I don’t know, if Davies had fleshed out the Doctor’s backstory more the maybe Chibnall wouldn’t have been able to add his Timeless Child plot.
LOL, you could have had the full Other storyline from the Cartmel Masterplan and Chibnall's plot would still be able to fuck with it. But then I suspect you'd have the same issues with the Cartmel idea.
From what I know of it, yeah. I think any plot that adds more Doctors before Hartnell is a stupid idea. I prefer the Doctor being a Timelord that became bored with Gallifrey and left to do good rather than being some sort of "chosen one" who all of Timelord history is built around.
Agreed. I am ok with keeping a level of mystery around the Doctor, but I have never liked the idea that the Doctor is the "reincarnation"(?) of some secret / forgotten founder of all Time Lord society or that there were incarnation of the Doctor / he had an existence prior to the Hartnell incarnation.
My memory's kind of hazy--I need to go back and watch some Fourth Doctor adventures--but something that seemed to be implied during the classic run of the show was that the Doctor was not anyone special among the Time Lords when he was on Gallifrey. I think I recall somewhere that he wasn't even the best and brightest of the lot. That gave the Doctor something of an everyman quality that made him relatable to audiences, even though he was an alien, IMO. This Timeless Child thing...just no. If Chibnall really wanted to put the "Who?" back in Doctor Who, this was as ill-conceived as it could possibly get. Heck, one could have easily gone back to the classic run and an Seventh Doctor adventure like "Silver Nemesis" which reinstated a lot of mystery--and even some suspicions--about the Doctor without turning him into some semi-deity and creating major franchise-size plot holes in the process.
Several instances of that, most notably The Deadly Assassin and The Ribos Operation (also any other time Romana ragged on The Doctor's intelligence). But at the same time, the classic series also suggested The Doctor was more than just an ordinary Time Lord, most notably the McCoy run. Honestly, I feel like some people take the Timeless Child thing a little too personally. Maybe its execution wasn't the best (certainly a lot better than the Hybrid crap that I agree was awful and unnecessary and went nowhere), but I am curious to see where Chibnall goes with it.
That very mystery is the one I mentioned above which WOULD have turned him into the reincarnation (not regeneration) of a founding member of Time Lord society i.e. a contemporary of Rassilon and Omega. If anything, being a lost kid who got experimented on by a bunch of Gallifreyan ghouls afraid of death isn't "special" or "deific", it's "child abuse" and "medical horror".
But it didn't make the Doctor out to be the literal Adam & Eve of the entire Time Lord race. I think it's just not a popular idea and wasn't received very well.
The Hybrid didn't rewrite (almost) everything that'd come before though so it's easier to ignore. I have nothing against the idea per se, and hell if nothing else it gave us Jo Martin's wonderful turn as the Doctor, but frankly I don't trust Chibnall to go anywhere interesting with it.
One doesn't have to change the other. After 58 years of the former, maybe it was time for the latter. It may not change the show much at all, which could be unfortunate at this point. The last couple seasons have been some of the least enjoyable I've ever watched. (Not terrible, but not great). What we have isn't that far from the Cartmel Masterplan™. No "looms", but the overall idea is there. And if they feel the hate, after Chibnall is gone, they can easily decide the Master lied about everything and go back to basics.
People definitely seem a little too worked up over the Timeless Child. Even if you don't like the idea, just chill and relax. When Chibnall's gone, the next showrunner is free to ignore and retcon it away as they see fit. After all, neither RTD, Moffat or Chibnall have acknowledged the whole "half human on my mother's side" thing from the 96 movie,* so there's no reason to believe any future showrunners will feel beholden to the Timeless Child either. While I've always defended the Timeless Child by noting Doctor Who has no continuity or canon to violate, that same defense can be used for ignoring it in the future. This is why the lack of canon/continuity adherence is one of the Doctor Who franchise's greatest strengths. *Okay, RTD did trot that line out for purposes of making jokes in his era, but he clearly wasn't taking it seriously.
Though there's also the suggestion that the Doctor was simply bored shitless and acted out. Didn't Borusa say something along those lines "best hope/greatest disappointment"?
I don't think people are really worked up about the Timeless Child idea, but it just might be that there are more people who don't like it than those who do. Message boards, however, tend to give both camps their voice.
I'll say this about Jodie Whittaker -- she was born to play the Doctor, because she's even more eccentric than Tom Baker, and that man is genuinely mad! Check out the outfit she wore for her birthday. Happy birthday, Jodie!
Yeah, I scrolled through Mandip's Instagram (where those photos originally came from) and saw that one in her collection. If you have an account, check out Mandip's stories. That's where today's photos are from but the second one is actually a video of Jodie doing a silly dance.
The Before Times! See how the stand within six feet of each other. Notice they aren't wearing masks. Observe this is because they really don't have to rather than because they're assholes who believe the news is a hoax. And now I feel sad.