The Timeless Child was a major lore shift towards the end of the newer Doctor Who and one that has sparked numerous complaints that are caught up in stacks of other complaints about the era [and one which leads to some actually awful suggestions for fixing: not least of which includes a entire retcon of two of the past three doctors]. However, I don’t actually mind…parts of it.

Hah, whoops…I had an error on this picture…at least until I retconned it (you can still see it in the post’s header).

DOUG’S BIG IMPORTANT NOTE: I am about to spoil a major plot twist from the Thirteenth/Whitaker Doctor era. If for some reason you haven’t seen it but feel like you might AND you detest spoilers then, like, don’t read this, ok?

One second just to make sure folks don’t glance something…

One more…

Summing Up My Doctor Who Fandom for Scale

Ok, let us start with a couple of facts about my Doctor Who fandom. And by “a couple” I mean I’m going to type a number of bullet points and then delete some until I have established a baseline.

  • While I absolutely do not mind the current last few series/seasons (which might be the absolutely last few series/seasons) of Doctor Who, I have generally preferred Big Finish over the TV for several years. Partially because there is more of it. Mostly because I feel like they work with the actors and writers better (as a listener/viewer).
  • I like Jodie Whitaker’s take on the Doctor. I like Ncuti Gatwa take on the Doctor. I think if anything it was the “Fourteenth Doctor” that was the canon mistake. It felt…weird. Could have just…nevermind, not about that…
  • My absolute favorite Doctor is Big Finish’s take on Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor. My favorite TV Doctor (aka, “my Doctor”) is Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor. My favorite new Doctor is Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. I don’t really have a least favorite Doctor.
  • I have read some of the books from the Wilderness Years.
  • I am generally a person who can accept multiple canons across a franchise and it does not bother me, for instance, that the Doctor has crossed paths and rectonned their own history.

OH, and for simplicity, I am going to be using They/Them pronouns for The Doctor because while the entity is canonically a single person, it is also treated in Their own words as multiple people. “Oh, him…” I will also be using CAPITAL T-They/Them.

The Lore Impact of The Timeless Child

And this brings us to the tail end of Season 12 of new Who where we learn that the Doctor is The Timeless Child. It is important to note that this revelation is bigger than just a phrase and let me break down the significant shifts to Doctor Who lore brought about by it:

  1. The Doctor is now an entity from an unknown universe with the ability to infinitely (?) regenerate but not a Time Lord.
  2. The Doctor was found by Gallifreyans and Their unique DNA was harvested by the Time Lords to become, well, what we now know as Time Lords.
  3. The Time Lords then proceeded to use the Doctor first as an experiment to be abused and later as a tool to be used. Or something. I’m sure they were nice while killing the confused child on loop.
  4. The Doctor’s memory of Their past selves kept being unwritten so They thought the First Doctor was just that.
  5. What is possibly the direct antecedent Doctor is “The Fugitive Doctor” who fled to Earth, possibly setting up some sort of Fast-Return premise as to why the Doctor and the Tardis considered it a place to hide out.
  6. The Master finds out this fact and is perturbed enough to kill off all the Time Lords through some Cyberman crap. Blah, Blah, Blah…

What I Do and Do Not Like

The first part, #1, I absolutely do not mind. I like it. It fixes so many glitches. Stuff like…

  • the Fourth Doctor having past-lives exposed by Morbius (Brain of Morbius),
  • the face of the Fourth Doctor in The Face of Evil (sometimes you revisit old favorites) even though that could be and I would assume is explained by post-regenerative trauma taking place during Robot (there are other likely explanations),
  • the fact the First Doctor had noticed someone out there doing things in the universe without realizing it was Themself (Twice Upon a Time),
  • sometimes conflicting notions of the Doctor’s childhood and time period on Gallifrey,
  • the Seventh Doctor’s whole “beef with gods” thing,
  • the Seventh Doctor’s whole “The Other” thing,
  • the reason why immensely powerful entities like The White Guardian and The Black Guardian are drawn to the Doctor on loop,
  • AND, I would say some of the disdain the Time Lords have for the Doctor as a rule.

By the time the Fourth Doctor was on the screen back in the 1970s the Doctor had long since been shifting from just a simple traveler with a knack for getting into and out of trouble and had become a full on incarnation of The Trickster God.

The Doctor is Rabbit, Anansi, and Fox. The Doctor is Snake who changes their skin.

The Doctor was there at the Beginning and the End. The Doctor has been part of the genesis and annihilation of many of the essential people and places that are part of the Whoniverse. In principle, there has probably never been as complex of a causal-entity in fiction as The Doctor unless people try really hard.

It is canonical in the The Name of the Doctor that essential word for healer in every language is their own version of Their name.

The idea that the Doctor is either an otherworldly being OR, perhaps, is in some massive loop and will some future date end back at the origins of Time Lord society with no memory? Bang. Love it. It’s big and spicy in the way new Who sometimes has been scared to be…

However, on the hand: I hate, with a fair passion, #6.

It’s stupid.

The Master is The Villain, blah blah blah, I don’t care. There were years of The Doctor finding Their way home, again. Then you take away the damned home just a couple of years later to make the storylines easier. Especially since it absolutely won’t matter. Chibnail already had some Time Lords shoved back in. Davies had at least one. The writers will just randomly retcon that for single episodes to bring back someone. It’s tedious and it’s dumb. It is what Alien 3 does the end of Aliens level dumb.

The combined weight of the Daleks couldn’t end Gallifrey for the eternal Time War but The Master could trick them all in seconds? The Master who was so overpowered by the Daleks he hid at the end of Time? Pfffffffft…

#2 through #5, though, is where things get a bit more “gray” for me. I don’t really like the notion that the Doctor is a singular origin point. Had there been a whole new race of people confirmed and the Time Lords conquered them back in the “bad times,” maybe. Maybe even the Doctor and the Master (and maybe the Rani) as children of this race to explain a lot of the various traumas and abilities to survive death over and over? Maybe. Gallifrey’s darkest secret, integrating with the blood of their enemies or forebears? Sure. Whatever. I could take it.

I can accept, sort of, #3 and #4 but I consider it too weak of a useful narrative point to be such a strong portion of the Timeless Child lore. I know the Time Lords (and the TARDIS) have a somewhat abusive relationship with The Doctor but that felt a bit too much. The Other was a force to be noted.

I feels like Chibnail was trying to make us absolutely hate the Time Lords but it also feels too tacked on. Genre fiction is absolutely crap at handling trauma and this kind of thing shows.

#5 I am mostly ok with. I like The Fugitive Doctor and I adore Jo Martin. I am slightly ok that They might have been the origin for The Doctor’s love of Earth (now that the The Movie‘s take on the Doctor as the half-human [and in one early draft, the half-human brother to The Master] is out).

I don’t think anyone really thought it through, though.

Big Finish and the current Circuit Breaker is trying really hard to figure out how to handle the character and frankly… I think blending that part of the character with Earth was a sand trap where you will have trouble scoring the hole on this one. Could have saved that incarnation for deep space, far past, far future…whatever. Still had the 13th Doctor bump into Them.

Partially because the Morbius Doctors include several that are clearly inspired by the Earth. So either the Doctor had already been involved with being “Earth-like” or those take place after The Fugitive and both I’m iffy about.

The Awful Suggestions

Oh, whoops. I mentioned there were awful suggested fixes and then cut that out. Let me just share two:

a) Retcon everything after Capaldi. aka, the Coward’s Path. No. That’s awful. And not necessary.

b) Retcon just that The Master is the Timeless Child, aka the “I like playing Evil Characters in Dungeons and Dragons” Path. I get that a lot of people adore David vs Goliath stories but meh. I think having them BOTH be of that species could be interesting. Why they keep being drawn to each other. Why they are different sides of the same moral coin. Just, besides that: meh and meh.