I've written once before about how ridiculous Popular Fan Opinion can sound, sometimes (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/07/unadulterated-boorish-opinion-silliness.html). I had actually expected fans to get angry with me for some of what I was saying. Amazingly enough, I received lots of positive feedback. Some readers even admitted that they do sound a bit uninformed when they parrot certain well-spread commentaries rather than think things through for themselves.
Regardless of the warm reception, I just haven't contributed to this particular series again until now. I've had several ideas about "the things Fandom says" that I'd like to pick on a bit but I just decided to stay away from it. I was probably just a little hesitant to legitimately insult my readership!
But I am seeing certain objections to the latest way that Chibnall has expanded the mythos of the series with his Timeless Child storyline. Much of the vitriol has not seemed particularly well-formulated. So I think it's time to take another shot at picking apart some of what people are saying. Let's see if fans will accept my criticism a second time....
DISCLAIMER:
Before we get underway, let me make a few things very clear:
1) I am not telling you not to have an opinion
You are more-than-entitled to your opinion. That is a basic human right. You can think whatever you want about the current state of the show - whether it's positive or negative. What I do hope you will do, however, is put some thought into that opinion rather than just spew out what you are hearing other people say. Because what other people say is, sometimes, stated without much thought.
2) I am not expecting you to change your mind
You can look through all of my attempts at well-constructed arguments and still not agree with anything I'm saying. You can even think I'm totally full of crap! But I am hoping you will see the time and effort I've put into my opinions and go to similar lengths of your own.
In summary, my only real goal with an entry like this is to encourage you to be more of a critical thinker. Feel whatever way you want on a subject. It doesn't have to match what I feel. But if your reasoning doesn't seem particularly sound - that's when I take exception. Fans who express opinions without thinking them through are the ones that make us all look bad. I would even go so far to say that they can actually make us look stupid.
Right then, with that out of the way. Let's get to the meat of things:
Silly Fan Objection to the Timeless Child #1:
It's Destroyed the Mystery of the Doctor
I'm putting this at the top because it seems to me to be the silliest objection of them all. There are fans who believe that this whole backstory that Chibnall created regarding the Doctor being the Timeless Child has robbed us of the sense of mystery that exists in his origins.
To which I can only reply: "What Mystery is actually left?!" As far as I can tell, there has been little or no mystery to the character for quite some time. He's a Time Lord who fled Gallifrey because he disagreed with their policy of non-intervention. That got established quite some time ago. If we're upset with Chibnall for what he did, we should be far more upset with Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke for writing The War Games. That's where the Doctor's full origins were finally revealed. We should also be a little upset with Robert Holmes for writing The Time Warrior because that's the first story to mention Gallifrey. I suppose, if we really want to point some fingers, we could even get angry with Anthony Coburn for giving some scant backstory to the Doctor and Susan in An Unearthly Child. Although, most of the origin story he hinted at was strongly contradicted later!
The only real mystery still remaining is the Doctor's actual name (I actually avoid conversations with kids who were around when the stars were in the right place because I don't want to know the answer to that one!). Everything else was largely uncovered long before Chibnall took the helm. So I'm not sure how anyone can complain about this. If they want to be angry with anyone, it should be the authors I just mentioned in the last paragraph. They are the ones who took away the mystery to the Doctor by finally revealing actual facts about his past. Personally, I'm not upset at them for doing that. The mystery had gone on long enough and it was time for us to get some solid information about who the Doctor was and where he came from.
If you really gave it some thought, you'd realize Chibnall actually expanded the mystery of the Doctor. We now know that the Doctor had a whole different set of lives before Hartnell that, so far, we've only seen hints of. Over the next little while, we'll probably get some more details. But there's tonnes of room, here, for all kinds of different stories to flourish. You could even say that the opportunities for more mystery to the character have become endless. There is so much more for us to discover. Whereas, without the Timeless Child - we knew, pretty much, everything about the Doctor.
Silly Fan Objection to the Timeless Child #2:
It has Discredited William Hartnell - He's no Longer the First Doctor
Chris Chibnall wrote some very succinct dialogue for the Doctor as she discovered the truth of her origins from the Master. She very explicitly stated that she has no memory prior to her days in her first incarnation. Basically, she claims to remember only as far as the William Hartnell Doctor. Anything before that is a complete blank for her.
To me (and, dare I say, to most rational-minded people), this means the original canon concerning the line-up of the Doctor's incarnations, as we know it, is preserved. What we have seen since the series began way back in 1963 is the true life of the Doctor. Anything that may have happened while he was the Timeless Child, in many ways, happened to someone else entirely. Particularly since it seems as though memory of the Timeless Child was deleted from the minds of all other Time Lords, too. The Timeless Child was, pretty much, wiped out of existence and replaced by the Doctor. So Hartnell is still the original Doctor. We have been watching the life of the Doctor for all these years. We are now learning that the Doctor lived as someone else before the show began. But it was an entirely different life that no one actually remembers beyond a few well-hidden files in the Matrix.
Yes, the Timeless Child seems to have used the title of the Doctor for, at least, one incarnation (as played by Jo Martin). Does this discredit what Hartnell did because Martin's Doctor seems to exist prior to him? I don't think so. For the same reason that I just said: the Timeless Child appears to have been deleted from Time Lord History. The Doctor still truly begins at Hartnell and has gone as far as Whitaker (and will, at some future point, become Tom Baker again). Anything that went on before might as well be another person.
If the Doctor's memory of her existence as the Timeless Child is, someday, restored - maybe the nature of this debate will change. Until then, what she is learning about herself as the Timeless Child is more like reading someone's biography than it is learning about herself. So the idea of Hartnell being the First Doctor is still, quite firmly, intact. By my reckoning, at least.
Silly Fan Objection to the Timeless Child #3:
It has Destroyed the Established History of Time Lord Culture
Again, Chibnall used very careful wording as he went into his origin tale. He firmly establishes that the story of Tecteun and the Timeless Child takes place in the earliest days of Gallifrey. Not only has time travel not been discovered, yet - but Gallifreyans had barely even developed space exploration!
As the extended flashback progresses, we do see the beginning of the Time Lords. And that's, pretty much, when the info-dump stops. So Rassilon, Omega and, quite possibly, the Other (as far as I'm concerned, he's not officially canon) can all step in and take over. Tecteun appears to fade into the background somewhere around this point. Some like to theorize that she may have actually changed her name and gender and become either Rassilon or Omega. I think that would be fine if she did. It would especially make sense if she became Rassilon as he does appear to be immortal and Tecteun does not seem to impose a limit of regenerations upon herself once she figures out how to take that ability from the Timeless Child. But, regardless of what becomes of her, what has already been established about Ancient Gallifrey seems to be perfectly preserved. The story of Tecteun and the Timeless Child takes place before the Time Lords and, more or less, ends just as Rassilon and Omega would start to play their role in history.
And yet, some would have you believe that Chibnall's new addition to the saga flatly contradicts everything that has gone on before. I'm not sure where fans get this from. To me, the whole tale was perfectly crafted to allow for all the Rassilon, Omega and, quite possibly, the Other stuff to fit in just fine. As I just said, we only see the beginnings of Time Lord society as the flashback sequence ends. So we can safely assume that what has been established about Ancient Gallifrey takes over from that point. I can almost see why Chibnall doesn't bother to go any further. If we want to know the rest, watch The Deadly Assassin or The Three and Five Doctors. Or other stories of that nature.
Some fans swear that it was Rassilon who came up with the concept of regeneration. So the story of Tecteun and the Timeless Child is still a contradiction of sorts. As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the show that suggests this (as usual, if there is something in a Big Finish story or some other form of non-televised fiction, I don't accept that as canon). I don't even think it was ever stated who actually imposed the twelve regeneration limit on the Time Lords. So our current Head Writer was well within his rights to explore how the Time Lords achieved regeneration if he wanted to. As far as I can see, that was still a blank slate. And I quite like the tale that he told. It was an interesting and imaginative way to explain where regeneration came from. Admittedly, Tecteun has some pretty horrible parenting skills - but that still doesn't mean it's a bad story! It's just a story that seems to involve bad parenting!
Silly Fan Objection to the Timeless Child #4:
If it Doesn't Actually Change Anything - Why do it?!
After all the whining other people have done about Chris Chibnall changing things he shouldn't have, we finally get to this smaller segment of fandom that can actually see what I'm saying but still manages to find an objection!
"Fine!" they admit, "He didn't ruin the Doctor's mystery or discredit Hartnell or contradict Time Lord History! He didn't actually shake up the show in any kind of valid way. So why even come up with the concept, then?! It seems pointless if it doesn't change anything."
This particular group comes closest to having a valid point. Although, in some ways, I do feel sorry for Chibnall, right now. People are yelling at him for changing things he didn't. And other folks are upset that he didn't change things at all. He is seriously caught in a Damned if you do. Damned if you don't scenario.
But rather than bemoaning the man's fate too much, let's look at the actual objection. Yes, it's true: The Timeless Child doesn't really do anything to what has already been established on the show. But it's not as useless a venture as some fans would have you believe. It still fulfilled a purpose.
Several purposes, in fact.
1) It kept the Doctor distracted at a crucial time
Within the context of the story, itself, revealing to the Doctor that she was the Timeless Child was an excellent way to keep her busy while the Master got up to his plans with making CyberMasters. If she was able to concentrate on what her arch rival was up to - she would have probably come up with a way to stop him (as, ultimately, she did - once she burst out of the Matrix. Most likely, the Master thought she'd be trapped in there longer). In many ways, using this tactic was one of the Master's most brilliant moves. To get the Doctor to believe her life had been a lie was a great way to paralyze her indefinitely. Fortunately, Jo Martin's Doctor came along and gave her a pep talk at just the right time.
2) It didn't change the mythos of the show but it has certainly expanded it
Within the context of canon, itself, revealing to the Doctor that she was the Timeless Child allows for a whole new range of story-telling to take place. While the Doctor gets up to her usual business of beating down Daleks and saving the Universe, we can also explore her origins more deeply. It enables some nice side-plotting to occur that will, no doubt, give us an interesting arc for the next few seasons. Or even further. As I said earlier, the opportunities really are endless, here.
3) It genuinely freshens things up
Within the context of the show, itself, revealing to the Doctor that she was .... okay, I'll stop doing that!
A show with Doctor Who's extensive history needs to, occasionally, expand its premise like this. We saw this happening within the dying days of the Classic Series. An arc was being built into the stories that also dealt with a connection the Doctor was supposed have to Ancient Gallifrey. The show was cancelled before the arc could be completed. But this insinuates to me that we do need to find new layers to the lead character's background from time-to-time. It re-invigorates the show.
So, there you go fans who object to nothing happening. It wasn't all for naught! It may not have caused any kind of serious rupturing of established continuity like, say, the discovery of the War Doctor did. But it still has affected the show in more subtle ways. Some might even say that Chibnall is something of a gifted writer. He can expand the Doctor's past without having to legitimately sledgehammer in new canon. Don't get me wrong: I do also like what Moffat did with the War Doctor. That was quite cool. But I like that his successor realized he needed to take a different approach if he wanted to mess around some more with the protagonist's past. Continuous sledgehammering becomes tedious. As my grandfather who worked in road-construction used to say!
CONCLUSION:
Those are the four biggest objections I've been seeing from fans that don't seem to be grounded in the soundest of arguments. There are, of course, smaller details in all of these points that I didn't take the time to go over for the sake of keeping my word count down to a reasonable level (ie: Until The Timeless Child, the idea of the Doctor being "more than a Time Lord" had only ever been suggested. Now it has been clarified. Which does, in some ways, rob the character of some of his sense of mystery). I guess if you'd like to get into some of those finer points, we could debate in the comments.
For now, though, I hope this post gives you pause for thought. Enjoy expressing opinions til you're blue in the face, as far as I'm concerned. But if you don't want to embarrass yourself, make sure you give some thought to what you're about to say rather than just blurting things out. A well-constructed argument is a thing of beauty.
Let your beauty shine by choosing your words carefully.
So that's all I truly wanted to say on the subject but I have added a few Special Notes at the bottom that, sort of, vaguely relate to this whole argument. They, at least, show more support to the idea of the Timeless Child being a good thing for canon. Feel free to dig into them if you so desire....
****SPECIAL NOTE*****
I'm going to re-post something I wrote in a previous entry here should you want to look at it. It's something else that the concept of the Timeless Child does that I feel really benefits the show. If you want to read the full post, I'm leaving a link below. It's a sort of "General De-Brief" of Series Twelve where I try to postulate a bit about aspects of the Timeless Child that have yet to be fully explained. I'm quite certain that, as usual, my predictions will prove horrifically wrong!
Here's the link to the full post:
https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/03/unadulterated-boorish-opinion-series.html
Here's the specific part of the essay that I'm most interested in sharing as it relates quite nicely with some of the arguments I've been presenting. Not only does the Timeless Child seem to make sense to me, but it also is helping to solve certain issues with canon.
SOME INTERESTING THREADS ARE GETTING TIED
If we're willing to dig a bit deeper, we can see that Chibnall has actually done some even more brilliant writing than we realize. He hasn't just answered the Question of the Timeless Child and gotten that scene in Brain of Morbius to finally work. He's reconciled, at least, two other continuity issues:
1) Those Matrix predictions regarding the Hybrid have become true. The Master with the Cyberium in his head and his merry band of Cyber-Masters are the combination of two warrior races. They stood within the ruins of Gallifrey. That's, pretty much, what the Prophecy said.
The Matrix strongly implied that the Hybrid was a single creature, of course. But, as they said in Hell Bent, the prophecy is fairly vague. Perhaps. because the Cyber-Masters do almost seem to be more of an extension of the Cyberium-infested Master rather than separate beings onto themselves, we can almost count them as being just one entity manifested in several forms. It's all pretty subjective. But the basic essence of the Prophecy of the Hybrid does play out in The Timeless Children. Which is pretty cool.
However, there is something even cooler:
2) The idea of how the Doctor is half-human is also finally explained. He has just the vaguest memories of his time as Brendan still floating around. Which means he was, to all intents and purposes, a human for a while. Aspects of Brendan's physiology might even re-manifest themselves from time-to-time. Which is why the Master sees a human retina when examining the image of Doctor Eight. If you really want to dig deep, this may also account for the Doctor having only one heart during his first two incarnations. Another trace of Brendan.
"I'm half human - on my mother's side!" even makes a sort of sense. Brendan's adopted father does seem to be a Time Lord waiting for him to live out his life before torturing him in the back office. Whereas his adopted mother appears to be a human.
This second point, to me, is super-duper-ultra-mega cool. I'm not sure if this was all intentional on Chibber's behalf. But it just might be. Look at all the work he went to just to get Brain of Morbius to make sense. He might have also been working on the half-human issue at the same time. If he was, this makes him a pretty awesome writer.
Chib-bashers should take note of this. You may have severely underestimated this man's greatness.
****SPECIAL, SPECIAL NOTE****
Since writing that post, I've realized the Timeless Child can get other continuity issues to gel better.
1) More Early Days Stuff:
As I discussed the Doctor's half-human lineage in that other Special Note, I vaguely got into the idea that the Timeless Child storyline might help explain why no one registers a double-pulse when they check the Doctor's heartbeat during his first two incarnations. I try to postulate that memories and/or physical traits from the Timeless Child still surface during certain incarnations. The Timeless Child was forced to live out a full life as a human before becoming the Doctor. Quite likely, Brendan only had one heart throughout that life (or, perhaps, the Timeless Child only has one heart, too. As she is not actually Gallifreyan). Only having a single heart persists through the Doctor's first two incarnations and, finally, fixes itself after the second regeneration. Since the Time Lords initiated that particular regeneration, they may have made sure to correct the problem.
The one-heart-during-the-first-two-incarnations issue isn't the only inconsistency the Timeless Child could, possibly, fix. Let's look at a few other things from the black-and-white era that don't properly work with the rest of established continuity:
The First Doctor seems to insinuate quite heavily during the first season of the show that he constructed the TARDIS, himself. Susan also claims that she came up with the acronym of Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space. Both of these ideas get swept under the carpet during future seasons as we learn TARDISes have probably been around a whole lot longer than the Doctor and Susan have.
But what if this is more residual effects of the Timeless Child? Could it be that, during the formative years of Ancient Gallifrey, the Timeless Child was crucial in the development of TARDISes? Could the First Doctor have some vague recollection of the event?
Getting Susan's claim to make sense becomes even more contrived. But it could be possible that she might be some sort of temporal anomaly in Time Lord society. Might she have actually come from the Ancient Days and somehow been swept up into the Doctor's era? Perhaps an early experiment the Gallifreyans were doing in time travel accidentally sent her into the future.
Here's where the theory gets crazier: could Susan be the granddaughter of the Timeless Child rather than the Doctor, himself? Somehow, by instinct, she knows this is still the same person that was her grandfather on Ancient Gallifrey and latches onto him. So she was there during the formative years of the Time Lords and came up with the acronym for their time vessels. She then gets whisked into the future by accident and resumes her relationship with her grandparent in this new period.
The idea is not so outlandish. While I am loathe to get into Extended Universe stuff, the book Lungbarrow does something similar with Susan and the Doctor. In the novel, Susan was the granddaughter of the Other and lived in Ancient Times. The First Doctor, when he steals his TARDIS, goes into Gallifrey's past and meets Susan. She, somehow, knows that this is the same man as the Other and refers to him as her grandfather.
Lungbarrow, by the way, was originally intended to be a TV story. But, when the show went off the air, it was novelised, instead. So this particular wild notion about Susan came within a hair's breadth of being "proper canon".
Since we're on the topic of the Seventh Doctor and the Other....
2) The Cartmel Masterplan Re-Written
I have claimed that traits and memories of the Timeless Child have bled into the Doctor's life here and there. So far, she seems to have definitely influenced the First, Second and Eighth Doctors. Perhaps even the Fourth a bit since we do see those hidden incarnations during the mind-bending battle with Morbius. I would also add Seven to this list. He definitely got back some major memories from the Timeless Child during his era.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, an effort to expand the Doctor's origins and claim he has links to Ancient Gallifrey was attempted back in the "dying days of the Classic Series". This other attempt to deepen the Doctor's past came to be known as the Cartmel Masterplan (named after the script editor at the time). The biggest hints that were dropped about the Doctor being more than just a renegade Time Lord happened in Silver Nemesis. In that particular tale, the Lady Peinforte threatens to reveal the Doctor's greatest secrets if he doesn't hand a Gallifreyan Super Weapon over to her. She even begins to speak vaguely of the Ancient Times before the Doctor silences her by just stating he doesn't care what she says and gives Nemesis to the Cybermen.
Had the Cartmel Masterplan played out to its ultimate conclusion, we were meant to eventually discover that the mysterious Other who is meant to be drinking buddies with Omega and Rassilon was going to be a sort of earlier version of the Doctor. Their connection to each other was going to be accomplished in this weird, convoluted way that involves Gallifreyan Looms.
The story that was to reveal this was never actually produced. Which is one of the main reasons why I say that I don't, necessarily, count the Other to be canon. So far, he's never truly been discussed on the show. Until he gets a proper namecheck of some sort - he's not real. Nor are the Gallifreyan Looms, for that matter.
However, since the Cartmel Masterplan never reached its proper conclusion, we can now claim that all this hidden backstory was actually about the Timeless Child instead of the Other. More than likely, the Timeless Child would have been around while the Hand of Omega and Validium were being created. Both of these artifacts recognize the connection between the Doctor and the Timeless Child and respond to his instructions.
We can't say, for sure, just how much Seven remembers of his earlier life(ves). When he was still meant to be the Other, they never clearly established how well he knew about his past. But he does seem to have some inkling of an idea that he is more than just a Time Lord.
After all these years, we have finally found out who he truly is. Not actually the Other - but the Timeless Child.
****SERIOUSLY, MY LAST SPECIAL NOTE. I SWEAR****
These Special Notes are becoming as long as the actual entry!
Okay, one last point. You may be thinking: "If these weird things with the Doctor's physiology and memory seem to be occurring now and again, why doesn't he discuss it more? Why doesn't he say stuff like: "Why do I think I actually invented my TARDIS when, clearly, TARDISes have been around longer than I have?!"
I think part of it just has to do with the Doctor's personality. He's a pretty private person. He keeps his hand close to his vest (at least during the incarnations that wore vests!). So if something weird or confusing might be going on in his life, he's not likely to bring it up. He's definitely not good with being vulnerable so he's not going to discuss something distressing like: "Ever since I fell off that exercise bike, I started remembering that I am, somehow, linked to Ancient Gallifrey!"
In the case of residual memories from the Timeless Child, it may even be possible that they come and go. The Doctor remembers for a time that he helped invent TARDISes and talks about it a bit with Ian and Barbara. And then, suddenly, he forgets the whole thing. There may have been an unseen moment where Ian brings up the subject and the Doctor responded with something like: "What are you talking about?! I never said I invented this thing!" Ian would have just assumed the Doctor was getting on a bit and might be having memory issues and just let the whole thing go.
A similar thing may have happened with the Doctor in his seventh incarnation. In Season Twenty-Four, he makes no mention of his ties to the Old Times of Gallifrey. So, maybe, those memories hadn't re-surfaced yet. They do come to light for a while during Seasons Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six and then fade away again by the time he's reached The 96 Telemovie. So, basically, he's not about to discuss his weird residual memories if he can't actually remember them, anymore!
In terms of physical traits, they seem to last for an entire incarnation and have the potential to depart only when regeneration occurs. My guess would be that Doctors One and Two always had one heart. But, right in his first story, we see that Three got two hearts. Regeneration seems to finally eliminate the problem. I would also assume that Eight's eyes always had the retinal structure of a human. But that the War Doctor went back to having Time Lord eyes.
Okay. Now I really am done with Special Notes! But I do hope you see why I've included them. The Timeless Child really does help to reconcile quite a few inconsistencies that have occurred within the show's mythos throughout its many years. So, really, maybe it's not such a bad thing after all....
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