Russell T. Davies has plans for the Timeless Child... and it's a good thing for Doctor Who!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- ✔ SUPPORT ✔
Patreon: / councilofgeeks
TH-cam Membership: / @councilofgeeks
Paypal tip jar: PayPal.me/coun...
Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/vera...
Amazon Wishlist: www.amazon.com...
✔ OTHER CHANNELS ✔
Break Room of Geeks / @breakroomofgeeks
Vera Wylde: / verawylde
✔ SHOP ✔
Merch: www.teepublic....
My Book on Gender Fluidity: a.co/d/atfibBA (Amazon Associate link, commissions earned)
My Fantasy Novel: amzn.to/2SCxB8j (Amason Associate link, commissions earned)
✔ SOCIAL MEDIA ✔
Twitter: / councilofgeeks
Facebook: / councilofgeeks
TikTok: / verawylde1
Instagram: www.instagram....
Twitch: / councilofgeeks
✔ OTHER PROJECTS ✔
Council of Geeks Podcast (home of What the Frell & Jumpgate): councilofgeeks...
✔ CONTACT ✔
E-mail: councilofgeeks@gmail.com
Mail:
Council of Geeks
PO Box 4429
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819
![[TH] VALORANT Champions Seoul - Grand Final - EDG vs TH](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WvObMc9VelI/mqdefault.jpg)
A playlist of videos covering the issues with the BBC and transphobic reporting: th-cam.com/play/PLmWFOeT2jEofVIDW9X3OL7GqWuX3Dxopu.html
Never thought I’d live to see the day that Vera called anything to do with the timeless child a good thing. Truly, we live in the end times. Also, I agree.
Saw your snippet and came to make a comment, only to see it was literally your second sentence after the break.
I’ve watched this channel so much, and this is the first time I’ve learned her name. Thanks
Hi Jessie!
Right? Checking out my window for flying pigs 🔭
@@Zach90888me too or I knew Vera was the girl name, but thought They still used the legal name as well 😄 She might do, now I have to watch some missed videos 😅
Introducing the Doctor’s new companion Ruby as a foundling, like he was, is definitely the right move.
That kind of kinship is probably one of the reasons why he was so welcoming of her to join him in his travels.
If you break a bunch of tile, you can toss it or create a mosaic. I'm glad RTD is attempting a mosaic.
Well said.
Brilliant analogy!
RTD always understood the emotional core of the stories he told and prioritized emotional impact over almost anything else. Even through to the end of his run with the "Doctor triumphant" themes. Moffat sometimes got it, the 50th anniversary special is as brilliant as it is because of how it centers the emotional experience of the Doctor across multiple incarnations, even going so far as rooting the Doctor's trauma in the events of the Eighth Doctor's life. Chibnall seemed to misunderstand the qualities that the audience treasures about Doctor Who almost entirely.
While I do share some of the reservations about RTD returning, I do think he's shown his heart is in it and he's bringing the focus back to the emotional core. The fact that he invented bigeneration specifically to give the Doctor a kind of happy ending he couldn't have otherwise, and then using that happy ending to free the 15th Doctor from having to play yet another round of self torture tells me that RTD isn't interested in just rehashing the past. This is the most excited and interested I've been in the series since the 50th anniversary.
Yess 100%
While I don't hate the idea of The Doctor having lives before Hartnell, I still don't like the Timeless Child Twist Chibnail gave us. If anything, the concept would have worked much better if it had been with The Master instead of The Doctor since the revelation would explain why The Master hates both The Doctor & Time Lord society so much.
i mean to be fair russell already gave a reason, the timelords purposely drove him insane
The master also has a weird habit of not dying (even for a timelord) which would be explained if he was the timeless child and not the doctor
I've never agreed with this idea that it should be the Master as that would perpetuate harmful tropes.
It would also be thematically satisfying as the Master was previously the unwitting pawn of Rassilon's grand plan in the final days of the Time War. It could've been that he was so susceptible to the Drumming because he was some sort of acausal being that existed above the Time Lords.
@@friendlyotaku9525 uh... what?
My take on Mrs Flood. She is a normal person but due to the time travel shit she is now aware of who the doctor is because she met the Doctor and Ruby back in the 1960s. That's likely it.
Alternative theory. She's a Zygon
Nah I prefer the theory she’s the master, the rani, the doctor, a dalek, a cyber man, graham, the doctors mother, uncle, pet goldfish all at the same time /j
Anyone watching Dr Who and complaining about it being woke has really not been paying attention. It has always appealed to the marginalised, the nerds and the geeks. Even Unearthly Child talked about a child who stood out in class. And that is why I love it.
Reminds me of the Matrix situation. People thinking that they "own" a property that never was about them to begin with.
I think people have an issue with how blantant they do it , the doctor always makes remarks about how gender , race, etc are primitive thinking and hateful but it was done in brilliant scenes and lines that call back to early situations . But in Chibnals run it was just “men suck. I’m a woman with a woman brain so we’re in luck” And i understand building up women , but as a boy speaking for the boy audience it feels terrible and shitty to be told how awful we are constantly - and being from the audience of progressiveness and “woke” it feels misplaced and almost betrayal to be constantly put down for my race and gender that i didn’t have a choice in
@@koylar Short version of that is that Chibnall's writing on the show was awful.
Sci-fi in general always had political commentary. Just look at War of the Worlds from 1897. That novel comments on and criticizes colonialism.
Remember when Sarah Jane told an alien queen about the Women's Liberation Movement?
This reminds me of my issue with the war Doctor and the resolution to that end: telling me there’s a secret regeneration between previously established Doctors is contrived. I hate it. But then the story they told was amazing and John hurt was perfect. They solved the problem of Ecelston not returning and executed a bad idea so well that I stopped caring about how bad it was.
RTD2 could achieve this with the Timeless Child.
I’m not sure I’d say it was contrived. We never saw McCann regenerate into Eccleston’s Doctor so we *assumed* that there was no other Doctor between them.
@@ThePlayTyperGuy I'd say it was kinda contrived, since it retconned the Doctor from "has regenerations left" to "is out of regenerations". But it was born out of necessity, it wasn't a twist for the sake of a twist.
@@Quirderph exactly. It was a contrivance born of necessity, and, again, it was well executed so… yau
In that same episode where 12 says he's just an idiot passing through, he also becomes the defacto President of Earth which is sorta ironic.
Which he more or less blew off, not unlike when he ended up president of Gallifrey
@@voltijuice8576Which time? Cuz that happened like 3 times. lol
RTD made a conversation between the Doctor and a Dalek more emotionally charged than it had any right to be, and reinvented the Daleks (okay, the one Dalek in "Dalek") to be the scary, unstoppable monsters we remembered them being when we were younger, if we'd watched the older series as kids/teens. If anyone was going to find a path for the Timeless Child, it was going to be him.
Anf that in the same episode the daleks defeated their biggest enemy, stairs.
@@marocat4749 They'd already done that previously (I want to say _Remembrance of the Daleks?)_ but "Daleks can't do stairs" is such a meme that it was a good idea to reinforce that no, that's not the case.
@@irrevenant8724Yes, but reiterating it in Dalek was SO important. Not only had the show just come back, and thus was being introduced to a whole new audience, but Remembrance of the Daleks specifically was a story that aired during a time when Doctor Who was at its lowest in terms of popularity (not necessarily in terms of actual quality, I'm merely referring to public perception at the time) and was largely seen as a laughing stock outside of the dwindling fandom, so even though that story is beloved today, it was still important that the revival re-establish that Daleks can indeed overcome stairs.
@@HOTD108_I think you're agreeing with me?
VERA 26 MINS IN > talks about 'such and such controversial plot point led to good things'
MY BRAIN > oh yeah, JUST like Barbara Gordon in the Killing Joke
VERA 27 MINS IN > talks about Barbara Gordon in the Killing Joke
MY BRAIN > ***INCOHERENT SCREAMS OF VALIDATION***
Exactly! RTD has the ability to pick up the "lemon" that is The Timeless Child and turn it into Agave Lemonade the way The Oracle was created and Batgirl ultimately was forever improved after others fixed the "lemon" The Killing Joke dropped.
My biggest problem with the timeless child is that it's specifically the doctor who is the timeless child. I think if they had chosen the master instead it would have been a much better idea.
Well, ideally an entirely new character or vague hints that it's Susan.
@@not_enough_space I'd have gone with Professor Chronitis from Shada.
@not_enough_space I feel like the doctor would've noticed if his granddaughter was the timeless child considering he was likely at her birth
@@SnowLily06 If she's not the Timeless Child then, yeah, things will not be as though she is. But is there a reason she can't be? Or for drama reasons shouldn't be?
The Doctor being half human was brought up, he was talking about regeneration sickness and said “I even thought I was half human once” it was a throwaway line wish I could remember they episode
I... have zero memory of this. And besides that it wouldn't actually fix things because his half-human status is confirmed by the Master (like I said, it's a major plot point).
@@CouncilofGeeksYES! Exactly! The thing is that I actually love that explanation because it isn't a trope, in a worldwide sense. It was literally only used once for Spock, which is literally a joke in series 1, as I doubt it was only based on the ears (though given how unpleasant Eccleston felt, I wouldn't be surprised) All I'm saying is that maybe give The TARDIS a chance to shine more. She is sentient, after all, so she truly knows what's going on.
@@CouncilofGeeksit might have been from a cut scene of minisode I can’t remember
You might be thinking of the scene in Hell Bent. Where Lady Me states that The Doctor is half human, and The Doctor doesn't deny it.
Lady Me: Why couldn't the Hybrid be half Time Lord, half human? Tell me, Doctor, I've always wondered. You're a Time Lord, you're a high-born Gallifreyan. Why is it you spend so much time on Earth?
The Doctor: That's your best theory? I'm the Hybrid? I ran away from Gallifrey because I was afraid of myself? That doesn't make any sense.
Lady Me: It makes perfect sense, and you know it. Am I right? Is it true?
The Doctor: Does it matter?
@@Deathlygunn no what I’m referring to was a lot earlier than that 9th or 10th doctor
Agree with the majority of this, I’m genuinely glad it won’t just be ignored but actually built on. Been saying for a while that’s my preference. Also agreed on the LGBTQ+ inclusion and master on pause quotes, definitely positive developments. There’s one more I really liked that you didn’t mention here, which is that he said 15 will be a lot more emotionally open than past doctors as a way to normalize dealing with mental health struggles, like him openly crying in the Christmas special-and side note, that’s doubly positive to have with a black masc-presenting doctor considering the norms around black men.
I feel like RTD has watched the Chibnall era and gone ‘addressing that, addressing that, addressing that…’. So far he’s given weight to random deaths, which Chibnall rarely did, properly addressed the ramifications of Flux, touched on the Doctor’s pain from the Timeless Child discovery, and now he’s stated that he plans to delve deeper into that pain.
Absolutely, asking what the reveal means for The Doctor, how it makes them feel & how it will change them is the perfect way to proceed. Chibnall felt like he was writing TARDIS Wiki entries rather than actually telling a story.
Chibnall's era felt souless like it was going through the motions of making Doctor Who but really didn't understand it.
If it'd been up to me, I'd have just filmed a "short" that showed the Master hanging around in a Victorian gentleman's club, swirling a glass of brandy and saying:
"... So anyway, I told her she was 'The Timeless Child' and she believed it!"
Cue laughter from those around him, fade to black.
And then it can just be disregarded as vaguely non-canon. 😂
Like the villain pub lol
Unfortunately, that wouldn't work. The Doctor asked Tecteun if what the Master said is true, and she confirmed it. We'd need some explanation for the Master and Tecteun both lying.
@@not_enough_spaceand you'd have to explain the fugitive doctor too
@@CallunaNightWolf I think many would be happy with a Season 6B style theory to explain her. That is, she's between the Second and Third Doctor.
Many like to think the Second Doctor went on missions for the Time Lords between regenerations. (There are various bits of media used to justify this.) All we have to do is suppose this lasted more than one regeneration and some temporary memory wiping kept it hidden from the Doctor. After all, the Time Lords wiped the Doctor's companions' memories during that same Two-to-Three regeneration.
Brilliant!
Moffat had the best response to the half human bit, it was because he had had human blood and human tech inside of him so it messed with the regeneration. Honestly, the master being the timeless child makes WAY more sense since he seems to have ways of keeping himself alive that no other timelord has. But they've already expressed that exposure to the rift in time and space created the ability to regenerate. So maybe they were a timelord who fell into the space time continuum and gave them the ability to regenerate but the timelords didn't know who the kid was so they gave it a name.
Chibnal also can't write scifi. He's very good with human drama and mystery
I like the general idea of The timeless child but think it should have been Susan and they reveal that the doctor found out and that's why he takes her and runs away but some how got the memory taken away
Same. I'm not keen on the TC being the Doctor. I am open to what RTD will do with it but am of the mind that having it be Susan (or someone else entirely) would also have opened up narrative corridors to explore which I personally would have found more interesting than it being the Doctor - for reasons that Vera has discussed in the past.
I don't hate the fact the Doctor turned out to be the timeless child, it would make more sence to why he was so different to the timelords, why he wanted to travel and do something rather than just watch. That being said Susan being the timeless child would have made just as much sence, the Doctor could have still had his mind altered to make him believe Susan was his real Grand daughter and he protected his family member. They could have whiten in that the reason why the timelords chased the Doctor around time and forced him to regenerate because he allowed the timeless child to go it alone and not protect her.
What I think it brings however is a way to not worry about the twelve regenerations rule anymore. I’ m still not sure about how I feel about the TC thing, I’ve got some mixed feelings. but it sure was a clever way to make the Doctor, and thus the series, virtually eternal
The series always manages to survive retcons. Hartnell's Doctor being the first was only made explicit in the Fifth Doctor's run - by which time we'd already seen three or four prior incarnations, so that was a retcon. The Master first appeared in the Third Doctor's run - in his debut episode, it was clear they'd never met (although they had heard of each other) - while the new series depicts them as childhood friends, so that's a retcon too. It'll survive the Timeless Child thing too.
This was actually one of the things that got me the most excited when I watched the 14th Doctor specials. It wasn't _super_ conspicuous in those episodes next to all the other things that we got out of them, but we did get to see some hints of how the Doctor was still trying to mentally parse not only the Timeless Child revelation, but also the events of the Flux, with half of the universe being eradicated. When the Toymaker was taunting the Doctor about the cataclysmic way the Flux ended during his puppet show, the Doctor's anguish about it was palpable. And I could see what RTD was doing in those moments, and I remember remarking to myself as I watched, that he was doing Chibnall a big favor by tying up all of the loose ends he left behind. Really, I don't think there's any way for the show to proceed that _doesn't_ do that-- it's the elephant in the room now, and it has to be dealt with. Chibnall backed the series into a corner with his contributions to the lore, and I'm optimistic that RTD seems to understand what needs to happen to get it out.
On another note... yeah, *definitely* watch the other two seasons of _Broadchurch._ It absolutely confounds me that such a well-written series came from, and even _precedes,_ the same writer who was responsible for Series 11-13. It's like all of the understanding of emotional beats and character development and plot payoffs that Chibnall demonstrated in _Broadchurch_ was completely abandoned during his work on _Doctor Who,_ and I still can't wrap my head around why.
Personally I suspect there were behind the scenes issues. Quite a few of the scripts seem to have been rushed.
Broadchurch was something else. Season 1 was definitely better but I think that was mostly because story wise that’s when the characters were experiencing the more emotional moments and swings. Season 2 was the aftermath, slightly calmer. Still a brilliant show though. I think the issues with Chibnall is that he can nail complex characters and storylines but sci-fi isn’t really his thing. At least not the level required for DW. I know he had written for the show before but writing an episode here and there with established characters, monsters and story lines isn’t the same thing as creating it all from scratch.
I also really appreciated him saying doctor who is open to everyone, even if you're as "straight as a nail". Online discourse would have you believe that if something is embracing LGBTQ people that it's no longer made for anyone else, almost turning it into an "us vs them" situation, when that simply doesn't need to be true. The quicker there's less segregation in society the better, and I think Russell saying LGBTQ is just a part of his life, and that he's not making it "for" anyone in particular is, I think, very reassuring.
Werd - drives me bloody spare. So many reactionary cranks have complained that "Welp, it's obvious I'm no longer welcome here!" when other aspects of the characters or actors have never made them unrelatable before. That loudmouth "Pronowns!" guy AZ did a "review" of the Christmas story where he was pleading people not to watch it, that it was no longer suitable for families, and even went so far as to say that it was essentially pornography! Nothing in his review gave any indication that he'd even watched the episode.
The YT outrage mill is so sad, people literally scouring trailers and press clippings to rant about for 20 minutes over a briefclip or quote without context. Just about every day I am removing channels from my recommendations over that tired soapboxing-as-ctitique.
I love how this was already an emotional plot beat in the church on ruby road. The Doctor stating that he's an orphan and him connecting with Ruby and her family through that
If it helps for future reference if you need a clip for the "half-human" thing, i believe it's as The Master gets into the TARDIS that he says a line "The Doctor is half-human" which showcases that it wasn't intended as a joke a bit better. If you can't find one of that, I'm happy to look more precisely myself at some point
Not to be too pedantic but Time Lord is a title, not a species-though it's been referred to by non-Gallifreyans sometimes as the species name, that's just incorrect. The Gallifreyan people are Shobogans, and Gallifreyans can become Time Lords after attending the Academy and passing some tests. Which the Doctor did do. So while the Timeless Child revelation suggests they may not be Shobogan or native Gallifreyan, they are definitely still a Time Lord.
Not to be pedantic but it's both. Time Lord DNA exists, proving it's a species too. The rank is exclusive to gallifreyans (residents not necessarily born) But the DNA is not. Every time Lord (species) is a hybrid of two species. Gallifreyan Time Lord like the master. Human time Lord like river song. And Unknown time Lord like the doctor.
They are still a timelord by rank AND species. As the gallifreyans became time Lord's... through the biology of the child
When baby melody was scanned... she had "time Lord DNA" because of the vortex exposure. Obviously that's not gallifreyan DNA. So time Lord as a species... IS a thing.
@@jakeoliver9167 good point. To me, that's more of a mutation or genetic enhancement than a species, but you're right.
I’d agree and add that the reveal doesn’t mean the Doctor *isn’t* a Time Lord but that all Time Lords are the Doctor, in other words what made Gallifreyans Time Lords comes from the Doctor. I don’t like that change, of course, but I do think that’s the implication.
Imo this has always been one of RTD's greatest strengths as a writer. He has his flaws, but he's very good at finding the emotional core of an issue and sticking the landing with that payoff. He makes me care.
Initially, I was also hoping he might just ignore the Timeless Child stuff, but I think if he's looking to use it as a tool to create new drama and explore the Doctor's character in a different way, that could work out really well. I think at the end of the day, while I'm not a huge fan of the Timeless Child as a concept, my BIGGER issue was that Chibnall dropped something so huge on the audience in one massive lore dump and then just didn't do anything interesting with it. Now, I actually liked the majority of Flux, but the stuff I enjoyed about it wasn't really related to the Doctor's past XD
To me it doesn't matter that Chibnall didn't do anything with it afterwards, but I do care that he didn't put the effort in to earn himself a lore dump in the first place. He insulted the audience by essentially declaring by fiat that a narrative so full of lazy cliches that it might as well begin with "once upon a time", is a factual account of Gallifreyan history. A narrative in which Gallifreyan spaceflight is declared to have been pioneered by a single individual, even though everyone with a brain knows that history doesn't work that way, only mythology does. Chibnall treated us all like idiots who don't know the difference, just so he could tell the biggest possible story with the least possible effort. I really hate that.
I just found your channel, this is my 5th video watching and I’m sitting here through all of them like I'm in a church service, just “yup”ping and “preach!”
I freaking love it and you're amazing! You're helping me say my frustrations and thouhts into words! THANK YOU!!! ❤❤❤❤
As someone who didn't like the timeless child and also didn't care for RTD's original run in the first place, this decision makes me respect him a lot as a writer. Doctor Who, as a long-running serialised story, is a collaborative work of art, and that means taking the good ideas from the past with the bad and building on them. To me, his take on this shows a profound respect for the show as a whole, which incidentally his successors did not demonstrate when it came down to it. Moffat took the biggest and most character-informing part of Russell's tenure, the Doctor's decision to end the Time War, and basically threw it and all the character development it led to out the window - and then did nothing with it aside from bringing back the Time Lords for one story where he subsequently did nothing with them. Chibnall then took that decision to bring back the Timelords and completely undid it by having the Master destroy Gallifrey off screen, and then proceeded to do basically nothing of substance with it, since the Time Lords being alive didn't really preclude any of the timeless child stuff. All it did was give us a new symphonic metal design for the Cybermen. But here is Russell, who almost certainly knows how stupid of an idea the timeless child is, but is going to do what he can with it anyway because, like it or not, it's part of the story now and it should inform the characters.
I feel like the episode Human Nature was a salvaging of the "Eighth Doctor is half human" plot device, since both stories involve the Doctor rewriting his own "history" and becoming human in order to hide from someone. I don't see RTD expanding on the Timeless Child's lore, but I could imagine him or another writer making an episode clearly inspired by the concept. I do like the idea of regeneration being something not unique to the Time Lords, or even something that was artificially created. That idea originated in the classic era with episodes like The Hand of Fear and Mawdryn Undead. So maybe RTD could take the concept of "alien from another dimension with the ability to regenerate" and make it work, so long as that alien were somebody other than the Doctor.
The _Human Nature_ two-parter might be partly in response to the "half-human" thing but it was primarily based on a 7th Doctor Virgin New Adventures novel from 1995, which predates the TV movie.
I'm someone who likes the Timeless Child and the mystery it brings back to the show, which was the intention and clearly RTD feels the same way which makes me very happy! I don't want to find out where the Doctor is from or their original species or anything about that. It's really lovely that the Doctor being a foundling is a core part of his dynamic with Ruby who is also a foundling and has a similar history to the Doctor, especially since The Timeless Child was inspired by Chibnall himself being adopted so I can imagine him watching with a big smile on his face. It's really sweet! And it also makes me happy knowing RTD himself loved Chibnall's era and wants to make it part of his new era! So nothijg is being retconned OR ignored.
I agree, I smiled when I saw The Church on Ruby Road when the Doctor looks at Lulubelle and says that he was adopted. I thought that Chibnall must be sitting there with a smile that this story arc was continued.
I don't know, I think Chris Chibnall did everything he was going to do with it. It's likely he had bigger plans for it had COVID not happened, but even then I don't imagine he was going to put all the toys back in the pram once he'd done. I suspect RTD has previously discussed certain aspects of it with Chibnall, and maybe that's why he invited him to write for his new era, although that offer was ultimately declined. Davies is a very clever man who understood the gift Chibnall left him, and it's a gift with enormous storytelling potential.
Every writer is different, and o just think chibnall as a writer for doctor who is more interested in plot rather than characters. In interviews he was always talking about doing this cool thing and that cool thing with lasers blah blah blah. Whereas as RTD always talks in terms of themes and characters. Chibnall is similar i think to the writers in 80s doctor who. There's a focus on fun plot for the sake of plot.
@@Rik77 That's a fair point, and one worth discussing. It's certainly true that Broadchurch was about the story rather than the characters, but the characters were also interesting in and of themselves. I'd even agree with your point about eighties Who, which was clearly a formative period for him. After all, he was 16 when he appeared on Open Air, although he didn't say a great deal. Like most 16 year olds, he didn't have a clue what he was talking about, although his observation about Terror of the Vervoids being somewhat old-hat isn't without some merit. Personally, I like his era of the show: he explored themes and situations which hadn't been properly approached before, and I genuinely think he should be applauded for that. Like every other era, his isn't without fault, but I truly believe he doesn't deserve the merciless drubbing he got for his efforts. He's a fine writer who perhaps lacks the wit of both Davies and Moffat. Frankly, if that's his only crime, then it's a fairly minor one in the grand scheme of things.
I suspect that Chibnall would have done something more with the arc if he was allowed to. Management seemed to be hitting a reset button after every one of his series, so I think it was more a case of "you have one short season to finish whatever you're doing, then go away". Unfortunately I never saw any indication that Chibnall had anything interesting to say with the Timeless Child, but I don't doubt that there was something meaningful there to him.
@@voltijuice8576 Well, the meaning for Chibnall is that, like him, the Doctor is adopted. It's the same reason Graham is a cancer survivor; so's Chris Chibnall. He's putting his own experiences into the show, which is fair enough, I would think.
I feel there is also an argument to be made that the purpose of the Timeless Child was to reintroduce mystery into the origins of The Doctor. In Listen and Hell Bent we get elements of the Doctor's origins. I do feel like there should always be a shroud of mystery around The Doctor's beginnings. Anything a fan comes up with in speculation will be 1000x more interesting to me. In that vein, it is never explicitly said that the portal baby Doctor came through DOESN'T come from Gallifrey. In fact, the one time we see it used in the present it exclusively connects there. There could be a temporal aspect to the portal.
For me, i think it really is RTD bailing out his friend. RTD has subtly disagreed with Moffat's run, but RTD and Chips are close friends.
For regenerations, the best Regeneration story is still 'Caves of Androzani'. No universal stakes - Like 'Logopolis' - not even Earth threatening. The Doctor dies trying to save ONE person. Because that's who the Doctor is. He doesn't need massive threat to drive the story. He'll go in hard for one person...
I wanted Russell to just completely ignore the timeless child because I despise the concept and still want to forget it ever happened. It was always going to be a thing in the show's history after it was done, but I was hoping it could be forgotten to the point of effectively decanonized over a long enough time frame, similar to what happened with the reveal that the Doctor is half human
It alters so many fundamentals about the show in ways that I deeply dislike on multiple levels
However, if Russell is going to *not* ignore it, the way that he's decided to handle it is probably the second best alternative. His approach to handling it is the best way to address it if you have decided that you will address it
I don't know... What if I said one of the things that justified the idea of the Time War was that it gave the Doctor his sonic screwdriver. Surely one good objection to that is that it didn't do any such thing -- the Doctor had his sonic screwdriver before that plot point. The Timeless Child and adoption is analogous to that. We're being told the drama of being an orphan could justify the Timeless Child idea, but the Doctor was already an orphan before the Timeless Child story. It's fine for RTD to do a story exploring being and orphan and adoptive family, and I'm sure plenty of good emotional moments can come from it, but there's just no reason to credit the Timeless Child for it.
I’m straight and I think more diversity and inclusion for the LGTBQ+ is a good thing! Why do people not believe that, everyone wants to be included why not include them in the greatest show on Earth?
Thank you for mentioning Broadchurch. I recently went back and did my first rewatch for Matt Smith through Jodie Whittaker to see if I felt differently (I didn't like the Godlike/VIP Doctor, Clara or Timeless Child). Then I got to rewatch Broadchurch on a free trial. I kept going "this man wrote one of the things I think is amazing and also one of the things that made me want to pull my hair out?! How?" I also hadn't remembered that Jodie's second series was all written by Chibnall.
Where did you hear that Jodie's second series was all written by Chibnall? Wikipedia reckons he wrote around half the episodes in S12 (including _The Timeless Children)._
@@irrevenant8724 I was watching the credits each of the 6 episodes.
@@CLJlovesmalAh, I see the confusion, that's Jodie's 3rd series (Season 13, aka _Flux,_ not her 2nd one. Her second season is 10 episodes and is the one that ends with the Timeless Child reveal).
@@irrevenant3 oops, my bad on season listing.
I disagree with one of the core thursts of this video. Respectfully, I think you completely missed the point of the TC storyline. What RTD is doing with it is an *extension* of what Chibnall did. Chibnall's intentions were very clear: as an adopted child himself, he wanted to tell the story of the loss of identity and sense of belonging that came with that. He's explicitely stated this in interviews, and I think you can see it in the show too.
The entire narrative thrust of Flux episode 1, and the emotional heart of Flux as a whole, is related to The Doctor trying to discover her own past and come to terms with her loss of identity. Part of the core of the relationship between The Doctor and Yaz, and The Doctor's characterisation in general, and in my opinion the *central tragedy of 13's final moments* , is The Doctor's inability to open up to Yaz about her feelings, and at the core of *that* is how the TC pretty much broke The Doctor's psyche. The Doctor had managed to move forwards, to try to accept the revelations of her past and embrace the person she had become, but ultimately she was still unable to fully let go of it, and her final scene with Yaz is dripping with this subtext in my opinion. Chibnall wanted The Doctor to go through that journey of self-doubt and feeling of being lost, and come out of it the other side having grown and deepened as a character, still scarred by the revelations but able to move forwards. And I think he achieved that. But I agree that it was only to a pretty small extent.
The two primary issues with this were that:
- Chibnall wrote Jodie's Doctor to be very emotionally closed off and unable to share or understand her own emotions. This made the exploration of how TTC affected The Doctor much more difficult to write, and more difficult for the viewer to understand
- Chibnall simply wasn't very good at writing with the subtletly and complexity required to tell the story he wanted effectively. Perhaps it's because he was overstretched with all his other responsibilities as showrunner, perhaps his vision was impacted by Covid, perhaps it's just not his forte, perhaps it was a mixture of all three.
The reason why Chibnall didn't execute the 'payoff' you talked about at the end of the video is because *it was never his intention to reveal the past* . The intention was to tell a story that was deeply personal to him, a story of adoption and a sense of lost identity. Secondary to that, the point of the TC was to reintroduce some mystery back into the character of The Doctor. On that second point, I think the TC achieved this well: I'm glad Chibnall didn't explore it more than he did, and I'm prepared to die on that hill. Chibnall's "payoff" to the TC was twofold: first, The Doctor deciding to not open the fob watch and hide it deep in the TARDIS, and second, the impact it had on The Doctor and her relationship with Yaz. That was the emotional impact central to the TC storyline. You may not have though the emotional payoff to the TC worked well, but it's simply incorrect to claim that it didn't exist; some of my points may be more obscure than others, but the fact that the Chibnall era dealt with how the TC affected the Doctor as a character is completely and utterly undeniable.
From the sounds of your video, I'm not sure if you're aware or not that Chibnall was adpoted and this experience was part of his motivation for writing the TC. I think when you know that it really helps recontextualise a lot of the era. I admit it takes a bit of, let's say, generous interpretation, but it made me appreciate the era and the TC even more (having already been a fan, mind).
RTD managed to execute Chibnall's vision extremely well already in the two scenes we have had dealing with TTC. First, with Tennant's breakdown after his confrontation with the Not Donna, and second with Ncuti freely offering the fact that he was adotped in TCoRR. RTD's exploration of this might be the single thing I've most looking forward to in what's to come. But that's the thing, all RTD is doing here is *executing Chibnall's vision* . I completely disagree with the claim that this intention was created by RTD, and Chibnall introduced TTC primarily for lore reasons with character as an afterthought. TTC was *always* about the emotional impact of The Doctor's past being stolen from them and the implications this had, drawing from Chibnall's own lived experience as an adopted orphan. RTD took the baton that Chibnall passed to him, and managed to run with it a lot faster.
Revealing that the Doctor is adopted is very different from revealing that the Doctor was abused and exploited by their adoptive parent. It’s disturbing that Chibnall would conflate the two.
Agreed. And Jodie being closed off about it isn't just bad writing. Nine was super cagey about the time war and it took a long time to reveal more about it.
Plus immediately after the TC reveal there was an entire miniseries about it. How are Tecteun and the fobwatch not major payoffs? Then three specials, the last of which addressed the Master's response to TC, and then Chibnall left.
@@ThePlayTyperGuy The only person conflating those two things is you.
@ThePlayTyperGuy
I think Tecteun was a fair parent until the accident.
She at least seemed to care about the child's safety.
I get the feeling she got lost in the science, obsessed with recreating the effect, that it started her on a path of eventually wanting control over everything.
+
RTD is the master of taking crazy ideas that sound awful on paper, and making strong emotional stories out of them. I think thats why he and doctor who go so well together.
In RTD's hands, The Timeless Child becomes a timeless idea.
When the Timeless Child came out, I came up with an idea I thought would make the most of it.
In my idea the Timeless Child, not being native to this dimension, had trouble managing their regenerations. Over time, the Timeless Child began to develop an identity crisis and was going mad as a result. To try and manage their many lives/regenerations, they begin to create personas. Some personas were benign, others were malevolent, etc... Among those personas, one was the Doctor, and another was the Master. Eventually the madness was so great that the Gallifreyan leaders were terrified of the Timeless Child, and out of both fear of the Timeless Child and compassion for the Timeless Child's suffering, they decided to split the Timeless Child into multiple new beings. Each persona would be born a new Gallifreyan infant (or maybe some will not even be Gallifreyan). There are now many Timeless Children who all used to be part of each other, part of the same being. This leaves the door open to the Master learning that they are also a Timeless Child, that the Doctor and him were once the same, that they share the same madness, but the Doctor used it for good, and the Master did not. It could open up many avenues for their friendships and animosity.
But then Chibnall had to make the Master try to turn into the Doctor, which I feel would kind of wreck the idea that they actually are parts of the same being.
When the fake Donna brought up The Timeless Child and The Flux to Tennant's second version of The Doctor in Wild Blue Yonder I thought, OMG is he gonna actually Do Something with this? That he is just makes me happy. While I also wasn't fond of the idea, what I Hated is that NOTHING was done with it. RTD should be able to get to the emotional impact that had on The Doctor, even if THIS Doctor has "healed" from his trauma, RTD can still find a way to show it to US. Wow, it actually has me excited to see what RTD will do with TTC. BTW, I am hopeful that the analogy to The Killing Joke and Oracle/Batgirl ends up being the end result to The Timeless Child. Thanks Vera!
Imo the problem chibnal had (and it showed) was that he didn't want to do a scifi. The studio mandated that a portion of the series be science/action and when that happened every single time he phones it in. His historical episodes, I enjoyed every single time but as soon as anything 'science' was needed he would hand wave the story away without any thought, planning, research or consequences.
My own personal headcanon is that just like the Doctor in classic who was not a great student and overall fairly unimpressive when it comes to timelords, and only appears impressive and intelligent when compared to humans, the Doctor should be rather average for whatever species they are, because it allows them to preserve the little man nature they always had.
You could also tie the Doctor up with the Eternals if you wanted, I think that could be interesting, and I'm honestly surprised they haven't used them at all in NuWho yet.
Actual canon given the exchange between romana1 and the doctor when they firt met that went something like Romana "I have a first class degree in celestial mechanics" Doctor "You think thats impressive?" Romana "Well it certainly beats scraping a pass at the second attempt" Doctor "Who told you that?!"
Yeah. We don't know anything about where the Doctor came from so it's entirely possible they're a fairly rubbish member of the Timeless Child species too. :) (Assuming they even *are* a species - I've seen it suggested that the Timeless Child is a time-displaced Gallifreyan Time Lord, for example).
And the Doctor failed his TARDIS checkride too
This is the first video i’ve seen from you and wow , you perfectly said everything that i think 😂 and i love your energy
I am curious to see what RTD will do with the Timeless Child, but I still can't get excited for it. But it's great that you, Vera, and anyone else who is excited can be.
Spot on! I really like what you have said here, and I agree.
It's a chance to put the 'Who?' back into Doctor Who.
I've always been of the opinion that if the timeless child was going to be a thing, it makes more sense for it to be The Master. It would give some level of justification for his anger and Rage at the timelords even if he didn't remember.
I, like most people, like the idea of the Doctor being a rogue who just likes to travel and runs away
The Doctor is still a rogue who stole a tardis and ran away. The timeless child didn't change that
I don’t like the timeless child but you made some good point. Now I have hope that it could be salvaged and turned into a good story.
6:17
i totally didn't catch that tidbit drop in The Giggle episode. Thank you for that detail about The Master being in The Gold Tooth.
Personally, I did really like the way the Timeless Child unfolded, even though it complicates the lore, and even though it hasn't been paid off yet. There are very interesting things to be done here, with an individual who has been assembling their own found families for so many lifetimes... Coming to terms with being an orphan, with their sense of belonging to both the Timelords who took them in and to Gallifrey, the only home they've ever known... And coming to terms, perhaps, with a sense of betrayal, having been used by their guardian, experimented on, used and ultimately discarded.
Tecteun clearly had little, if any, deep or meaningful affection for the Doctor. The Doctor has gone to war with the Timelord council multiple times at this point, for good reason. This is a very interesting place for the Doctor to be. And I absolutely think they can still be an idiot in a box at the end of the day.
I do also find it interesting what it means for the relentless superiority complex of the Timelords that they stole their whole thing from someone else. I think their motives for stealing the Doctor's ability and building a society around it, as well as how the Doctor has been treated by them ever since, could be compared to how a narcissist relates to their target. That last point would take far too long to get into. But I think exploring that aspect could also help center the realism of the Doctor's character as just an idiot in a box instead of a mythical figure of utmost importance.
First David Tennant’s return and now The Timeless Child.
You’re certainly changing your mind about a lot of things that you hated about Doctor Who of late.
It certainly helps when they're done better than I had any expectation.
Hadn’t seen the latest RTD interview, but happy to hear his thoughts - and your reaction to them.
Thanks, as always!
Lovely vlog, so well explained & argued. When you have big positive hopes Vera, it makes me super happy. Haven’t always 100% agreed with your reactions, but always 100% get a better view and learn something new. This time, along with the other 90% or more of times, you are so on the frikking money 🤗
Can’t wait for new eps & reviews to come soon!!
12:23 my 2 cents: I don’t have an issue with the timelords stealing the regeneration ability from an alien life form but I don’t think it had to be the doctor.
I love the sentiment here. "It's a bad idea, but it was done well."
the later seasons of Broadchurch are good but the first is AMAZING
Half human was brought up during the Capaldi era. Also loved that idea. To each their own.
I understand your points about TC but respectfully disagree. I don't think it's worth anything RTD can do with it to keep it considering how (to me) it ruined the history of the show.
Plus, i am confused when he did a line in The Giggle so fans can ignore it when the toymaker says, "I made a jigsaw of your history." RtD said its to help juggle all the different origins and make them all canon but then doubles down on TC.
Did I misunderstand something? Plenty of reacuring enemies have appeared before the master, such as the silurians or the autons.
It was your hand at the end of The Giggle, wasn't it?
Chibnell so clearly just wanted to have big plot twists with zero thought to their lore implication. This was particularly frustrating with the episode introducing the idea that the first doctor was not the first doctor, where the Doctor finds a TARDIS hidden beneath a fake gravestone... and it's a police box. Because the Doctor's TARDIS looks like a police box, even when it's a different TARDIS and a version of the Doctor before they traveled to the UK in the 60s and set the chameleon circuits to look like a police box.
Totally agree with you vera I was frustrated that chibnall did nothing with this concept as well and thank you for an amazing video glad rtd will do something with it
People who claimed the Timeless Child ended Doctor Who are just like the people who claimed Doctor Who was dead basically every time the show makes a lore change. And then a few years later everyone moves on
totally off base, Timeless Child is far and away the most hated retcon in the show's history just get out of the echo chamber to notice
I still think what 1976's _The Deadly Assassin_ did to the Time Lords was a regrettable mistake.
@@davidblyth6886 I wasn't alive in the 70s. I'm just saying it's not the case that everyone just moves on from lore changes they didn't like. Sometimes they don't convert to preferring the status quo.
@NTNG13 Agreed never seen have such a plot/storyline been so detested and hated like The Timeless Child has been. Most just want it be ignored and never touched upon again and considering the 13th run itself was where a lot jumped off and stopped watching, it makes it easier to forget and move from.
You look so cute when you're happy! And your happiness is infectious! I ended watching your video with a huge smile on my face!
As an X-Men fan, I was nodding my head when you were talking about not everything has to be "undone". If a plot point is made and never referenced again. That's a better way to deal with it. Retcon just brings more attention to the subject. As opposed to just ignoring.
Great analysis and very well put. Thanks for doing what you do.
When I first learned that RTD was going to do something with the timeless child story, I was happy but nervous. I hope it gets drip fed to us over multiple series similar to how the time war was over the first 7 series culminating in the 50th Special.
How you explain why your enthusiasm for the upcoming season is exactly why I love the Cyber Timelords/Cybermasters and like their amazing design because it's awesome and because the Master just can't help showing off. It hits the Doctor personally (like what the Master did to the future humans in series 3) and regenerating cybermen... love it.
As an aside I very much love how much the Master looked right past the obvious "CyberLords" name and named them after himself instead. 😂 It's so him.
I gotta say I also hated how Moffat brought back Galifrey then Chibnal burned it to the ground, again leaving the Doctor to be the last Time Lord.
RTD has always been good at digging into the emotion of a good character/story nugget.
I missed this when it came out. Was working today and needed something else about this length to get me thru the rest of the day so here we are. I agree with most of what you say here, and have said similar myself. One thing that strikes me though with the upcoming "Rogue" episode is "the Doctor's life will be changed forever," tag line. I'm wondering if what the Master did to Gallifrey and all the children of Gallifrey might be about to be undone or mitigated soon too. I want there to be a Kaldor City equivalent of Time Lords who survived somehow by being off planet or exploring another time or dimension at the time of the last fall of Gallifrey. I'm hoping the Rogue is a time agent who either is from that group, or knows of that group, and can indeed change the Doctor's life. We'll see....
The Church on Ruby Road also touched on The Doctor's trauma at being exploited because of the vulnerability of not having safe family, when he is devastated by alternate version Carla Sunday saying she only took in foster kids for the financial benefit.
I'm still not convinced this makes the timeless child in any way a "good" thing. Mostly because it had already been hinted at that the Doctor could have been an orphan during 11's run when we saw the Doctor as a child. Maybe not their whole life, maybe not without other relatives to take over for lost parents, but still someone coming from some kind of at least partially broken home at a young age.
I'm fine with the Doctor being an orphan, or more to the point, with the Doctor being adopted, but none of that requires them to be a special unique one of a kind alien from an entirely different reality and the origin of Time Lord regeneration.
EDIT: and to be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure I can agree that what RTD is currently doing with the concept is all that original either. The Docto not knowing where they come from seems like a retread of the same kind of melodrama as the Doctor being the last Time Lord... both amounting to a similar notion of the Doctor being alone in the universe with no place they can call home.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's good. But this will hopefully make it not completely pointless.
Spot on, Vera! You're spot on! A poorly idea that's well executed is way better than a good idea poorly executed. That said, I do think Chibnall did some great character buildings for the minor characters of some episodes of Doctor Who, but forgot them for the main cast. Praxeus comes to mind, the first Holiday special is another one. Even in the Witch finder, as long as the noble dame still is a human being, and in Kerblam, where the female boss actually shows big concern when she realize something's wrong. Professor Jericho is another character better explained than most of the main cast during Chibnall's run. His plot points were quite un explained, though. They were more confusing than good. Thanks for a great youtube channel 🫶
Vera, my go-to Dr Who News and analysis😄
I love the way you think- I don’t always agree ( I am a different human so that makes sense) but you tell it like it is and how you feel about it. So thanks. ❤️😎
I just wanted to say that you keep bringing up the butterfly effect joke, in the trailer, but wasn't that, like, a big part of the Christmas Special?
Depends what scale you consider to be required to call something "the butterfly effect" I guess.
Ruby was removed from her original timeline which directly caused all the children her mother raised to be less well off (presumably?), which is a pretty direct causal link.
The butterfly effect is typically used to refer to tiny unimportant changes that, due to chaos, result in huge unpredictable changes down the line.
If he does bring the Master back in season 2 or 3, I'd quite like the odd episode where either Missy, the most recent or Simm, show up again with no need to introduce a new incarnation for a while.
Jacobi?
The seventh Doctor hinted at things, that gave the character extra pathos and made them far more mysterious than previous incarnations.
So it could be argued the Timeless Child idea began then.
Chibnall took the idea of "the Other" from Andrew Cartmel's plans for season 27 (which never happened, then got fashioned into the novel "Lungbarrow" a few years later) and used it as inspiration for the Timeless Child? That makes sense to me.
@@citrinedragonfly The strong difference is that Cartmel used implication, innuendo and half spoke questionable utterances...whereas Chibnal just had the Master give a Time Lord power point on the whole damn thing....
@@clomiancalcifer If Lungbarrow had been made as an episode, as was the intent, it wouldn't have been just implication. We'd have seen the Doctor's House and other family and gotten the Looms and all.
This is great to see. I was worried too and now I agree 💯 with you vera. I'm also glad rtd is going to acknowledge it and I'm hoping he also ties a bow on the flux. So happy to see your excitement. It makes me feel a little better now.
So bring on doctor who! Here's hoping it's a great season.
It's been obvious lately that russel is gonna do something with the timeless child stuff, given WBY and Church on ruby road. Even using it as a way of connecting the doctor with ruby. I may still hate the idea but Russel seems to be the king of having terrible on paper ideas and making them work exceptionally well. So I'm excited to see where it goes.
I enjoyed the Butterfly Effect as a joke, was worried we'd be getting a whole episode of it.
And yes, totally agree with you on the "The Doctor is a unique godly being" plots are terrible.
And God yes, the Last of the Time Lords was huge and emotional when it came out.
Also, so glad to find someone who enjoys Doctor Who and dislikes pretty all the things I dislike. (Timeless Child, 14th Doc, Bi-generation)
In my humble opinion i think RTD, while embracing the timeless child, he will not give it a real answer, i think this season will end with The Doctor coming to the conclusion that finding out who he really is isnt important because his real family is his adopted family, it wont matter because he is a timelord even if he wasnt born on Galifrey.
My biggest problem was destroying Gallifrey like Chibnall did. Showwriters seem to forget that Gallifrey is a planet teeming with life and alien ecosystems...not just the High Council of Gallifrey. There could have been multiple opportunities to see, save, and interact with Gallifreyan creatures.
And the Doctor had friends and mentors (usually also rogues) beyond just the Master that would tie them to Gallifrey.
------
...in that light, I think something like a "Time Lord Seed Vault" placed on planets like Earth could be a way to open room to let the Doctor explore and remember the positive parts of Gallifrey.
His former Companions Romana and Leela were on that planet (assuming they weren't casualties of the Time War).
I trust Russell T Davies on it
I like how this might turn out. I am glad they are exploring that with them, looking forward to witnessing it
I actually think that the Timeless Child should be the last Gallifreyan from the other universe, just some rando little girl who was sent through a portal and gets experimented on by this universe's Shabogans. There's something fitting and poetic about just some random child who *isn't* a god or super special being the Omelas child who gives Gallifrey this powerful ability.
I really wish there was more from Thirteen meeting Tecteun, and I also really think that meeting Tecteun so early was a mistake, and a waste. She wasn't really foreshadowed or built up, so we don't know her or her relationship with the Fugitive Doctor. Hell, we don't really even know much about The Fugitive Doctor, other than that she's a lot more aggressive and part of the secret police. That's very different from our Doctors, and yet she's still calling herself The Doctor. What does that name mean to her? There's so many things that are underdeveloped, even on top of the fact that The Timeless Children is just The Master giving a PowerPoint presentation.
I also think that you're hitting on something I've never really been able to conceptualize: Choices I disagree with narratively that allow for stories that are just good.
The Autons, Ice Warriors and Great Intelligence have been around longer than the Master, but certainly have had less screen time
The Great Intelligence as well. They were introduced during The 2nd Doctor's Era.
Now that i think about it, with the Timeless Child plot, is possible to fit the "Half human on my mother side" plot point. With the Doctor's family after having their memory erase having his mother being human making the Doctor believe they were half human even though they weren't.
Or you could also take the Toymaker's "Made a puzzle out of your life" to explain that inconsistency.
Or maybe his mother actually was a human who got transported to the Timeless Child's dimension and married someone there. I think that could actually make an interesting story: what happened to the Doctor's mother? Why was her child taken away from her?
The Timeless Child is a really intriguing concept but they shouldn't have been the Doctor. It would have been cooler if they were someone the Doctor had to save, or had to fight - either way, it shouldn't have been the Doctor themself.
Frankly, it would've been really interesting for the Timeless Child to begin as a nemesis, then regenerate and become a friend, then a companion. Something to scare the crap out of the Doctor.
Personally, I'd have made Susan the Timeless Child
Honestly I agree. I hope RTD succeeds in putting things in a new light and using the tools he was handed. I'm looking forwards to the next season and seeing where it goes. Chibnall has done some great story lines, I liked what he did with Class, but some of the best writing I've seen him do is when he's been fired or about to be fired. And I think Jodi did pretty good with what she was given to work with. I'm excited to see where Ncuti goes and what he does. I like to try to go in with an open mind. Because sometimes things can surprise you.
My problem with the Timeless Child is the utter implausibility of such a being having an origin. A Timeless Child implies there's a Timeless Mommy and or a Timeless Daddy who are the parents of the Timeless Child.... which further implies there is a whole species of space-people who are truly immortal... they can never die & will never die because they, like the Timeless Child, have infinite regenerations. Which means the Doctor's parents would not be dead, they'd never have cause to stop looking for their immortal child.... and the culture they came from would never have died out, it would be older even that Gallifrey, so they'd be super advanced--- so.... where are the Timeless Parents? Why hasn't any other being from this immortal culture, ever come looking for the Doctor or shown up?
Regeneration might not be typical of their type. The Timeless Child may have been alone because it's unique, perhaps shunned for that reason. Or perhaps the Timeless Child was manufactured. For example, suppose they could only transfer a single body from one universe to another. So they transferred their entire civilization by merging every body into one. It may be Tecteun's meddling that leaves it with one continuous personality between bodies, or that stops it from ever splitting into its various bodies to recreate its civilization.
Friendly reminder that regeneration doesn't save you from all forms of death. If You get disintegrated or turned into jelly or get blown up or drowned or burnt alive continuously etc..mnyou stay death. They need three brain stems and two hearts to still function for regeneration also a functioning body. The parents also don't have to be a thing we don't know how the doctor's original species functions also anything could have happened to them. There is also the fact that maybe dimensional travel is not possible for them and the portal thing for the doc was just a fluke accident
Tbh I actually like wokeness in dr who and want to see more of it… Aslong as it’s written right, because the end of the star beast was written badly, when rose and Donna basically said they can let it go cuz they r woman and the couldn’t let go cuz he a was guy even tho he was a woman like a year ago
I'm actually in the camp that didn't hate/actually quite liked the Timeless Child as a concept, but even I will fully agree that Chibnall dropped the ball *hard* on doing anything remotely worthwhile with it. Regardless of how things go forward from here it's always going to be jarring just how much time we spent with the Doctor after such a big revelation about their past, where they just... didn't mention or confront it in any meaningful way.
Still though, I'm genuinely excited to see how RTD goes about exploring this.
When you said that the Timeless Child looks set to be thought of more highly than it currently is thanks to the work RTD will do, my mind went to the Killing Joke example too.
When the Timeless Child stuff happened, my reaction to the Master making the reveal was “if you say so” and my reaction to the episode was “okay, so what?”. Like you I think such reveals only really matter if they are used to do something, otherwise they just become mostly forgotten pieces of trivia, much like the “I’m half-human” example you gave.
Also, if RTD decides to do something, even if it is small with the Doctor's origins, I hope he does consult on it with Chibnall, simply to know what his intentions and ideas were for this plotline, or even just out of respect to the man who came up with the idea. Because respect is so important.
You really brought me around. There is a silver lining to the bad idea that was timeless child!
I didnt watch the Flux series, so I'm talking out my ass here, but I *think* they attempted to touch on some angst there for the Dr regarding their unclear origins (you did show that clip with the watch) that they then showed some sadness the Dr has in the specials and in the Christmas ep; Gatwa looking so so sad hearing about Ruby being a foundling, maybe they will help each other heal from that and I HOPE that the resolution (Star Wars didn't get this right...) is that it doesn't matter where they came from, they are special and valued and loved all the same! I worry that Ruby will have some chosen one twist, but I live in hope LOL. No more Jesus moments please, give us that good old Mewtwo lesson in 1998 - "I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."
( 7:06 ) Like Moffat, Rule 1, RTD lies! 😂
I’m so happy to see RTD talk about representation as life and not labels for people to hate on because it’s been exhausting seeing people being bashed on and called woke just for starring a woman or a person of color as the main character. Just let people be people and let that be that. I was scared of a buff bald white guy with a spray tan working at a gas station, thinking he’d make fun of me or call me a slur, but he was friendly and helped give me directions, and didn’t bat an eye at my nail polish or my “casually effeminate professor” fit. Don’t judge a book by their cover still applies. Although today I suppose it’d be “as clear as clickbait” which I’m coining so someone could say “i thought this video was going to make me mad, but it’s as clear as clickbait” and the reply would say “L cringe” and we’ll aaaalllll cry. the end