Spoilers The Timeless Children grade and discussion thread

I've heard that comparison to Davison come up several times recently. I don't totally see it myself--maybe because Davison had more agency, as you say.

Unfortunately, that reminds me so much of the late era of Classic Who. There just wasn't the will among higher ups and among the pool of producers to go in and fix the show. It was seen as more effort than it was worth. When JNT left, there was literally no one who wanted that headache of job, which is why it was rested. It had all the downsides of being a complex, difficult show to make that was struggling in the ratings. And, none of the upsides of being an innovative new show that is exciting to work on. As I understand it, it wasn't about ratings at the time and it wasn't intended to be gone for so long.

I, too, think Chibnall was coerced, or had to be convinced. I and think he might well have been the only choice ala JNT.

That all seems very applicable to the current show right now. I'm not usually a doomsayer, but I do suspect that it won't be long before the series is rested. As it was with Classic Who, it won't be because the ratings are so terrible. But rather an institutional willpower sort of thing.

Now, I'm reading even further between the lines! However, a rest of 5-ish years wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Of course, the risk would be of the resting extending on for longer than planned, as it did with the old show.

 

I thought that maybe Gat and the woman from The Division we saw in the flashbacks were part of the Faction Paradox, and wouldn't it be cool if we did get to see humanoid TARDIS. Maybe Sexy could morph into one.

 

Lol true.

But the other stuff that grew from it...season 26 was grand.
This new stuff last couple of years? Not so much.

 

Season 26... meh.

 

Seemed appropriate for this thread, whatever side one takes.

 

I'm hoping someone can explain why the Doctor does not detonate the bomb at the end. I didn't follow the logic of why she stopped after saying she would do it in a heartbeat. Then, if some new information made her not want to do it, why did she let the old man do it? I feel like I must have missed a key point because it makes her look like a coward who couldn't make the sacrifice but was willing to run away as someone else did.

 

A thought that just occurred. Since the Cyber Time Lords can regenerate, do they still have the regeneration limit? As long as someone has enough firepower, they'll eventually win. Hell, the Daleks probably have weapons that can prevent regeneration.

 

Out of universe? Chibnall thought it was clever to relive the Moment/Bad Wolf moment, possibly in an attempt at depth. Having missed the point, or possibly because he thought it drove his point (‘look, the Doctor still can’t press the button! Same person!’) completely missed (Because this button wasn’t going to kill anyone but the existential threat to all of Time and Space, no innocents....although this could be unclear, because a death particle that only works on one planet really isn’t much of a super weapon by Who standards. Oh, and the Master left it for the Doctor on purpose; which makes the whole of the Masters plan look like he was involved in a big plan to kill off all the Cybermen and time lords. Something which at various points has been considered a good enough idea that the Doctor did it himself. Or thought he did. The Master is actually the protagonist in a weird way) in fact.

In universe? Because this Doctor is so special that a person she met for two minutes, who so far as we can tell knows zip about her, is willing to die because she is more important. There’s a lot of ‘he earned the honor of finally killing the Cybermen’ floating about, which is sort of true, but also utter bollocks. Ultimately, he’s another person this episode/year/era that’s being more like the Doctor than the Doctor. Compare and contrast with about a billion other ‘Doctor sacrifices/is willing to sacrifice his current life/whole existence to save one person/the whole universe’ scenes. I say he here, because all previous Doctors have been Male. (Which of course brings up a whole other issue, that of it being a mans place to die for a cause. Itself a potent mix of misogyny and misandry *at the same time*)

One that isn’t mentioned often (and because I already bored of the depressingly accurate comparisons out there...all good, all true...like the Doctor and Wilf.) is Battlefield. The Brigadier has to trick the Doctor and knock him out to do his own kamikaze run on the Doctors behalf. But the Brigadier has known the Doctor most of his (The Brig’s) life. It makes sense. Even the ‘master manipulator’ Doctor, the one generally regarded as a bit of a bastard is willing to sacrifice himself on more than one occasion (see also, Survival, for instance) in precisely the way this Doctor isn’t. For this Doctor it’s another unfinished job. Another job someone else does for her.

I literally cannot think of a single ‘villain’ this Doctor defeated this year. Not one. Can’t say much about last year...I naffed off from watching it. I was determined this year to stay the course. I did. Sigh.

 

What's your definition of defeat?
She defeated the Master, the Kasavi and Not-Zuckerberg in "Spyfall".
She teamed up with Tesla to defeat the Skithra successfully.
The Doctor defeats Gat (, granted, it was a different incarnation, but in-universe same character, just different face).
Praxeus wasn't a real villain to defeat, but the Doctor managed to save someone from having to sacrifice themselves.
The Doctor defeats Zellin and Rakaya ( in a bit of a rushed manner).

Now, did she kill anyone to do so? No, but that is not a necessary criterium in my book.
I would argue she realized the only way to defeat the Master here was just flat out refusal to play his game because he essentially put her in a lose/lose situation.

 

OH and didn't Hartnell himself say in early episodes that HE BUILT the TARDIS and was human so that screws up everything too so suck that critics.

 

She just can't do it.

It's nothing to do with sacrifice or cowardice. It's not because she won't kill, she's done it before. Literally anybody else - Davros, Rassilon, Rani, Sil, Zodin, whoever - she'd have pushed the button without the slightest hesitation or remorse. There's not a judge or jury in the universe who would have convicted her in this case; even the Daleks would have looked the other way just the one time. But no matter what he does... no matter who or how many he kills or will kill if he escapes again... even if he wasted all her companions right in front of her... the Doctor just plain cannot bring herself to kill the Master.

Why that is will likely await another 'everything you know is wrong' game-changing revelation.

 

No.

No.

 

I think it’s supposed to be a lose/lose situation. But...it isn’t. It’s established it’s a suicide mission, but it’s also established The Timeless Child cannot die.

As to my definition? Ensuring the ‘villain’ can’t do the same thing again. Too many wander off camera, without much change. I won’t count Chef!Doctor’s victory, because we don’t even know Gat is the ‘Baddie’.

 

For the purpose of the story contained in the episode she was the villain.

If the immediate/current plans of the antagonist, if you prefer that word, have been prevented, then I count that as a win.

If you say that the baddie has to be neutralized essentially forever, then no incarnation of the Doctor has ever beaten the Master. Not the Daleks, or Cybermen...

 

‘Baddies’ come back often yup, and after a while it ceases to be a surprise...but....usually there is a ‘defeat’ and usually it’s the incumbent Doctor responsible. Sometimes, at the very least, you expect the Doctor to rescue pretty much everyone (as doesn’t happen in say Orphan 55) or help restore/initiate a new status quo state that can be seen as potentially ‘good’. (Overthrow the Despot, give the rebel/unexpected hero(ine) the keys to the palace)
That’s why things like ‘Battlefield’ (Everything’s a pre-determined runaround, the antagonist gives up because of their character..with a nudge from the Doctor.) or ‘victory of the daleks’ (which I am not the hugest fan of, but it did what it says in the title) are careful subversions of that.

If you subvert every time, it’s not a subversion.

Lenny Henry’s character just sort of...wanders off. The Kasaaavians (or whatever) just sort of...wander off. ‘Just sort of wanders off’ is basically a recurring motif. The other one is ‘oh, the baddie isn’t really one, but we blew the shit up out of them anyway’ with muddled motivations. (Or weak/unbelievable motivations. Scorpion Queen wants Tesla to fix their ship. So...if the Doctor just fixed their ship and sent them packing would that work? Tesla, like Graham, does the heavy lifting of being like the Doctor in a lot of episodes...because the Doctor isn’t being written like The Doctor.)

Far, far, too much of it is an exercise in ‘writing back’ to the preceding eras. ( ‘Closing Time’ has paternal love smashing the shit out of the Cybermen, in a rare example — these days — of a ‘good daddy’, ditto the Daniel Mays episode whose title eludes me atm. This year we see The Lone Cyberman spare a a baby... but then turn out to be a psycho child murderer father just for a ‘shock’ line that really didn’t work, because we still don’t know why he didn’t kill the baby except even Chibnall will only go as low as threatening one in current Doctor Who — oh, and as the baby is an historical figure, we know it’s going to die miserably a relatively short time later anyway.) and this Doctor never ‘stands’. The whole thing is reactive nonsense with lumps of cheese in.

It’s possible they are going for a long game ‘mess with the fans heads, then shuffle the toys neatly back in the cupboard’ approach, but...it’s terrible sub-standard writing. There’s bits where I don’t think even Whitaker likes what’s happening because she can see the nonsense happening to her character. But it’s not like she can walk away from the role too easily.

 

"Hey, didn't that show that had no mythology and continuity and was building that up say these things that for the sake of coherency was abandoned later on and thus never refered to again because they made no sense? The show never made sense, you should be ashamed to cling to that stuff, suck on that NEEEEEEEEEEERDSSSSSS!!!

 

I like this explanation. I appreciate all the responses and ideas and I'm still mulling them over in my mind. But, this is a nice concise simple resolution to the conflict I have in my mind with what she did at the end. Even she does not know why she can't push the button and the Master knew she couldn't do it. And, she is stuck at the end with no time to try and figure it out. She failed to do what she intended to do in a heartbeat. For whatever reason, she can run and let the deed be done, but can't push the button herself. The Master did not anticipate the old man, game over ... except it's never game over for the Master and he/she will be back.

 

That's why the Master's plan is dumb. Their ability to adapt (which was conveniently forgotten) is their most powerful ability. Given enough time they could overpower the Daleks. Of course writers in any fictional universe always have to nerf that abillity (Borg, Cylons, Skynet) because the heroes will get overwhelmed in th end.

 

Her motivations don't matter, It was lame when they did in Classic Doctor Who and it's lame when they do it now. Remember how RTD addressed how the Doctor basically murdered his entire race to stop the Time War. Those days are gone.

 

Even RTD still had similar situations to this in his episodes, like in Parting of the Ways when the Doctor had a way to defeat the Daleks, but the catch was it would also kill everyone on and in orbit of Earth. Ultimately, the Doctor refuses to do it.