A year has passed since the Doctor Who season finale ‘The Timeless Children’ was first broadcast. The episode changed Doctor Who history forever with a new explanation (and some new mysteries) about the Doctor’s origins. One year on, how has your opinion of this episode fared?
Please note – this article contains spoilers for Doctor Who series 12.
In ‘The Timeless Children,’ the Doctor finds herself in the ruins of Gallifrey, her home planet. Her arch enemy the Master destroyed it after he learned a terrible truth about his origins – a truth so devastating that it caused him to decimate the entire capitol, along with his people the Time Lords.
Taking the Doctor inside the Matrix (the Time Lords’ repository of all knowledge) the Master shares this terrible truth with his old enemy.
In ‘The Timeless Children,’ we learn about a scientist and traveller named Tecteun – a Shobogan, native to the planet that would eventually become Gallifrey. She journeyed to a distant world and found a young girl, seemingly abandoned, standing at the gateway to another dimension. Tecteun adopted this child as her own and, together, they went off to explore the cosmos as mother and daughter.
Does the Timeless Child have infinite regenerations?
Possibly. When the pair returned to Gallifrey, the mysterious girl got into a fight with another child and was thrown off a cliff. She died upon landing, but started to regenerate. Tecteun looked on in awe as the mysterious girl morphed into a new body, healed and restored.
This fascinated Tecteun. As ‘The Timeless Children’ progresses, we see her experiment on the strange child, desperate to understand the secret of regeneration. Tecteun eventually extracts the relevant DNA and injects it into herself, triggering a regeneration that turns her into a man. From there, the one-time traveller goes on to become one of the founding fathers of Gallifreyan society, and limits the Time Lords’ regeneration limit to 12. (Presumably, there had been no limit before.)
Towards the end of ‘The Timeless Children,’ we also learn that the original young child’s memories were erased – but Tecteun leaves a disguised remnant of the truth buried deep within the Matrix, which the Master later uncovers.
Furthermore, we learn that the Doctor has lived a number of other lives that she has forgotten about. In one of these, she was working for a Gallifreyan sect known as The Division – an organisation that secretly interfered with the affairs of other planets. And although this incarnation of the Doctor had a police box TARDIS, ‘The Timeless Children’ suggests that she was in The Division before William Hartnell’s Doctor who, historically, has been regarded as the original since 1963.
The existence of this Doctor, therefore – and indeed the many other incarnations depicted in ‘The Timeless Children’ – changes the course of Doctor Who history. Prior to 2020, it was believed that there were no other Doctors before Hartnell, and that Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor was the thirteenth (or fourteenth, if you take the War Doctor into consideration.) This new information means that it is now possible that the Doctor has an infinite number of regenerations, and may have lived an infinite number of lives.
‘The Timeless Children’ also rewrites the established origins of the character. Prior to 2020, it was believed that the Doctor originated on Gallifrey, and that they were a Time Lord. During the Seventh Doctor era, hints were dropped that he may have been involved in the formation of Gallifreyan society, and that he may have been one of a triumvirate of founding fathers – the others being Omega and Rassilon.
However, ‘The Timeless Children’ still allows for this possibility, loosely. In Chris Chibnall’s script, the writer describes one scene thus: “TECTEUN walking down a corridor – at the far end, two Gallifreyan figures (with the collars up) in silhouette. We can assume these might be Rassilon and Omega.” In this scenario, Tecteun would be the third member of the triumvirate – albeit one who was assisted by the Doctor, or the Timeless Child.
Will the Timeless Child be retconned?
It remains to be seen if new showrunner Russell T Davies will retcon the idea of the Timeless Child. Certainly, after transmission, opinions were divided on the new origin story for the Doctor. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes says: “Its relentless plotting and exposition teeter on overwhelming, but a bold daringness to reinvent Whovian lore coupled with Jodie Whittaker’s dynamic performance make ‘The Timeless Children’ a successful season finale.”
Conversely, Doctor Who‘s former script editor Andrew Cartmel said that ‘The Timeless Children’ depleted the mystery of the programme. “There’s a lot of detail in specifics, which is the last thing you want,” he said. “So when you get too hooked on detailing the mythology the snake is kind of swallowing its tail…” See the full interview here.
But what do you think? Did you enjoy ‘The Timeless Children’ and its plot revelations? Or not? And has your opinion of the episode changed now that a year has passed? Let me know in the comments below.
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Still pretending it doesn’t exist
If allowed to stand, “The Timeless Children” irreparably destroys the entire foundation of Doctor Who, and for higher purpose than to score some woke points with a nonexistent audience. The shoddy writing of the past two series with Jodie Whittaker were bad enough, but this one just caps off the entire exercise as a complete waste of time.
Congratulations, Chibnall. You’ve succeeded where the Daleks, Cybermen, and Sontarans all failed. You’ve killed Doctor Who, and probably did a fair share of damage to the BBC itself in the process.
That should read, “for no higher purpose…”
It was a stinking pile of Doo-doo, that is potentially brand killing. Full of tell, don’t show, which left the show poorer and damaged. The Talentless Chib needs to go. Sadly he’s got another series to really do some more long term damage. Allegedly the US co-funders of the series are very unhappy with the current style of production.
I am completely heartbroken over the direction the series has taken. (I am a 60 year old long term Whovian.) The Timeless Children totally destroyed 56 years of the show’s mythology! I don’t mean to be rude. But in my view, the series ended (or died) as soon as Capaldi regenerated. My problem is not with Jodie, but with the producers pushing wokeness and agendas at the expense of good story writing. NEVER EVER MESS WITH ESTABLISHED MYTHOLOGY OF ANY LONG TERM FRANCHISE!!! I sincerely hope future show runners can learn from these fatal mistakes and salvage the franchise…However, I am not optimistic that the show can be rescued after what has transpired since Capaldi’s departure.
i absolutely hate chibnall’s dry boring woke and soap opera it’s not even doctor who!
Eu realmente amei essa nova fase de Doctor Who. Estou esperando ansiosamente os próximos episódios para o desenvolvimento desse plot. Thanks for the post.
I think the comments say it all.
While in the present, don’t mess with the past to pretend to alter the future!
The timeless child was a bad direction, there was a reason why it celebrated 50years, they stuck to the original story.
Please RTD get us back on track!
Yea it ruined doctor who, as in truly it should have ended with The 12th doctor – the fall of the doctor, which would have been a brilliant ending of Doctor Who….