.
Sorry for the long post, but I do think the misplacement of the Fugitive Doctor among certain fans taints their opinion of the era as a whole; or Series 12 onwards, at the very least.
I agree that Jo Martin's Doctor fits best (or only) between Troughton and Pertwee. Not recognising the sonic screwdriver... I've not watched Fugitive of the Judoon again recently, but wasn't she confused by Jodie's Doctor doing the modern "wave it like a magic wand" routine? Pretty sure Troughton's Doctor only used it as a lockpick rather than all the other functions it's gained over the decades so that could well explain that.
The best thing about placing the Fugitive Doctor between 2 and 3 of course is that she's really the only part of this whole storyline that's likely to stick around in fans memory, so by disassociating her from the Timeless Child stuff it makes it all the easier to forget all that ever happened.
@@craigcharlesworth1538 As someone who doesn't have a problem with the Timeless Child concept as presented, that's not a position I'm coming from. However, I think the Fugitive Doctor's legitimacy is clear and is separate from the TC. I certainly don't think it's as big a deal as people seem to think it is.
Davies can fix it simply by just saying the master lied. It’s a tacky retcon but I’ll accept it
If you're going to rewrite the Doctor Who mythos in one story, be Robert Holmes, who can do it with style and humour in an exciting and well made story. Don't be Chris Chibnall, who can't.
Love it! Great video 😁.
You might be interested to know the original plan for the Five Doctors was to get Robert Holmes to write it. The plot? The Master teams up with the Cybermen to kidnap the Doctor and use the Doctor's innate genetics to turn the Cybermen into "CyberLords". Seems a bit familiar... In the end Holmes couldn't get it work so they got Terrance Dicks instead.
"My Doctor" was McCoy and so I have a lot of sympathy for the so-called Cartmel Masterplan. But I don't think it should have ever gone to screen. Better as a weird undercurrent than explicit. I also saw a great comment on YT which said the whole Timeless Child could actually be Susan. That's one retcon I could get behind.
Totally agree with all the rest of your points. The problem with this episode is that it half remembers what happened in both the recent and distant past of the series and then rewrites it with all the subtlety of someone touching up the Sistine Chapel roof with a 6" brush and a tin of emulsion.