I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it.
A lot of stuff going on, not all of it necessarily required in this episode, especially the Weeping Angels, Sontarans and the secret Liverpool tunnels. But it did at least create a sense of mystery as to how all these things are connected, and presumably we'll get our explanations eventually.
The
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamson_Tunnels are a real thing by the way, and indeed no-one knows why they were dug. That makes this part of the story a celebrity historical.
Loved Yaz as a more confident, experienced companion, and I loved the few moments we got of an all-female Tardis team. The question of why there was a mattress in the Tardis control room will undoubtedly set the Thasmin shippers aflame. John Bishop didn't especially impress me, he was no Catherine Tate in terms of an actor known for comedy revealing unexpected dramatic skills, but again we'll see how it goes.
Swarm (the name of the crystal-headed guy, it wasn't spoken on screen) is obviously somebody from the Doctor's forgotten pre-Hartnell past, and presumably to do with the Timeless Child. A couple of interesting things - he was being held by the Division, which were the secret Time Lord police the Doctor used to work for. And he also is apparently immortal and basically "regenerated" when he broke out of prison. So is he one of the original Doctor's non-Gallifreyan species? Could he even be... the Master in an equally eternal forgotten pregeneration? Does their enmity go back that far?
Also, it is my current theory that the Division was specifically tasked with looking for answers about the Timeless Child - where it came from, if there are any others, etc. It was done in secret so that Time Lord society at large didn't find out the real history, and they hired the Doctor in the hopes they would have some special insight, but still kept it secret even from the Doctor themself. We don't know exactly what led the Ruth Doctor to defect from them, but I wonder if they're not necessarily evil - especially since they were trying to stop the clearly universe-destroying Swarm guy.
It is also now clearly a deliberate irony that the Doctor who most began by wanting to leave her past behind is now the one diving further back into her past than any other. The no-returning-villains arc of Season 11 is revealed as part one of a long game. And my big complaint about "The Timeless Children" as an episode was not the revelations themselves but the fact that they were delivered through the Doctor standing there powerless while the Master exposited at her, rather than her doing anything to find that information for herself. So the fact that she is now actively going out there and trying to find answers is a good thing.
A strange number of references to former companions in this ep. Space Station Rose of course, and the Doctor saying "Nice to meet you, Dan - run for your life!" is a direct quote from the "Rose" ep. Plus a strange woman turns up called Claire (not far from Clara), says she took the long way home, and knew what to do with a Weeping Angel. Sontarans are in it (Martha and Donna), Angels are in it (Amy and River), Cybermen are in it (Bill). It may be a stretch, but could the 60th anniversary, rather than all the Doctors coming back like in the 50th, involve all the companions coming back to help the Doctor save the universe?
