Spoilers The Timeless Children grade and discussion thread

We already know that the TARDIS sees/experiences the past, present and future all at once. She keeps going back to the form of a police box because she saw it in her future and fell in love with it. She "stole" Hartnell's Doctor away from Gallifrey because she knew them (and travelled with them) from before their latest mind wipe. The Doctor isn't privy to this, but she's been a devoted companion and friend of theirs for far longer and for more lifetimes than they can even imagine.

 

I’m still picking this all apart in my head, but the bit I’m struggling with most is what possessed them? What was it about this series and finale, that made them think we’d love this? In fact, what made them think it would even do?

I would ask if it was written by the the cleaner, but the cleaner is probably a capable talented creative waiting for their own big break, wishing they too were a staff writer, free to pass off any old crap.

 

Sorry, but I'm not buying this. She didn't phrase it vaguely or of-handedly, she specifically refered to the day he run away from Gallifrey. That day - not some other day thousands of years before then.

 

The only thing the Doctor and the TARDIS agree on is that he remembers saying she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Then "you stole me, and I stole you". That could easily be an account of an earlier, forgotten Doctor stealing the TARDIS and her choosing them. Then history repeats, for the Doctor at least.

Heck, you can even retcon the "I've got over a dozen archived console rooms" as previous rooms and the TARDIS just omitting that info.

 

Ah, the cross over story with Red Dwarf!

 

I'm assuming that they're all coming back next season. Perhaps along with Captain Jack? It does seem like an unusual number of loose ends though that simply aren't addressed again this season.

 

Except this week's retcon robs of the real, intended meaning behind this exchange. The TARDIS doesn't have a reason to toy with phrases like that, especially when its inteptitude with using language is part of the episode's gag from the side of the TARDIS.

 

I guess now we could assume that Moffat's original concept for the episode, that there was something on Trenzalore that prevented regeneration, is in fact the case.

I'm not really sure why everyone's getting so hung up about Ruth Doctor's TARDIS being a police box. Its chameleon circuit chose the form of a police box when she first arrived on Earth. Since there was no reason for it to blend in with anything on the Judoon ship, it stayed in police box form because it was its last form and presumably there's a taboo about non-Gallifreyans seeing a TARDIS in its natural form. For all we know, when Ruth Doctor left, the next place she went to her TARDIS did choose a new form appropriate to that setting.

Shalka Doctor definitely can not be inserted pre-Hartnell. For starters, Shalka Doctor clearly new the Master, which this episode states the Doctor and Master didn't first meet until young Hartnell was at the Academy. Also, Shalka Doctor remembers working with UNIT, which I doubt any of the pre-Hartnell Doctors did. Making him the War Doctor is probably the most logical way to insert him into the Doctor's lineage.

 

I hope they do. I thought VOR was going to have something to do with the cybermen.

 

She also said she'd archived the "desktops themes" that don't exist yet. Wibbly wobbly, timey whimey....

 

Ruth Doc landed in 1999. It would t choose a Police Box unless it landed at a Doctor Who convention.

 

Ruth was doing a runner, and considering that Hartnell totally believes he's the original, we can assume that eventually The Division caught up with Ruth (or her future regen), and brought her back to Gallifrey. Then after they wiped her memories, they regened her into a kid, took away his regen capabilities and threw him back out to the barn where Clara encountered the young Doctor and his childhood friendship started with The Master. When he entered The Academy, he then managed to graduate and was given the 12-regeneration limit as everyone else. By this time it could well be that The Division may have been disbanded and replaced by the CIA who rather than being in the shadows are answerable to The High Council. or The Division still remains, but can't risk exposure by revealing what they know of The Doctor or interfering. The important thing is that The High Council wouldn't have a clue about what The Division had been doing for millennia, so they would assume Hartnell was Number One.

The War Council weren't surprised at the arrival of 13 (but they would have not been aware of 10.5), and the High Council may have even assumed at the time that 13 was who Clara was referring to when she begged for their help. So the Time Lords would have done the reset. Only the future will tell if they granted a new 12-cycle, Rassilon arbitrarily added a few more on top, or (if he knew the truth), he may have switched the limit off.

 

Makes you wonder what the next show runner will come up with so their Doctor can be the most specialiest special Doctor ever.

 

Doctor Who is completely broken now. Basically any showrunner can do whatever they want. Why don't the BBC save some money and make the next Doctor a telepathic tree with a sonic screwdriver attachment. Plus you get more time for companion angst.

 

The next Doctor will be ... AMERICAN!!!

 

Oh god no. Please no.

 

You just reminded me of the camouflaged TARDIS that the Doctor left behind before going back into her own.

Yeah, good job leaving that lone TARDIS on Earth for no one to find out about at all! WTF?!

 

Well, if a future Doctor (unwiped, of course) has his/her TARDIS stolen, hidden, lost, they can always go to this one to get theirs back.

 

Umm...are we sure that scene took place on Earth? I reasoned the Doctor's TARDIS had remained where she and the others left it, outside that struggling outpost in the far future upon an alien world at the start of "Ascension..." Nobody left by TARDIS, Graham and Yaz were aboard that escape pod while the others stole a Cyber ship. At the end, The Doctor used that extra space/time capsule to return there where her TARDIS continued to wait.