Bring them Back! Moffat Style..

[starsuperion]

I don't think that stories involving the Time Lords and Gallifrey is a ratings killer.. anyone know what the take was in the end of time special??

That was the final Tenth Doctor Story so you can't separate that out from the ratings, he could have been fighting potatoes from Mars and the ratings would have been good.

hard to tell now..too bad it wasn't released before the last episode, cause the argument is skewed by that fact..

there are much more provocative subject matter on the Tele

At 6pm on a Saturday night and are of interest to an 8 year old?

Depends on where you live and what programming is on out there. Heck just the commercials in Italy alone make me blush..full frontal and boobies on the Tele for 2 minutes at a time.. phew!

besides 8 year olds can be interested in clandestine intrigue just as much as an adult, I was fascinated at that age with the lore behind James Bond 007, Max Smart of Get smart, not to mention the subversive affairs of COBRA in GI Joe and one of my favourite characters.. Zartan, the man who could turn invisible and look like anyone!!

undercover covert ops, and plot lines involving secret Gallifreyan agents would be cool to an 8 year old..IMHO

Also, Time Lords stealing tech? Pretty sure that undermines one of their defining things - they are THE most advanced surviving people. I may be mistaken, but I always got the sense the Daleks were only a match for the Time Lords because they could throw waves of bodies against the Time Lords.

actually I disagree, as we have learned in the series, the Time Lords became arrogant and due to their loss of the "barren road of technology" and policy of isolationism, many other races soon began to surpass their technology in weaponry, and war. The time lords held the secret of space-time travel, but their prowess on war and fighting were not exactly up to par..their technology and the fundamentals behind it were lost to myth and legend.

it is no surprise they were lost and had no clue how to handle the Daleks, and thus re-awoke Rassilon from the Dark tower, and sought his guidance. By the indications of the RTD end of time serial, it looked as if Rassilon Galvanized his people into a single united front, and thus the uniform colours of red and gold. But even with Rassilon's awakening and rise to the presidency, and his access to the matrix of time lord knowledge, he was at a loss to defeat them outright..


so the war raged onward..with new weapons having to be developed on the fly..as apposed to being overly superior to begin with.. had the Time Lords been ready and up to date on the latest universal tech, they might have been able to just take out the majority of the daleks in one massive attack..

overwhelming numbers doesn't account for anything in war, not when you can lay waste to billions with the right bomb.

 

[Count Zero]

Fuck the timelords - they have one impressive chilling appearance (The Wargames) and it's all been down-hill since then - just a lot of crusty old white dudes hanging around in silly costumes like they are in a nursing home waiting for nurse to come and give them a prostate exam.

I haven't yet progressed to that point in the classic series. I just wanted to chime in that I also found the appearance of that Timelord who warns the Doctor in "Terror of the Autons" very impressive. And their dialogue was great fun.

 

[Psion]

Yes! And he arrives without even a time capsule, although his arrival is accompanied by the characteristic TARDIS wheeze.

I much prefer these first impressions of Timelord society to what came later.

 

[captcalhoun]

^TARDIS with a working chameleon circuit, clearly.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I'd say the Time Lords suffered from being explained. The mystique was gone when they became the meddling bureaucrats plagued with social climbers and power seekers over the course of the old series. If they are brought back, I hope they just remain in the background. Powerful watchers whom we might hear about acting on large scale, but should just be left out of actual full on stories. Their appearance should be like the Valar in Tolkien- game over. The Doctor is an individual who's run off with an antique and relatively harmless tool, as Time Lord technologies go.

 

[Winterwind]

I can go either way with the Time Lords. I was a wee bit tired of the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords but then the 11th hasn't run around saying that as much as the 10th.

I don't think it'd harm anything if they were brought back, depending on the how and why of course.

 

[Sci]

*waits for Sci to come in and start slagging off the Time Lords*

Pffft. No need. Others have already explained my take on them just fine.

I'd say the Time Lords suffered from being explained.

Exactly. There's much more mystique in the dead civilization of Space Atlantis than a live civilization of guys in silly hats.

ETA:

To me, being tired of the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords is like being tired of the Doctor being an alien or being tired of him traveling through time and space or the show being about the Doctor. It's embedded in the fundamental premise of the show. It's just part of the background setting, like the TARDIS being stuck as a police box and the Doctor saving the day.

 

[Winterwind]

Those comparisons don't hold up. The Doctor being the last of the Time Lords isn't a fundamental premise of the show. It's a fundamental premise of the revived series. For the first 26+ years, he was an exile, on the run and occasionally getting caught.

 

[JoeZhang]

Those comparisons don't hold up. The Doctor being the last of the Time Lords isn't a fundamental premise of the show. It's a fundamental premise of the revived series. For the first 26+ years, he was an exile, on the run and occasionally getting caught.

Which is the only show on air.

 

[Sci]

Those comparisons don't hold up. The Doctor being the last of the Time Lords isn't a fundamental premise of the show.

It is today. And it certainly plays the same role in the series that every other background element plays -- it's an aspect of the character that does not by itself tell a story but which allows stories to be told, which has remained static and unchanging, which informs the character's past and motivations but which is not itself a storyline.

The Doctor as the last of the Time Lords is just part of the background premise, like Superman being the Last Son of Krypton or Batman's parents being murdered. Now, hey, maybe that'll change in the future. But I honestly don't see why anyone would get "tired" of a background element like the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords, any more than they'd get "tired" of Superman being the last Kryptonian or "tired" of Batman's parents having been murdered or "tired" of Captain Kirk working for Starfleet.

 

[Gepard]

It certainly feels like a fundamental premise; I'd go so far as to say that – without having watched any of the old show – I'm not even clear how having Doctor wander time and space and defeat mortal threats on his own could even make sense in a setting where his civilization still exists. Shouldn't they be fighting the Daleks or stopping the Cybermen or whatever? It seems more understandable that he stands alone if his entire world is dead, rather than just staying out of things...because.

As it stands now, the Doctor is basically a sci-fi Flying Dutchmen, doomed to wander the universe alone for eternity. That feels like part and parcel of him crewing a TARDIS alone, flying alone and fighting alone, which has what the show has always been about.

 

[Count Zero]

The Timelords had a rather strict non-interference policy in the old series (at least at first). That's why they regenerated and exiled the Doctor, for breaking that law. They were merely observers, so the comparison to the Q Continuum isn't so far off, actually.
Later, maybe due to the speech the Doctor held during his trial, they got a bit more involved but only where basically the whole universe was at stake (like in Genesis of the Daleks) or their own existence, of course.

 

[Gepard]

Then they sound totally superfluous. "They're all dead" is a simpler and more engaging reason for their non-involvement than "they hang around and have lots of power but don't really do anything, except when they sometimes do but it involves a lot of politics." Fie on that.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I'd rather they stayed unused if brought back, since they're power leads to the questions you and others ask as well as the criticisms. I just don't care for the 'lonely, last Time Lord' schtick. An outcast wanderer is lone enough, meanwhile there is one more thing future writers can use.

 

[Stevil2001]

The awful Time Lord scene at the beginning of "The End of Time, Part Two" was enough to convince me they should never come back.

 

[Gepard]

II just don't care for the 'lonely, last Time Lord' schtick.

Which Moffet hasn't used at all under his tenure. I actually miss it, since it was one of the more powerful tools in the RTD era's emotional arsenal, but the show can avoid it just fine by not doing it, as opposed to resurrecting the Time Lords.

The awful Time Lord scene at the beginning of "The End of Time, Part Two" was enough to convince me they should never come back.

This.

 

[Count Zero]

Then they sound totally superfluous. "They're all dead" is a simpler and more engaging reason for their non-involvement than "they hang around and have lots of power but don't really do anything, except when they sometimes do but it involves a lot of politics." Fie on that.

Isn't that what super powers do?

While I appreciate the tragic angle of the Doctor being the lone survivor of his people I also loved the idea of him being an outlaw and doing it only because he was bored. I thought that was a surprisingly mature approach for a children's show. It also gave him some sort of immediate connection with other Timelord renegades like the War Chief and of course, the Master. The contrast between him and the Master, with the Master appealing to him as a fellow rebel and the Doctor trying to convince him that seeing the universe is enough was very interesting and made for some fine dialogue between the two. They're both sides of the same coin, in a way. That's why I think Delgado and Pertwee weren't so far off with the notion that they're brothers.

 

[Gov Kodos]

II just don't care for the 'lonely, last Time Lord' schtick.

Which Moffet hasn't used at all under his tenure. I actually miss it, since it was one of the more powerful tools in the RTD era's emotional arsenal, but the show can avoid it just fine by not doing it, as opposed to resurrecting the Time Lords.

The awful Time Lord scene at the beginning of "The End of Time, Part Two" was enough to convince me they should never come back.

This.

Moffat has used it, but he doesn't dwell on it which is how it felt to me in RTD's years. It's something I tired of quickly.

 

[Whofan]

You know, just because the time lords were alive in the original show didn't mean they were in every single story, or even mentioned all the time! The Time Lords as a people weren't even introduced until the very end of the 60s, before that all we knew is that the Doctor was an exile and the only other representatives of his ambigious 'people' were Susan and the Meddling monk. Sure it was implied he was an alien of course, but it wasn't made 100% clear. So you could say the Time Lords were a retcon of sorts.

Gallifrey itself only appears a few times in the classic series, Gap Malaki and Sci make it seem like it was in every story! And most of the time it was an exciting story about the Master or Omega trying to conquer them.



And the Time Lords did fight the Daleks in the classic series-the events that kicked off the Time War are them trying to avert the Dalek's creation in GENESIS OF THE DALEKS.

 

[The Doctor]

Nah. The show is about The Doctor and his companions, not some desiccated old dudes in ridiculous robes. Leave them be.