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Spoilers The Timeless Children grade and discussion thread

How do you rate The Timeless Children?


  • Total voters
    91
I'm a very, very casual Doctor Who watcher and for me, the season finale didn't really live up to the universe shattering revelations it was selling IMO. Granted, my lack of knowledge for Doctor Who lore means that the whole business about The Doctor being the Timeless Child meant little to me. I don't see how it upends Jodie's Doctor's world in particular. Yes, she has been lied to. Her memories altered perhaps, but that doesn't seem that big a deal for a time traveling alien that has lived multiple lifetimes already. I was glad that the Master did say that he hated that the Doctor being the progenitor of their species meant that there was a part of her inside him and that what he hated because up until that point I didn't understand why the Timeless Child/Children hidden history necessitated wiping out Gallifrey. I chalk up The Master's reaction to his insanity and ego, and his love-hate relationship with the Doctor. It felt like this Master was a Clown Prince of Crime-like incarnation of the character IMO.

I thought the first half of the episode was the strongest. I liked the fast pacing and the production values. I really enjoyed the Cybermen and their leader, who reminded me of Ultron. Once the episode went into the Timeless Child/Children history it started losing steam for me, and I didn't care much for the Master's ultimate plan which felt ho hum. It wasn't much different than the Ultron-Cyberman's plan. I did like the Timelord-Cybermen though. Unfortunately they were too easily defeated. This storyline could've been resolved in next season's opener. I don't think this episode pushed hard enough or really turned Doctor Who history and lore on its ear.

I was happy to see the Ruth Doctor again, but I wished we had actually learned more about her history and how she fits into things.

Going into it, I was expecting some major character death, but the one we got wasn't surprising. The cliffhanger we did get does bring back the Judoon but it felt anticlimatic. Ending the season with the Jodie Doctor about to kill herself, the Master, and the Timelord-Cybermen would've been better.

Time lord Cybermen are a rubbish thing anyway. Cybermen already take over dead humanoids, and can already time travel. I am just surprised the cyberium wasn’t outed as validium. Time lord tech. Just something else borrowed from past episodes in the bad collage we call who these days.
 
What if the Doctor had actually been Tecteum and chose that life as a means to make amends for what she did to the timeless child with all those experiments, and they chose 12 as the regeneration limit because after that likely insanity would happen.
 
So many issues here. Is every time lord other than the Doctor and the Master an idiot? Are these two the smartest people in this species? If not, why does every time lord but them keep dying?

Shouldn't the time lords know what the Master is capable of, since they have access to the future?

Doesn't this "revelation" screw with the continuity of the show? They now are saying the Doctor isn't even a time lord? Wouldn't the other time lords know that the Doctor was someone extremely special and keep him/her/it more closely? What is the purpose of erasing memories?

If Ruth is a version of the Doctor, why did she have a TARDIS that was a phone booth when Hartnell stole that phone booth TARDIS and broke the circuit?

I feel like it takes a special heightened arrogance to mess with the history of a show this way.

I'm not sure I will be watching anymore until Chibnall and Whitaker are both gone.
 
I think this entire episode was just another one of the Master's psychotic, bonker plans for universal domination. I don't think he destroyed Gallifrey because he was mad about some lie. I think he destroyed Gallifrey simply as part of his plan to deliver a dead world full of dead time lords to the Cybermen so as to create his army of CyberMasters. Plus, the destruction of Gallifrey would be an irresistible trap to get the Doctor to show up. And the Master wanted to capture the Doctor and torture her by screwing with her mind with a bunch of lies to get her to totally question her entire identity. Why? Because like your classic Bond villain, the Master always wants to torture his archenemy and gloat about his plans to his archenemy and he wants to see the Doctor "defeated" in front of him. I do think that Tectuen finding an abandoned child and learning about regeneration was probably true. It is certainly as good as any explanation for where regeneration came from. But I think the abandoned child being the Doctor was probably a big lie designed to mess with the Doctor's mind. The fact that the Master hacked the Matrix and that all the revelations were from the Master's point of view while inside the Matrix, supports the notion that it could be false information.

Two things I am not too thrilled about:

1) NuWho basically just uses the Time Lords as a convenient plot device. Need Gallifrey to be destroyed as the background for the story? No problem. Without any explanation, we'll just say that the Master wiped out Gallifrey off screen. I want to see the Time Lords as an uber advanced species that lords over time and space, not a throwaway plot point. I think it would be really cool if Doctor Who copied Asimov's Foundation and revealed that there is a hidden Second Gallifrey out there that has been watching everything all along. That way, we could go back to the Time Lords as an uber advanced, non interventionist, species that monitors all of Time and Space.

2) I hope the revelation that the Doctor is the abandoned child was a lie by the Master to mess with the Doctor. Yes, the Doctor is special but I don't like making her so super super special. Making the Doctor the secret progenitor of all the Time Lords is too much. It is just too convenient when your central character is somehow the super special, super secret, center of everything.
 
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Romana burning through all those regenerations at the start of Destiny of the Daleks wantonly wasted them. Of course, that was before the limit of 12 became canon but it does make her seem loopy if not deranged in retrospect. Really, layer after layer of onscreen canon is bound to become unworkable after hundreds of episodes. Sometimes, it's better to just go with the flow - assuming that what is presented is a reasonably well crafted work of fiction and not just utter fanwank and childish nonsense. I've decided I'm not a deeply committed fan. I'll tune in as long as I don't think the show is becoming as unwatchable as I thought it was thirty+ years ago.
 
So many issues here. Is every time lord other than the Doctor and the Master an idiot? Are these two the smartest people in this species? If not, why does every time lord but them keep dying?

Shouldn't the time lords know what the Master is capable of, since they have access to the future?

Doesn't this "revelation" screw with the continuity of the show? They now are saying the Doctor isn't even a time lord? Wouldn't the other time lords know that the Doctor was someone extremely special and keep him/her/it more closely? What is the purpose of erasing memories?

If Ruth is a version of the Doctor, why did she have a TARDIS that was a phone booth when Hartnell stole that phone booth TARDIS and broke the circuit?

I feel like it takes a special heightened arrogance to mess with the history of a show this way.

I'm not sure I will be watching anymore until Chibnall and Whitaker are both gone.
It seems to me that Chibnall still hasn't revealed everything. I suspect that next season that some of what the Master showed the Doctor was only a half truth. My suspicion is the Doctor is actually Gallifeyan or if not a transformed human.
 
Before I continue, I want to apologize for my vulgarity earlier. I honestly didn't meant to sound this rude but my emotions over this wretched episode got the better of me. But that doesn't excuse me, so I want to apologize anyway.

One line change would do it.

‘You’re appealing to my better nature. But she died. You left her to rot.’
I really love this line! So good and ominous. And instantly places the guilt on the Doctor.

But frak that! Lets have them exchange platitudes instead! Its so much easier for the casual viewer anyway!

Romana burning through all those regenerations at the start of Destiny of the Daleks wantonly wasted them.
But that was a joke! A bad joke, but one still. And hardly the infuriating rewrite of the character's core.

I think this entire episode was just another one of the Master's psychotic, bonker plans for universal domination. I don't think he destroyed Gallifrey because he was mad about some lie. I think he destroyed Gallifrey simply as part of his plan to deliver a dead world full of dead time lords to the Cybermen so as to create his army of CyberMasters. Plus, the destruction of Gallifrey would be an irresistible trap to get the Doctor to show up. And the Master wanted to capture the Doctor and torture her by screwing with her mind with a bunch of lies to get her to totally question her entire identity. Why? Because like your classic Bond villain, the Master always wants to torture his archenemy and gloat about his plans to his archenemy and he wants to see the Doctor "defeated" in front of him. I do think that Tectuen finding an abandoned child and learning about regeneration was probably true. It is certainly as good as any explanation for where regeneration came from. But I think the abandoned child being the Doctor was probably a big lie designed to mess with the Doctor's mind. The fact that the Master hacked the Matrix and that all the revelations were from the Master's point of view while inside the Matrix, supports the notion that it could be false information.
Not to copy the whole post, but I agree with all of it.

I think BF might have done something interesting with their Gallifrey series, and I want to listen to that series now, after this radically abhorent abomination misused the Time Lords again for little reason other than to project the Doctor with importance. Plus, this episode actually made me appreciate Hell Bent, which is in itself, insane. But, there you go.

In any case, until they actually retcon this thing, I will actively not buy both this and any series henceforth. Its almost like Peter Parker in Spiderman: One More Day, but worse.
 
So many issues here. Is every time lord other than the Doctor and the Master an idiot? Are these two the smartest people in this species? If not, why does every time lord but them keep dying?

Shouldn't the time lords know what the Master is capable of, since they have access to the future?

Doesn't this "revelation" screw with the continuity of the show? They now are saying the Doctor isn't even a time lord? Wouldn't the other time lords know that the Doctor was someone extremely special and keep him/her/it more closely? What is the purpose of erasing memories?

If Ruth is a version of the Doctor, why did she have a TARDIS that was a phone booth when Hartnell stole that phone booth TARDIS and broke the circuit?

I feel like it takes a special heightened arrogance to mess with the history of a show this way.

I'm not sure I will be watching anymore until Chibnall and Whitaker are both gone.

the Doctor is a Time Lord. The Time Lord in fact.
Literally every other one is basically a carbon copy through gene appropriation.
 
If you buy into this, then the time lords are not of the same species as the Doctor. They spliced his DNA to give them immortality.
That depends on how you define a Time Lord.
It’s the traits of the Doctor that the Gallifreyans emulate which they defined as making them Time Lords (together with the k owl edge of time travel and control). Presumably their newly acquired near immortality and longevity enabled their progress there.
The Doctor already had the physical traits and acquired the knowledge of Time Travel from them.
It’s kind of both that’s needed.
Being Gallifreyan as a requirement almost comes as an afterthought.
River was almost there, too.

And there is the idea that the Doctor might eventually loop back around again and become the abandoned child once she is done saving the universe.
Then she would both be the origin and the product of Time Lord society.
 
I don't know. It wasn't a bad episode, per se. The Cybermen parts were rather plodding, and ultimately the Lone Cyberman was rather anticlimactic. I loved the stuff with the Doctor and the Master, mostly because Sacha Dhawan is so awesome as the Master. He was definitely underutilized this season. The revelations about the Timeless Child and the Doctor I'm mostly ambivalent about. Honestly I don't have any issues with it exactly, though for something that was being touted as "changing everything" in the end it's basically something that spoilers before the season premiered already told us, and that there was evidence of within the show itself since the Judoon episode.

Don't really get how the truth of the Timeless Child was enough to make the Master decide he had to kill all the other Time Lords. Best I can figure out, it was an act of resentment because the Doctor is in fact a special Time Lord and he isn't. Which, granted, as far as motivations for the Master go, that's not the most far-fetched. Though ultimately it was also rather anticlimactic.

Although it held my attention more than many of the more recent episodes, I couldn't help but see it as a greatest hits of all the previous finales. The Doctor, expecting imminent death sends her companions back to Earth telling them to have a great life, like Parting of the Ways. The Master working with Cybermen like the finales of Capaldi's first and third seasons. The Doctor and the Master having a showdown amidst Time Lords (sort of) like TEOT. The Timeless Child and associated mystery was like the Hybrid and associated mystery in Hell Bent (though nowhere near as disappointing). And to top it all off we end with a completely left field cliffhanger to which the Doctor reacts by asking "What?" repeatedly like in Tennant's finales. Though the cliffhanger was a pretty good scene that's definitely got my interest in the Christmas special piqued. Whatever else you say about Chibnall, he can do a damn good cliffhanger.
Are they all dead? Almost certainly not
I suspect the Time Lords likely really are dead, as I get the impression Chibnall likely has as low an opinion of them as RTD (who is quoted as saying he hates the Time Lords) and Moffat (who is implied to hate them in The Writer's Tale). It was for these reasons RTD chose for them to be extinct when he revived the show, and why Moffat chose to keep them extinct until Day of the Doctor. Moffat only revived them there because he couldn't think of anything else that seemed grand enough for an anniversary special, and he has since apologized for reviving them. I'd say with them extinct again, they're likely staying extinct, though I'm sure the Master will be back.
Is every time lord other than the Doctor and the Master an idiot?
Yes. That seems to have been pretty clear throughout all Doctor Who all the way back to the Classic era.
Shouldn't the time lords know what the Master is capable of, since they have access to the future?
As we learned in Hell Bent, the Time Lords are obsessed with a prophecy that says they meet their doom at the hands of a Hybrid to the point they were ignoring the far more tangible threat of every spacefaring race in the universe wanting to annihilate them and focusing only on the "threat" of the Hybrid. With that in mind it is very likely, possible and believable that the Master lined up multiple WMDs pointed at the Capital and the rest of the Time Lords just shrugged it off as "not the Hybrid, nothing to worry about."
Doesn't this "revelation" screw with the continuity of the show?
Continuity has never been a thing in Doctor Who before, why should it be now?
I'm not sure I will be watching anymore until Chibnall and Whitaker are both gone.
Okay. Bye.
 
As we learned in Hell Bent, the Time Lords are obsessed with a prophecy that says they meet their doom at the hands of a Hybrid to the point they were ignoring the far more tangible threat of every spacefaring race in the universe wanting to annihilate them and focusing only on the "threat" of the Hybrid. With that in mind it is very likely, possible and believable that the Master lined up multiple WMDs pointed at the Capital and the rest of the Time Lords just shrugged it off as "not the Hybrid, nothing to worry about.".

Interestingly, the Master had the cyberium inside him and the cybermasters were part cybermen and part time lord. So the Master and the cybermasters were hybrids.
 
An episode that pretty muchs sums up Chibnall's Who for me so far - it's good, but...

It was big, it was dramatic, Sacha Dhawan can chew scenery with aplomb, Akinola's music just keeps getting better, it was largely entertaining throughout. But...it left me a little wanting, too. I'd agree that the Master's motivations didn't ring fully true, for a decently effective villain the LC was dispatched and quite literally reduced to a plot point far too quickly and easily, the CyberMasters looked interesting but weren't given anything to do beyond stand around so never really registered, and the BIg, Grand, Changes-Everything Reveal fell a little flat.

I think a lot of the problems here are things that have persisted through the Chibnall era thus far, but I wonder if it would be appropriate to go into that in this thread. Is there an overview thread already extant, or should I consider making one myself?
 
the CyberMasters looked interesting but weren't given anything to do beyond stand around so never really registered,

Perhaps, it would have been a bit better if this had been part 1 of a bigger finale. They could have ended on the cliffhanger of the Master leading his new army of Time Lord/Cybermen in the ruins of Gallifrey and then part 2, we would have seen this army of Cybermasters starting their conquest of the galaxy and only then the Doctor stops them. That would have given the Cybermasters something to do and made them more menacing. I agree with you that this episode introduced cool new Cybermen only to end them 50 minutes later.
 
Was that Gat in the flashbacks?

The episode doesn't list Ritu Arya or Gat in the credits. IMDB lists her in "archive footage" along with all the other people in the flashback.

They served their purpose of generating a new action figure.

You could make your own if you have a classic Cyberman, plus the most recent version. Just swap heads :shrug:


I'm giving episode 10 a 10. I always loved the idea behind the Cartmel Masterplan. This isn't that per-se, but it has the epic scale of it. I could care less if Hartnell wasn't the first, but he thought he was, so hes still the "definite article" you might say.

It definitely gives Big Finish a shit-ton of stuff to work with.

At least the Timeless Child actually turned out to be something, unlike a certain hybrid.

The best part, very little needs to change going forward, except the Doc might have more memories and experiences to draw from if she/he remembers everything. That may not happen right away, or even ever.
 
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