Russell T. Davies Returns to Doctor Who as New Showrunner
- Thread starter Allyn Gibson
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Yes
I personally suspect we were building up to Vinder being the Doctors Dad (Mrs Vinder vanished, and I can’t remember her name — which is a shame) and that the whole TC thing was in a way a bootstrap paradox arising from The B*****ks That Was The Flux. But that went out the window at some point, after large chunks of episodes basically setting that up. (Possibly a Covid issue with production at that time.)
That would have still kept many problems with the TC (which still works better if you make the TC be the Master — who incidentally could easily be argued was avenging the Doctor, and taking down a villainous race, when he wiped out the Time Lords… something we have literally seen the Doctor do) and it would have been yet another swipe from the books (Leela and Andreds child, or even the stuff with the later EDAs which I have at this point only read about) but it would have at least neatened the edges a little.
In fact I get the feeling that some of that was the whole point in The Flux (including its name) but it got lost somewhere.
Now how and what RTD is going to do with the inherited lore? Well, it’s not as easy to ignore (which was his approach with ninety percent of pre-existing stuff in 2005 — a don’t ask don’t tell approach for much of the first couple of seasons, and even the Cybermen weren’t really Cybermen when introduced) because it’s so recent. He seems to be using it as a replacement for the Time War with fourteen (angst! Guilt! It’s all my fault!) and then trying have fifteen be something akin to late-eleven/twelve in being over it — therapy out of order. There’s an underlying sense of just throwing hands up, and going full ‘I’ll explain later’ which can be one of his failings. At the moment he’s taking a bit of a wrecking ball to the whole established set of concepts rather than working with what’s left.
Basically, we will have to wait for Moffat to do his usual good job of continuity kitsurugi…
Like that will happen. lol.
That would have still kept many problems with the TC (which still works better if you make the TC be the Master — who incidentally could easily be argued was avenging the Doctor, and taking down a villainous race, when he wiped out the Time Lords… something we have literally seen the Doctor do) and it would have been yet another swipe from the books (Leela and Andreds child, or even the stuff with the later EDAs which I have at this point only read about) but it would have at least neatened the edges a little.
In fact I get the feeling that some of that was the whole point in The Flux (including its name) but it got lost somewhere.
Now how and what RTD is going to do with the inherited lore? Well, it’s not as easy to ignore (which was his approach with ninety percent of pre-existing stuff in 2005 — a don’t ask don’t tell approach for much of the first couple of seasons, and even the Cybermen weren’t really Cybermen when introduced) because it’s so recent. He seems to be using it as a replacement for the Time War with fourteen (angst! Guilt! It’s all my fault!) and then trying have fifteen be something akin to late-eleven/twelve in being over it — therapy out of order. There’s an underlying sense of just throwing hands up, and going full ‘I’ll explain later’ which can be one of his failings. At the moment he’s taking a bit of a wrecking ball to the whole established set of concepts rather than working with what’s left.
Basically, we will have to wait for Moffat to do his usual good job of continuity kitsurugi…
Like that will happen. lol.
At the end of the day I will always be Team Moffat, and to this day I alternatively adore and am infuriated by Russell, but even I realise that the Moff was as capable of taking a sledgehammer to continuity as RTD.
It definitely felt like the Vinder child was being set up to be the baby that'd show up on ancient Gallifrey so I'm glad if that was the case that it fell by the wayside. It still feels likely that one day the 453rd Doctor will tumble through a wormhole just as they regenerate into a child and the process will wipe their memory and they'll become their own great great great (etc) grandmother.
For me making the Master the Timless Child would be worse. See I'm only evil because I'm not really a Timelord, it's very Loki.
The thing I do love about the TC is that it makes the Doctor the only Timelord who isn't a hybrid
It definitely felt like the Vinder child was being set up to be the baby that'd show up on ancient Gallifrey so I'm glad if that was the case that it fell by the wayside. It still feels likely that one day the 453rd Doctor will tumble through a wormhole just as they regenerate into a child and the process will wipe their memory and they'll become their own great great great (etc) grandmother.
For me making the Master the Timless Child would be worse. See I'm only evil because I'm not really a Timelord, it's very Loki.
The thing I do love about the TC is that it makes the Doctor the only Timelord who isn't a hybrid
At the end of the day I will always be Team Moffat, and to this day I alternatively adore and am infuriated by Russell, but even I realise that the Moff was as capable of taking a sledgehammer to continuity as RTD.
It definitely felt like the Vinder child was being set up to be the baby that'd show up on ancient Gallifrey so I'm glad if that was the case that it fell by the wayside. It still feels likely that one day the 453rd Doctor will tumble through a wormhole just as they regenerate into a child and the process will wipe their memory and they'll become their own great great great (etc) grandmother.
For me making the Master the Timless Child would be worse. See I'm only evil because I'm not really a Timelord, it's very Loki.
The thing I do love about the TC is that it makes the Doctor the only Timelord who isn't a hybrid
Vis a vis the Master, he’s already down as ‘only evil because Rassilon stuck the drums in my heed’ and his constant returns from certain death plus finding out he was the TC would make perfect sense — especially if finding out was the event that brought ‘good’ Missy back to ‘genocidal Doctor obsessed bad’ and makes decent sense. It even makes sense of *why* he’s the one Rassilon stuck the signal in in the first place, and even makes things like his offer of reward from the Time Lords in the Five Doctors much more interesting. It makes all of his other life extending things more tragic too, which *would* enrich that character in exactly the way it didn’t the Doctor.
I think it’s safe to say Doctor Who was doing that shtick with the Master long before Marvel did it with its version of Loki as well.
Agree that it makes more sense for the TC to be the Master. Plus, dramatically speaking, it's more satisfying to have a regular, good Time Lord go against an Uber bad guy. Having an uber good guy go against a pedestrian baddie is less so.
Although, granted, it wasn't like the Doctor knew they were special.
Now they do though. Wonder if the apparent immortality comes up during the next regeneration? "Don't worry, I can't die. I can regenerate infinitely." (Yeah, I know, it's not like we ever thought they'd actually die.)
But it is what it is. I'll continue to enjoy DW I'm sure. And RTD has retconned the TC history to be less extreme than it was under Chibnall, at least going by that one quote.
Although, granted, it wasn't like the Doctor knew they were special.
Now they do though. Wonder if the apparent immortality comes up during the next regeneration? "Don't worry, I can't die. I can regenerate infinitely." (Yeah, I know, it's not like we ever thought they'd actually die.)
But it is what it is. I'll continue to enjoy DW I'm sure. And RTD has retconned the TC history to be less extreme than it was under Chibnall, at least going by that one quote.
Throw in bigeneration and you can raise an army or repopulate a planet by having the Doctor repeatedly run off a cliff. It’s like the opposite of the confession dial. Instead of being surprised about running into himself in contravention of the laws of time, he should be surprised when he meets someone that isn’t himself.
What a strange way to describe scenes in which RTD's Fourteenth Doctor and Fifteenth Doctors both actively bring up and reaffirm that the revelations about the Timeless Child still apply and that they're still adjusting to what they learned.
Establishing a new thing is not "taking a wrecking ball to the whole established set of concepts." Ultimately the continued survival of the Fourteenth Doctor separate from the Fifteenth isn't meaningfully different from the continued survival of the Meta-Crisis Doctor. Or for that matter, from the idea that there were billions upon billions of Twelfth Doctors all copied out of the same transmat in the Confession Dial.
And in the context of your post, it sounded like the phrase "the whole established set of concepts" referred to the Timeless Child stuff -- and clearly RTD didn't take a wrecking ball to that set of concepts.
Although he's still not talking about Varada* Russell does obliquely refer to the change in the new DWM by confirming Millie will appear in multiple episodes of S15.
*And really, they shouldn't be expected to be talking about next year's series before this year's has even aired.
*And really, they shouldn't be expected to be talking about next year's series before this year's has even aired.
Does the new thing disestablish older things? Does it do so retroactively? (As RTD himself likes to suppose) And even if it does not, does it undermine things going forward?
Sounds pretty wrecking ball. Metaphorically speaking. Between keeping Tennant in the back pocket and the lack of trousers, the fifteenth Doctor, the first Black British actor in the main role, had a terrible intro, and it undermined a good couple of core concepts in the show.
And it is utterly different to the meta-crisis (though similar because it’s all about keeping a Tennant face spare) or the confession dial, or the multi-doctors in The Leisure Hive. Or anything really.
And that is just the bigeneration.
I don’t think you grasp the nuances of the show that built up over the years, and that’s ok. There’s fans and there’s fans, and there’s knowledge and there’s wisdom.
You don’t get it, some do.
As to its effects on the TC? Well, if it really did ripple backwards, then ninety percent of the population of Gallifrey, possibly all the Time Lords, were all the Doctor anyway. It would be exponential.
*stares at a wall of text about how RTD is ruining everything because he's doing a couple things differently*
Okay.
Ahh. It's the Absorbaloff.
Coming back? I really hope not. I mean I know RTD likes to patch up mis-steps or things that didn’t land, but Love & Monsters is perhaps best left where it is, and left alone.
Lord Jeebus, spare us from "True Fans" who think they know best.
