I was toiling away at a totally different essay when I kept noticing a disturbing trend in some of the fan groups I'm involved with. I felt the need to address the issue and hastily changed gears and wrote this entry, instead. The problem has become so constant that there seems almost an urgency for something like this to be composed. Which is why, of course, I used "Emergency!" in the title...
Some people seem convinced that the Timeless Child now contradicts certain key points of continuity. In some cases, a fan is genuinely concerned that this aspect of canon no longer seems to work. In other instances, it's just a Chibnall-basher trying to say: "Look! See! He's a bad writer! He's wrecking established continuity!" Either way, these same few points keep coming up over and over even though they have fairly simple solutions to them. Fans who have worked out how the Timeless Child fits into the equation keep giving the same answers again and again. But this doesn't seem to stop these points from being brought up on a regular basis. People just don't seem to be paying attention to the fact that these issues have been addressed several times, now.
So, here's what I am hoping: The next time someone mentions this sort of thing in a fan group, make life easier for yourself. Just steer the person with the query/objection to this essay. Send them a link. Or, at the very least, mention this site to them (surprisingly, if you google Pretentious Doctor Who Essays this is the only result you get!). Let me accomplish this painfully repetitive task for you.
A TIMELINE FOR THE TIMELESS CHILD - PART ONE: EARLY DAYS
To really make things clear before we get to these points of consternation, we should first try to create a timeline of some sort for the Timeless Child (and for the Doctor, for that matter!). It should be noted that we are piecing things together from snippets of dialogue or visual clues that we have been given over the course of the last few seasons. There may still be a few things that I'm missing that will get revealed in Jodie's final story. But I do think, for the most part, that we know the life of the Timeless Child, now.
So let's see what we can cobble together...
The Timeless Child is first discovered on a distant planet from Gallifrey during one of Tecteun's many dangerous explorations of the Universe. The Child is found alone at the foot of a dimensional rift that she appears to have come through. Tecteun elects to adopt her.
It is during a horrible accident that the Gallifreyan explorer discovers a unique gift of the Timeless Child. She has the ability to regenerate when she is badly hurt. Fascinated by this process, Tecteun devotes herself to discovering how she can accomplish this, herself. Once she finds the appropriate strain in the child's DNA (a study that seems to cause her subject to regenerate several more times), she integrates it into her own genetic code and initiates a first regeneration of her own.
Tecteun brings her breakthrough to an elite group of city-dwelling Gallifreyans that have been mastering time travel and have given themselves the pretentious title of Time Lords. They are thrilled by what she's found and decide to bestow regeneration upon their people but to limit the number of times they can do it to twelve. Rassilon and Omega will go on to make all kinds of other important discoveries. But it seems that Tecteun is responsible for granting the Time Lords the ability to regenerate.
While Tecteun is given great recognition for her contribution, it would seem the Timeless Child is already beginning to fall into obscurity.
A TIMELINE FOR THE TIMELESS CHILD - PART TWO: DIVISION DAYS
The Timeless Child being out of the public eye becomes something that certain Time Lords start using to their advantage. In a secret meeting, the Child is approached by a covert organisation known as the Division and recruited as an agent.
Because of a severe Matrix redaction, we must do a bit of speculation. It's to be guessed that the Timeless Child was a loyal agent for the Division for quite some time. She went through various incarnations as she served under them. Including, of course, the ones we see in the mind-bending tournament with Morbius (sometimes known as "the Production Team Doctors"!). She probably had multiple skirmishes with Swarm and his sister Azure during this period, too. She also started working regularly with Karvanista and "Lee" (this may not be his real name, but rather, a name he assumed as he hid on Earth with "Ruth").
At some point, the Timeless Child seems to make a conscious choice to re-name herself as the Doctor. She may have already looked like "Ruth" when she did this, or that incarnation may have come later. More than likely, it was around this same time that she became disenchanted with the policies of the Division and wanted out. A deal of some sort seems to get struck between her and the powers-that-be of the agency. She has one more important mission to take on and then she will be relieved of duty. This mission, of course, is the Siege of Atropos on the Planet Time. She appears to defeat the Ravagers once and for all and set the Mouri in place to properly control Time (it's possible that "Lee" is on the mission with her along with Karvanista - we can't say for sure since we don't see the true forms of, at least, two agents that are accompanying Thirteen when she's reliving the memory of it).
It would seem that the Division, somehow, goes back on the deal they made with the Doctor and won't let her go, after all. So she takes matters into her own hands. Along with "Lee", they steal a TARDIS and flee to Earth. Knowing Division would really want to get her back, the Doctor takes the ultimate measure to conceal herself by using a Chameleon Arch to change her identity. Interestingly enough, the TARDIS she steals appears to have a faulty chameleon circuit and gets stuck as a Police Box.
A TIMELINE FOR THE TIMELESS CHILD - PART THREE: PUNISHMENT
Eventually, of course, the Division does find the Doctor again. She disengages the Chameleon Arch and reclaims her past. She escapes their first attempt to capture her and goes back out into the Universe in her faulty old TARDIS. Sometime during this period, the Thirteenth Doctor summons her consciousness into the Matrix for a brief conversation.
It's to be assumed that Division does, eventually, re-capture the Doctor. Still not ready to completely throw away an asset, they decide not to kill her. But something must be done to keep her under control.
Division wipes the Doctor's memories in the harshest of ways. They don't just empty out her mind, they completely re-write her biology. In order to do this properly, they must send her through a weird interim stage where she becomes "Brendan" for an entire lifetime. Brendan is a human who is found as an infant in Ireland in the mid 20th Century. He seems to possess a similar gift to Captain Jack. It's actually impossible to kill him.
Brendan lives out the better part of his existence and is then put through what appears to be a memory wipe of some sort by two Time Lords that were posing as pivotal people in his upbringing.
This next bit is important for all of you who are feeling confused:
Now that the Doctor has lived an entire life as a human, it's possible to completely alter her physiology. All the powers and abilities that the Timeless Child possessed are washed away. He becomes a "normal" Gallifreyan (I am switching pronouns because, under this new identity, he is predominantly male). He is implanted in the womb of a Gallifreyan woman (probably unbeknownst to her - she actually just believes herself to have become pregnant). He is born and eventually enters the Academy where he studies to become a Time Lord and scrapes by on his final exam with a 51 on his second attempt.
A TIMELINE FOR THE TIMELESS CHILD - PART FOUR: THE NEW DOCTOR
Just in case I didn't emphasise it enough, I will re-state here: what gets done to the Doctor once Division finally catches up to her is more than just a memory wipe. To all intents and purposes, the Timeless Child is destroyed and this new being is created in her place. He grows up with absolutely no knowledge of who he once was because no trace of that person exists within his biology. He is an average Gallifreyan. Just like anyone else on his world.
If anything, we can assume that the memory wipe, itself, was the one thing that didn't take that well. Traces of the former personality do re-emerge. This new identity also chooses to start calling himself the Doctor. He, too, decides to steal a TARDIS to escape his people. It's entirely possible that he actually picks the exact same one that he took in his previous existence (with a little nudge from Clara, of course). Which is why it becomes stuck in the form of a Police Box, once more.
Throughout the course of the show, other memories re-surface now and again. He starts remembering that he has some sort of tie to Ancient Gallifrey during his seventh incarnation. Eight recalls being half-human on his mother's side. And so on... (There is an entry I did a while back that really explores this https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/05/unadulterated-boorish-opinion-silliness.html).
But, again, I will emphasise this: While there may still be the occasional mental trace of the Timeless Child, all physical attributes are gone. When the Doctor graduates the Academy, he is granted the ability to regenerate. But only twelve times. The Timeless Child's ability to seemingly regenerate infinitely is no longer within his grasp to do.
PHEW! NOW THAT WE'RE DONE WITH THAT....
Okay, that took a while to do. But bothering to piece that timeline together will make the next part of this waayyyy easier!
There are two major points that I've heard fans making a lot lately about how the Timeless Child damages continuity. With that long and winding backstory now in place, it's quite easy to rectify either issue.
So, let's tackle them.
Objection #1: The Conclusion of Time of the Doctor is Now Irrelevant
One of the best things about the story Time of the Doctor is that it faces, head-on, a problem in the show's lore that needed to be dealt with. While he is referred to as Eleven, Matt Smith's Doctor actually represents the Time Lord's final incarnation. When his body finally wears out, that's meant to be it for him. Fortunately, of course, the Time Lords grant him a whole new cycle of regenerations and the show can continue. Phew!!
Some fans, however, seem upset because they believe that the concept of the Timeless Child nullifies all the drama at the heart of Eleven's swansong. They feel that, because the Doctor is the Timeless Child and the Timeless Child seems to have infinite regeneration ability, that he was not in any real danger on Trenzalore. Even if the Time Lords hadn't bestowed their gift upon him, he would have just turned into Twelve, regardless.
Now, I'm pretty sure I emphasised this enough. But, just in case I didn't: In his new life(ves), the Doctor no longer has any of the physical attributes of the Timeless Child. The whole process that Division puts him/her through as Brendan enables them to completely re-write his biology and turn him into a regular Gallifreyan. Who, of course, eventually becomes a proper Time Lord. Who will, in turn, receive the normal amount of allotted regenerations.*
So the stakes in Time of the Doctor are quite real. Had it not been for the intervention of the Time Lords, the Doctor would have just aged to death on Trenzalore (or, more likely, gotten exterminated by Daleks only moments before aging to death!). While he might have had infinite regenerations at one point (and we actually don't know that for sure - it's one of the things we still haven't truly learnt about the Timeless Child), that blessing was taken away from him as part of his punishment by the Division. In Time of the Doctor, he really is a Time Lord facing his final end.
Objection #2: There is No Real Danger in the Doctor's Life, Anymore. He'll Just Regenerate From Any Damage He Takes.
This particular objection almost works as an extension of the first one. Fans that go on about this believe that, not only was the Doctor not going to die at the end of thirteen incarnations, but he's not ever going to die. He'll just go on regenerating forever and ever. Even if he is fatally wounded, he'll recover from that.
So what's the point of even caring if the Doctor is in danger? Whatever it is that could potentially harm him will have no genuinely ill effects. He'll just take damage and regenerate. Because he's actually the Timeless Child, he is impervious to all forms of attack.
This idea actually fails on a couple of different levels. As I have pointed out, already (did I emphasise it well enough? I'm not sure...), the Doctor does not possess an infinite regeneration ability anymore. So, yes, he will regenerate after being badly wounded or just getting too old, but he can only do it so many times. So there are still consequences. Like in Time of the Doctor, he will reach the end of his cycle again, someday.**
This point also falls apart because we assume that, like actual Time Lords, it is possible for the Timeless Child to be hurt so badly that she can't actually regenerate. We've seen any number of examples of this within the show. The War Chief in The War Games. The Lord President in The Deadly Assassin. Even the Doctor, himself, fails to regenerate in an alternate reality visited by Donna during Turn Left. It's more than likely that - since they inherited the ability to regenerate from the Timeless Child - that she, too, can be wounded so badly that she won't regenerate. So, even if the Doctor still had the Timeless Child's powers, he can be killed. He's not invulnerable.
On, at least, two levels this objection doesn't work. The Doctor is still very much in danger at any given time as we watch his adventures. Peril still has real consequence in his life.
*FOOTNOTE #1: Can we say, for sure, that the Timeless Child had her biology completely re-written to become the Doctor we have known and loved since the beginning of the series in 1963?
No. We can't. If someone had just spoken a piece of dialogue somewhere that states that this is what happened, we could all move on and not worry about it. But, thus far, I can only say that I'm nearly 100% sure that this is what happened.
The biggest indicator that it was more than just a mindwipe is Brendan, himself. Why would the Time Lords turn the Timeless Child into him if it was only to erase memories? Why wouldn't they just strap "Ruth" into that big nasty machine?
As far as I can see (and I'll be the first to admit, I may get proved wrong in Thirteen's final episode), Brendan was created to facilitate the process of changing the Timeless Child's physiology. She is a complex being that was transforming into a Gallifreyan (another fairly complex being). There needed to be an interim stage to get the physical alterations to truly work. Brendan is that stage. After living a fairly complete life, the Division can clean out his mind and complete the transformation.
**FOOTNOTE #2: If we should get angry with anyone (and I'm not saying we should) about giving the Doctor potentially infinite regenerations, it should be Moffat. It's never specified in Time of the Doctor just how many new lives he's been granted. He is in a new regeneration cycle so it should be only thirteen more incarnations. But even Rassilon isn't sure of this in Hell Bent. It could be way more! If you are truly bent out of shape about the Doctor's seemingly endless existence, then you should be frothing at the mouth that Moff never specified how many more regenerations he has gotten.
Which means this whole "I'm mad cause the Doctor could, potentially, regenerate forever!"complaint should actually be laid at the feet of Chibnall's predecessor. It's more likely that the Doctor will live forever because of the alterations Moff made to canon than anything Chris did.
Having said all that. I still don't really think we should bother getting mad at Moff for this. At best, it's all still pretty trivial. But I am trying to make a point about how accusatory fandom likes to be with Chibnall. A "greater crime of the same nature" was perpetrated by someone else and no one actually seems to even bring it up!
There we go. Hope that resolves these issues that keep coming up over and over. The emergency is done!
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