The Timeless Child idea is trash and just totally screws up the story.
And you have to mention it again just to get rid of it, otherwise it just sits there in the background ruining it all. Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away etc.
It gives the Doctor an identity crisis because God knows how many regenerations came before. Still, it sounds like they imposed a limit at some point.
They imposed a limit on themselves, when they added that genetic component into their DNA.
Being the source, it's impossible to say the Doctor has one.
Heck, it kinda explains the extra set of regenerations they "gave" the Doctor. Maybe that was a bluff, and they gave them something that already existed?
It gives the Doctor an identity crisis because God knows how many regenerations came before. Still, it sounds like they imposed a limit at some point.
They imposed a limit on themselves, when they added that genetic component into their DNA.
Being the source, it's impossible to say the Doctor has one.
Heck, it kinda explains the extra set of regenerations they "gave" the Doctor. Maybe that was a bluff, and they gave them something that already existed?
Like I said, it’s never stated that the TC itself had infinite regenerations and we see Brendan getting chameleon arched, presumably to normal Time Lord biology
It would be daft to wipe the TC’s memory but leave them wandering around with an indeterminate number of regenerations. It’d be a dead giveaway
The thing is that the Timeless Child is, in fact, a really good idea. The Time Lords got this ability to regenerate, well how did they do that? Oh by being super barbaric and extracting the ability from an alien species they encountered. Of course they did, those fuckers.
And then you could have The Doctor have to grapple with that, and god that's actually really fucking good.
And then they made it The Doctor and it immediately becomes the worst fucking idea they could have come up with, it's so fucking bad and raises so many questions about so many past stories.
The Timeless Child story arc isn't done yet, so as dull as I think it is for a time travelling species to have a single fixed origin story, I'm reserving judgement till it's done (and like the similarly multi-series Silence arc, I actually want to see where it’s going before I tear into it)
That said, the Master being the TC is about as creative as the Doctor being the TC. It also makes less sense, primarily because of season 25 (spoilered for l e n g t h - tl;dr being the TC and working with the Division is consistent with Seven knowing the deep shit he does, One having ancient Gallifreyan weapons of mass destruction in his power when he fled Gallifrey, and the Doctor being significantly more competent than the Master)
Seven knew far too much about the Dark Times and about things no living Time Lord probably should have been aware of. The man who bragged to Davros that he was “far more than just another Time Lord”. And then Silver Nemesis, Lady Peinforte threatened to reveal to the Cyberleader the secrets of “Gallifrey, the Old Time, the Time of Chaos” and the Doctor himself
People talk about the Doctor being an average nobody who becomes significant because of his actions. But come on, how did an Academy dropout know where to find and steal the Hand of Omega? Some nobody walking around an ancient artefact of the great Time Lord civilisation like it was a pet? Who talked of a “we” having trouble with its prototype? He stole the validium too, a living metal weapon of mass destruction sealed away by Rassilon and Omega. And this nobody dropout stole this too so easily? Could casually command it to do his will?
Just what kind of regular, average person flees a superpower civilisation with two of its most powerful weapons, ready and willing to obey his word?
Not even the Master, someone hell bent on universal domination and conquest, stole Skaro-destroying and spacefleet-obliterating weapons when he left Gallifrey, did he? Because he didn’t know things like the Doctor knew things
There’s a lot to indicate that the Doctor had knowledge they shouldn’t have, and deep knowledge too. Not things you’ll find in a library. Time spent with a clandestine organisation like the Division in the early days of the Time Lords is consistent with this - even with the memory wipe (the chameleon arch we saw used on Brendan), things leaked through (like how the Doctor’s memories leaked into John Smith’s dreams)
If nothing else, the Master is pretty consistently slightly incompetent and only occasionally stumbles into successful plans. Meanwhile, the Doctor takes down dictatorships in 45 minutes. Pretty sure only one of them's really going to cut it as a top secret agent
(Bonus: The Master seems pretty fucking bitter and disgusted about having Doctor cooties in his genes. The way he talks about the Doctor always acting like she's important. It doesn't fit for the Master to be the TC)
I also think it's kind of boring and petty for someone to come along and be like 'Hey hey! Remember that one storyline years ago that the entire non-fan audience has forgotten about? Well instead of telling a new interesting story of my own, I'm going to go out of my way to retcon it!'
Wouldn't normally judge a work in progress by it's middle, but nothing Chibnall has done so far has given me any confidence that he's gonna land this thing, so...
spoilery stuff
I mean, the Timeless Child thing sorta hinges on the Doctor not knowing any of that stuff. Seven's weird esoteric knowledge can't come from this either. Can't have it both ways that he's got a secret past that he can pull specific info from and also not be aware of that past.
Like yeh, you can get way into the weeds about how some of it might have leaked into his unconscious mind, but the whole twist relies on this being totally erased - Thirteen doesn't have the slightest recognition of this apparent prior incarnation, the possibility doesn't occur to her.
I figure the Master's rage works just as well that the Time Lord's stole something from him. He was special and unique and they took it away, and must have gone to some extremes to falsify his status, given how hard up he was for extra lives in the Classic Series.
Also WRT someone retconning it, this thing is already a weird retcon of someone else's story! Ruth shouldn't be in a fucking police box TARDIS if she's pre-One. We've seen it as a blank capsule before it got stuck like that. Plus the stakes around Eleven's lack of 1-ups on Trenzalore are totally undone now that we know he could've regenerated any dang time he wanted.
Seven's a weird one because there's no indication in any prior or later incarnation of any memory or connection to the Dark Times. One, Two, Three and Five stand in the Dark Tower facing Rassilon without hint of a prior relationship - really, Seven's era is where contradictions and retcons become too big to ignore. There's fanon that some memories arise and subside in different regenerations as a way of explaining why only Seven seems to be the one with access to the secrets. But also in Spearhead from Space, Three says he's lost his memory in a way which might imply more than just forgetting the secrets of time travel (and off-screen, Eight's had such frequent amnesia that it's a wonder he remembers any of his companion's names when he regenerates)
Like with the Doctor, I think the Master becomes less interesting the more of his backstory gets explained. The Dark Path was dull, the drumming driving him mad was even worse. But specifically, him being the TC doesn't match the dialogue or acting in The Timeless Children. It's personal, yes, but it's not about him
The Police Box could be explained in any number of ways. It's interesting that they chose the 1966-76 style box for Ruth when they also had access to a 1963-66 style box. A few people have noted that if this is our Doctor's TARDIS, we know from The Doctor's Wife that she doesn't see or experience time the same way (archiving future console rooms), and could have chosen the Police Box form so Thirteen would recognise it. And if you choose, you could interpret One's reaction to the TARDIS being stuck as a Police Box a little different (he describes it as "disturbing" and looks proper worried, unlike Susan who's like 'huh, wonder why that is')
There's also nothing to indicate that the TC (or the Doctor) has infinite regenerations. It's never stated. And why wipe someone's memory and Matrix records if you're just going to leave the Doctor with infinite regenerations? It would be a dead giveaway that they're not Gallifreyan. We see Brendan get chameleon arched, presumably to the same biology as a normal Time Lord
And the problem isn't with retconning in general, but see below
It seems much more likely to me the next showrunner will never touch the timeless child idea. I'm not even sure Chibnall will bring Jo back for whatever conclusion he has in mind.
Yeah theyll quietly ignore all that maybe the Master will go "Oh you believed that? Hardly one of my best jokes"
What I don't get is - if you don't like a storyline, why would you go out of your way to draw attention to it? How would it come up? What would it add to the story?
I don't think writing it off as a joke or as 'it was actually the Master' fixes anything or makes anything better, and I think it falls into the same trap as the TC (concept and execution so far). It makes the universe smaller, but more importantly, it's looking backwards - it doesn't move the story forwards
And I think it's a trap Doctor Who easily falls into - over-explaining or nullifying or 'fixing' things. There is a Seventh Doctor novel which goes out of its way to explain why the Totters Lane junkyard sign was misspelt in Remembrance of the Daleks. Two audios and a short story each try to explain Romana's regeneration in Destiny of the Daleks. There's an audio which spends half its time trying to kill the season 6B theory that even Terrance Dicks himself wrote stories about. These add nothing. At best they waste a line of dialogue, at worst they waste whole stories
I think either you move on or you find an actually interesting and creative way to build on something's implications. I think Doctor Who works best when it keeps moving forward and exploring new possibilities or finding new angles when it does look back (like The Doctor's Wife or Twice Upon a Time, which look back decades but find new stories to tell and have past, present and future effects/implications)
All they need is a single scene where the Master reveals the Timeless Child was a ploy to throw the Doctor off her game for his latest evil scheme, he franchise will never move forward with the TC in the background unanswered yet remain in canon. The show should go more into revitalising elements from classic Who, like they did with the Master and Rasillon.
Edit: The Timeless Child isn't a bad idea in itself, I think they should have had Rasillon be responsible for it and have Omega as his lackey who gets backstabbed. Making the Doctor it is awful.
Harry Dresden on
+1
Options
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Debating about Doctor Who lore is like having a debate about the difference between a beach pebble painted with The Ship of Theseus on it;
a beach pebble carved into the shape of The Ship of Theseus; and The Ship of Theseus as an intrinsic epistemological concept. Heck there's some Plato's Cave, and blind men examining a donkey, in there too.
Tldr; It's all timey-wimey and multiversal, complex and nuanced.
Anyhow, as I understand it, now, via retcon, 'The Doctor' (aka 'Doctor Prime' of the current TV show run, that we the viewer have been following) always had unlimited regen powers, they were just locked and then unlocked by the time-lords via DNA fuckery, as the other Time Lords were afraid of the Doctor and their unlimited power/potential when given free reign with a TARDIS.
I'm sorry to see her go (after 9 more episodes) but I don't think I'll shed any tears after Chibnall. Those final episodes might all be amazing but he's been utterly underwhelming as a showrunner and writer.
I feel bad for Whittaker, she made history, and was done dirty by terrible writing and mostly boring stories.
Hopefully she can go out on a high, and not spend the last three specials looking confused while making occasional speeches about the power of family.
The Timeless Child story arc isn't done yet, so as dull as I think it is for a time travelling species to have a single fixed origin story, I'm reserving judgement till it's done (and like the similarly multi-series Silence arc, I actually want to see where it’s going before I tear into it)
That said, the Master being the TC is about as creative as the Doctor being the TC. It also makes less sense, primarily because of season 25 (spoilered for l e n g t h - tl;dr being the TC and working with the Division is consistent with Seven knowing the deep shit he does, One having ancient Gallifreyan weapons of mass destruction in his power when he fled Gallifrey, and the Doctor being significantly more competent than the Master)
Seven knew far too much about the Dark Times and about things no living Time Lord probably should have been aware of. The man who bragged to Davros that he was “far more than just another Time Lord”. And then Silver Nemesis, Lady Peinforte threatened to reveal to the Cyberleader the secrets of “Gallifrey, the Old Time, the Time of Chaos” and the Doctor himself
People talk about the Doctor being an average nobody who becomes significant because of his actions. But come on, how did an Academy dropout know where to find and steal the Hand of Omega? Some nobody walking around an ancient artefact of the great Time Lord civilisation like it was a pet? Who talked of a “we” having trouble with its prototype? He stole the validium too, a living metal weapon of mass destruction sealed away by Rassilon and Omega. And this nobody dropout stole this too so easily? Could casually command it to do his will?
Just what kind of regular, average person flees a superpower civilisation with two of its most powerful weapons, ready and willing to obey his word?
Not even the Master, someone hell bent on universal domination and conquest, stole Skaro-destroying and spacefleet-obliterating weapons when he left Gallifrey, did he? Because he didn’t know things like the Doctor knew things
There’s a lot to indicate that the Doctor had knowledge they shouldn’t have, and deep knowledge too. Not things you’ll find in a library. Time spent with a clandestine organisation like the Division in the early days of the Time Lords is consistent with this - even with the memory wipe (the chameleon arch we saw used on Brendan), things leaked through (like how the Doctor’s memories leaked into John Smith’s dreams)
If nothing else, the Master is pretty consistently slightly incompetent and only occasionally stumbles into successful plans. Meanwhile, the Doctor takes down dictatorships in 45 minutes. Pretty sure only one of them's really going to cut it as a top secret agent
(Bonus: The Master seems pretty fucking bitter and disgusted about having Doctor cooties in his genes. The way he talks about the Doctor always acting like she's important. It doesn't fit for the Master to be the TC)
I also think it's kind of boring and petty for someone to come along and be like 'Hey hey! Remember that one storyline years ago that the entire non-fan audience has forgotten about? Well instead of telling a new interesting story of my own, I'm going to go out of my way to retcon it!'
Wouldn't normally judge a work in progress by it's middle, but nothing Chibnall has done so far has given me any confidence that he's gonna land this thing, so...
spoilery stuff
I mean, the Timeless Child thing sorta hinges on the Doctor not knowing any of that stuff. Seven's weird esoteric knowledge can't come from this either. Can't have it both ways that he's got a secret past that he can pull specific info from and also not be aware of that past.
Like yeh, you can get way into the weeds about how some of it might have leaked into his unconscious mind, but the whole twist relies on this being totally erased - Thirteen doesn't have the slightest recognition of this apparent prior incarnation, the possibility doesn't occur to her.
I figure the Master's rage works just as well that the Time Lord's stole something from him. He was special and unique and they took it away, and must have gone to some extremes to falsify his status, given how hard up he was for extra lives in the Classic Series.
Also WRT someone retconning it, this thing is already a weird retcon of someone else's story! Ruth shouldn't be in a fucking police box TARDIS if she's pre-One. We've seen it as a blank capsule before it got stuck like that. Plus the stakes around Eleven's lack of 1-ups on Trenzalore are totally undone now that we know he could've regenerated any dang time he wanted.
Seven's a weird one because there's no indication in any prior or later incarnation of any memory or connection to the Dark Times. One, Two, Three and Five stand in the Dark Tower facing Rassilon without hint of a prior relationship - really, Seven's era is where contradictions and retcons become too big to ignore. There's fanon that some memories arise and subside in different regenerations as a way of explaining why only Seven seems to be the one with access to the secrets. But also in Spearhead from Space, Three says he's lost his memory in a way which might imply more than just forgetting the secrets of time travel (and off-screen, Eight's had such frequent amnesia that it's a wonder he remembers any of his companion's names when he regenerates)
Like with the Doctor, I think the Master becomes less interesting the more of his backstory gets explained. The Dark Path was dull, the drumming driving him mad was even worse. But specifically, him being the TC doesn't match the dialogue or acting in The Timeless Children. It's personal, yes, but it's not about him
The Police Box could be explained in any number of ways. It's interesting that they chose the 1966-76 style box for Ruth when they also had access to a 1963-66 style box. A few people have noted that if this is our Doctor's TARDIS, we know from The Doctor's Wife that she doesn't see or experience time the same way (archiving future console rooms), and could have chosen the Police Box form so Thirteen would recognise it. And if you choose, you could interpret One's reaction to the TARDIS being stuck as a Police Box a little different (he describes it as "disturbing" and looks proper worried, unlike Susan who's like 'huh, wonder why that is')
There's also nothing to indicate that the TC (or the Doctor) has infinite regenerations. It's never stated. And why wipe someone's memory and Matrix records if you're just going to leave the Doctor with infinite regenerations? It would be a dead giveaway that they're not Gallifreyan. We see Brendan get chameleon arched, presumably to the same biology as a normal Time Lord
And the problem isn't with retconning in general, but see below
It seems much more likely to me the next showrunner will never touch the timeless child idea. I'm not even sure Chibnall will bring Jo back for whatever conclusion he has in mind.
Yeah theyll quietly ignore all that maybe the Master will go "Oh you believed that? Hardly one of my best jokes"
What I don't get is - if you don't like a storyline, why would you go out of your way to draw attention to it? How would it come up? What would it add to the story?
I don't think writing it off as a joke or as 'it was actually the Master' fixes anything or makes anything better, and I think it falls into the same trap as the TC (concept and execution so far). It makes the universe smaller, but more importantly, it's looking backwards - it doesn't move the story forwards
And I think it's a trap Doctor Who easily falls into - over-explaining or nullifying or 'fixing' things. There is a Seventh Doctor novel which goes out of its way to explain why the Totters Lane junkyard sign was misspelt in Remembrance of the Daleks. Two audios and a short story each try to explain Romana's regeneration in Destiny of the Daleks. There's an audio which spends half its time trying to kill the season 6B theory that even Terrance Dicks himself wrote stories about. These add nothing. At best they waste a line of dialogue, at worst they waste whole stories
I think either you move on or you find an actually interesting and creative way to build on something's implications. I think Doctor Who works best when it keeps moving forward and exploring new possibilities or finding new angles when it does look back (like The Doctor's Wife or Twice Upon a Time, which look back decades but find new stories to tell and have past, present and future effects/implications)
All they need is a single scene where the Master reveals the Timeless Child was a ploy to throw the Doctor off her game for his latest evil scheme, he franchise will never move forward with the TC in the background unanswered yet remain in canon. The show should go more into revitalising elements from classic Who, like they did with the Master and Rasillon.
Edit: The Timeless Child isn't a bad idea in itself, I think they should have had Rasillon be responsible for it and have Omega as his lackey who gets backstabbed. Making the Doctor it is awful.
I think it can absolutely move on with it in the background unanswered. Going purely on-screen, the show did it with him being half-human, it did it with all of the implications of season 25, it did it with the Valeyard, it did it with the First Doctor literally calling himself human twice, it even did it with Two saying that regeneration was "part of the TARDIS"
And the thing is, it really should be unanswered. The more you definitively answer those questions, the more is revealed and the more you risk adding in disappointing lore – which is a problem with the Doctor being the TC. It definitively answers the questions of season 25 and the Brain of Morbius (which in case anyone wants to argue about it, rewatch it - it's absolutely unambiguous), but it didn't need to and hasn't taken the character anywhere new or compelling
But also what do we add by having the Master saying the TC was a ploy? How would it being a ploy fit with the Master's dialogue and acting of The Timeless Children? What is the storytelling point? Why should it matter to the audience? What does it add to any story?
It's not a cool little nod like the Voord Cybermen in The Doctor Falls, it's a waste of precious dialogue and increasingly dwindling air-time to go out of your way to 'fix' or over-explain or nullify something that you can just as easily let lie and never call attention to ever again. Imagine the Doctor accepts she's the TC, then the Master casually drops it's a lie - then we open the whole fucking can of worms again and we end up with a new mess of an identity crisis to explore. Again. And for what?
What I always come back to when thinking about storytelling is the 'So what?' or the 'Yes, and?' question. As in "The Doctor is the TC, so what?" or "Yes it was a ploy, and...?"
Fake edit: If it was a ploy, then where do Ruth and her Time Lord handlers come in? The Judoon captured and imprisoned Thirteen as a "cold case". Did the Master make all that shit up too? And why would he even need a ploy to wipe out the Time Lords and desecrate their corpses? He'd already done it. The Doctor wasn't even visiting Gallifrey, hadn't even noticed her race had been burnt to a cinder till the Master was like 'Hey check it out'. The Master actually could've gotten away with it, taken over the galaxy, then lorded it over the Doctor once he has victory secured. He didn't need her off her game - she wasn't anywhere nearby
+4
Options
PolarisI am powerless against the sky.Registered Userregular
edited July 2021
Who is Doctor Who can never be answered because then we know Who they are.
I'm willing to let The Timeless Child story pan out. It's like the greatest secret: The Name of the Doctor. It was setup to be terrible, but the resolution was satisfactory (imo obv), aka they didn't actually tell us.
I think the Mysterious Doctor is cast in the upcoming episodes so they are clearly going to tackle it one way or another..
I only just got around to watching "Revolution" because it only just turned up on Crave (Canada). I liked it, and was once again reminded that Jodie is awesome, but being from Sheffield I might be biased ;P
Polaris on
+3
Options
PolarisI am powerless against the sky.Registered Userregular
An underrated bit of Moffat writing is Twelve's explanation to River Song of why he was able to regenerate past his supposed limit.
"A thing happened."
Either the viewer already knows and doesn't need it explained again, or they don't and it doesn't matter to the current story anyway. Maybe the Timeless Child is like that, and it should only be addressed again if there's a good story in it.
I always found it interesting that the Doctor's regeneration has become more intense with New Who.
It doesn't always escalate, they've had a few milder ones. Like Twelve was intense enough to wreck the TARDIS again, but before that Eleven went off like a nuclear bomb. Believe the fanon explanation was the idea that delaying a regeneration results in a more violent explosion, as Ten and Twelve both did, and Eleven arguably had been 'delaying' a long while if he was supposed to have died of old age.
Notably every 'fake' regeneration we've seen (and funnily enough, all three of those Doctors have decoy regeneration scenes! Tennant in The Stolen Earth, Smith in The Impossible Astronaut, Capaldi in Lie of the Land) the energy is the same effect seen on Nine and the War Doctor, no explosions.
I can't help but think of the various regenerations in The Curse of Fatal Death. The Doctor went through three in under a minute, followed swiftly by yet another one.
Initially Rowan Atkinson, followed by Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley.
It may not exactly be canon, but it's fun to think it is.
Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
How could anything be canon? Easy, the Universe that was rebuilt according to the stories 11 told Little Amy is familiar but not necessarily 100% identical. For a start, the Pandorica never existed and the TARDIS didn’t annihilate all of everything.
Up to The Wedding of River Song on the watch through.
...which River is in the episiode, anyway? There were two on that beach. The plot implies the younger one, but a lot of the dialogue is more older river. Though very young River acts like she knows the Doctor a lot more than she really does a lot of the time anyway.
HBOMax finally has the latest Holiday special, which means that I'm all caught up. It was about as good as I expected, which is to say not much.
There are a lot of issues with Chibnail's era, but you know the one that gets me the most? The Doctor is not clever. The enemy gets the upper hand on her constantly. If they threaten to call in a fleet or blow up the planet, she surrenders immediately. And when she does turn the tables, it always seems to be the same plan: TARDIS in and drop explosives on their ship, or somehow use the enemy's weapon against them, often with little explanation. Overall, I actually think I liked season 11 more than 12. Since Chibnail's not great at a traditional Doctor Who structure, at least he gave us some decent untraditional ones, like Rosa Park and Demons of the Punjab, or It Takes You Away, my favorite of his era so far.
The first part of the episode, for example, could have worked great on its own. Instead of Captain Jack saving her, what if The Doctor had to arrange a prison break by somehow allying and making use of some her old enemies? Figuring out a way to use the Silence and Angel's powers to get out? That would have been cool!
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
I prefer the Dr as just a very experienced, moral and clever (all these things being linked) Timelord than as some kind of super special different chosen one. Being a Timelord sets you above and beyond the rest of the Universe by nature enough. No need for her to be above and beyond them.
+8
Options
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited August 2021
There's a lot to it but there's this pattern she's been written with of second-guessing herself constantly and the writers just haven't given her much... poignancy. And this is silly because Jodie Whitaker is capable of those moments, you can see it in her other work. But we aren't getting scenes like this:
Thoughts on Capaldi saying he’s not interested in returning to Doctor Who for any future doctor type stories? Suppose it could be a misdirection but it’d be a shame not seeing him kicking around with 10 and 11 just once.
+1
Options
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Thoughts on Capaldi saying he’s not interested in returning to Doctor Who for any future doctor type stories? Suppose it could be a misdirection but it’d be a shame not seeing him kicking around with 10 and 11 just once.
He seemed to be having a lot of fun in The Suicide Squad.
Something Capaldi said was “I think the more multi-Doctor stories you have the less effective they are, really” and I absolutely respect that and agree, particularly if you also follow the audios or comics where it just… stops feeling special after a while
It also runs the risk of what usually happens to each Doctor – their characters and personalities are ‘flattened’. And I think for Twelve, where there was such a character arc and quite a lot going on with him as a person, it could do him a real disservice
Something Capaldi said was “I think the more multi-Doctor stories you have the less effective they are, really” and I absolutely respect that and agree, particularly if you also follow the audios or comics where it just… stops feeling special after a while
It also runs the risk of what usually happens to each Doctor – their characters and personalities are ‘flattened’. And I think for Twelve, where there was such a character arc and quite a lot going on with him as a person, it could do him a real disservice
I shudder to think what the current writing staff would do with Capaldi or Smith. They seem stuck on Ten. Even Chibnall's episodes for Smith were written weirdly. A little *too* manic and childlike for someone who's supposed to be quite intelligent.
I will give points for his scene with Amy in Power of Three though. If only that nuance were evidenced elsewhere.
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Something Capaldi said was “I think the more multi-Doctor stories you have the less effective they are, really” and I absolutely respect that and agree, particularly if you also follow the audios or comics where it just… stops feeling special after a while
It also runs the risk of what usually happens to each Doctor – their characters and personalities are ‘flattened’. And I think for Twelve, where there was such a character arc and quite a lot going on with him as a person, it could do him a real disservice
Except there's barely been any in the modern era. Also every time multiple Doctors met is a joy to watch. Twelve won't regress since the universe recons the Doctors into not remembering the events.
Something Capaldi said was “I think the more multi-Doctor stories you have the less effective they are, really” and I absolutely respect that and agree, particularly if you also follow the audios or comics where it just… stops feeling special after a while
It also runs the risk of what usually happens to each Doctor – their characters and personalities are ‘flattened’. And I think for Twelve, where there was such a character arc and quite a lot going on with him as a person, it could do him a real disservice
Except there's barely been any in the modern era. Also every time multiple Doctors met is a joy to watch. Twelve won't regress since the universe recons the Doctors into not remembering the events.
That's not really true. In the Classic era, there were 3 multi-doctor TV stories (Three Doctors, Five Doctors, Two Doctors - 4 if you include "Trial of a Timelord" with the Valeyard)
In the Modern era, there have been 5 multi-doctor TV stories (Time Crash, Day of the Doctor, Deep Breath, The Doctor Falls, Twice Upon a Time - 6 if you include "Fugitive of the Judoon", although admittedly "Deep Breath" is a little tenuous as Matt Smith only shows up for the phone call). 4 of those have involved Capaldi - more than the entire Classic era combined.
If you look to the extended media, there were a further 26 comics, novels, or audiobooks involving multiple Doctors in the Classic era, and 38 in the Modern era - 8 of those were in 2020 alone.
The Modern era really has stepped up the pace for multiple Doctor stories - and Capaldi has been in the majority of the ones on TV. I can understand him wanting to step back a bit from those.
Something Capaldi said was “I think the more multi-Doctor stories you have the less effective they are, really” and I absolutely respect that and agree, particularly if you also follow the audios or comics where it just… stops feeling special after a while
It also runs the risk of what usually happens to each Doctor – their characters and personalities are ‘flattened’. And I think for Twelve, where there was such a character arc and quite a lot going on with him as a person, it could do him a real disservice
Except there's barely been any in the modern era. Also every time multiple Doctors met is a joy to watch. Twelve won't regress since the universe recons the Doctors into not remembering the events.
Edit: Archangle covered the numbers way better than me
It’s not about him regressing, it’s about writers flattening a three-dimensional character to a two-dimensional version, like in The Five Doctors (done ok!) or Twice Upon a Time (wtf!)
Posts
And you have to mention it again just to get rid of it, otherwise it just sits there in the background ruining it all. Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away etc.
They imposed a limit on themselves, when they added that genetic component into their DNA.
Being the source, it's impossible to say the Doctor has one.
Heck, it kinda explains the extra set of regenerations they "gave" the Doctor. Maybe that was a bluff, and they gave them something that already existed?
Like I said, it’s never stated that the TC itself had infinite regenerations and we see Brendan getting chameleon arched, presumably to normal Time Lord biology
It would be daft to wipe the TC’s memory but leave them wandering around with an indeterminate number of regenerations. It’d be a dead giveaway
And then you could have The Doctor have to grapple with that, and god that's actually really fucking good.
And then they made it The Doctor and it immediately becomes the worst fucking idea they could have come up with, it's so fucking bad and raises so many questions about so many past stories.
All they need is a single scene where the Master reveals the Timeless Child was a ploy to throw the Doctor off her game for his latest evil scheme, he franchise will never move forward with the TC in the background unanswered yet remain in canon. The show should go more into revitalising elements from classic Who, like they did with the Master and Rasillon.
Edit: The Timeless Child isn't a bad idea in itself, I think they should have had Rasillon be responsible for it and have Omega as his lackey who gets backstabbed. Making the Doctor it is awful.
a beach pebble carved into the shape of The Ship of Theseus; and The Ship of Theseus as an intrinsic epistemological concept. Heck there's some Plato's Cave, and blind men examining a donkey, in there too.
Tldr; It's all timey-wimey and multiversal, complex and nuanced.
Anyhow, as I understand it, now, via retcon, 'The Doctor' (aka 'Doctor Prime' of the current TV show run, that we the viewer have been following) always had unlimited regen powers, they were just locked and then unlocked by the time-lords via DNA fuckery, as the other Time Lords were afraid of the Doctor and their unlimited power/potential when given free reign with a TARDIS.
I feel bad for Whittaker, she made history, and was done dirty by terrible writing and mostly boring stories.
Hopefully she can go out on a high, and not spend the last three specials looking confused while making occasional speeches about the power of family.
I think it can absolutely move on with it in the background unanswered. Going purely on-screen, the show did it with him being half-human, it did it with all of the implications of season 25, it did it with the Valeyard, it did it with the First Doctor literally calling himself human twice, it even did it with Two saying that regeneration was "part of the TARDIS"
And the thing is, it really should be unanswered. The more you definitively answer those questions, the more is revealed and the more you risk adding in disappointing lore – which is a problem with the Doctor being the TC. It definitively answers the questions of season 25 and the Brain of Morbius (which in case anyone wants to argue about it, rewatch it - it's absolutely unambiguous), but it didn't need to and hasn't taken the character anywhere new or compelling
But also what do we add by having the Master saying the TC was a ploy? How would it being a ploy fit with the Master's dialogue and acting of The Timeless Children? What is the storytelling point? Why should it matter to the audience? What does it add to any story?
It's not a cool little nod like the Voord Cybermen in The Doctor Falls, it's a waste of precious dialogue and increasingly dwindling air-time to go out of your way to 'fix' or over-explain or nullify something that you can just as easily let lie and never call attention to ever again. Imagine the Doctor accepts she's the TC, then the Master casually drops it's a lie - then we open the whole fucking can of worms again and we end up with a new mess of an identity crisis to explore. Again. And for what?
What I always come back to when thinking about storytelling is the 'So what?' or the 'Yes, and?' question. As in "The Doctor is the TC, so what?" or "Yes it was a ploy, and...?"
Fake edit: If it was a ploy, then where do Ruth and her Time Lord handlers come in? The Judoon captured and imprisoned Thirteen as a "cold case". Did the Master make all that shit up too? And why would he even need a ploy to wipe out the Time Lords and desecrate their corpses? He'd already done it. The Doctor wasn't even visiting Gallifrey, hadn't even noticed her race had been burnt to a cinder till the Master was like 'Hey check it out'. The Master actually could've gotten away with it, taken over the galaxy, then lorded it over the Doctor once he has victory secured. He didn't need her off her game - she wasn't anywhere nearby
I'm willing to let The Timeless Child story pan out. It's like the greatest secret: The Name of the Doctor. It was setup to be terrible, but the resolution was satisfactory (imo obv), aka they didn't actually tell us.
I think the Mysterious Doctor is cast in the upcoming episodes so they are clearly going to tackle it one way or another..
I only just got around to watching "Revolution" because it only just turned up on Crave (Canada). I liked it, and was once again reminded that Jodie is awesome, but being from Sheffield I might be biased ;P
"A thing happened."
Either the viewer already knows and doesn't need it explained again, or they don't and it doesn't matter to the current story anyway. Maybe the Timeless Child is like that, and it should only be addressed again if there's a good story in it.
It doesn't always escalate, they've had a few milder ones. Like Twelve was intense enough to wreck the TARDIS again, but before that Eleven went off like a nuclear bomb. Believe the fanon explanation was the idea that delaying a regeneration results in a more violent explosion, as Ten and Twelve both did, and Eleven arguably had been 'delaying' a long while if he was supposed to have died of old age.
Notably every 'fake' regeneration we've seen (and funnily enough, all three of those Doctors have decoy regeneration scenes! Tennant in The Stolen Earth, Smith in The Impossible Astronaut, Capaldi in Lie of the Land) the energy is the same effect seen on Nine and the War Doctor, no explosions.
It may not exactly be canon, but it's fun to think it is.
Steam | XBL
"...I'll explain later."
Steam | XBL
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
While I love seeing Ecceston be willing to do fan stuff, now is...not the best time!
...which River is in the episiode, anyway? There were two on that beach. The plot implies the younger one, but a lot of the dialogue is more older river. Though very young River acts like she knows the Doctor a lot more than she really does a lot of the time anyway.
There are a lot of issues with Chibnail's era, but you know the one that gets me the most? The Doctor is not clever. The enemy gets the upper hand on her constantly. If they threaten to call in a fleet or blow up the planet, she surrenders immediately. And when she does turn the tables, it always seems to be the same plan: TARDIS in and drop explosives on their ship, or somehow use the enemy's weapon against them, often with little explanation. Overall, I actually think I liked season 11 more than 12. Since Chibnail's not great at a traditional Doctor Who structure, at least he gave us some decent untraditional ones, like Rosa Park and Demons of the Punjab, or It Takes You Away, my favorite of his era so far.
The first part of the episode, for example, could have worked great on its own. Instead of Captain Jack saving her, what if The Doctor had to arrange a prison break by somehow allying and making use of some her old enemies? Figuring out a way to use the Silence and Angel's powers to get out? That would have been cool!
(and the Hungry Earth was literally written by Chibnall!)
Be pretty cool if she cast Suranne Jones as the 14th Doctor...
It also runs the risk of what usually happens to each Doctor – their characters and personalities are ‘flattened’. And I think for Twelve, where there was such a character arc and quite a lot going on with him as a person, it could do him a real disservice
Well they have all those black drapes everywhere
I will give points for his scene with Amy in Power of Three though. If only that nuance were evidenced elsewhere.
Except there's barely been any in the modern era. Also every time multiple Doctors met is a joy to watch. Twelve won't regress since the universe recons the Doctors into not remembering the events.
In the Modern era, there have been 5 multi-doctor TV stories (Time Crash, Day of the Doctor, Deep Breath, The Doctor Falls, Twice Upon a Time - 6 if you include "Fugitive of the Judoon", although admittedly "Deep Breath" is a little tenuous as Matt Smith only shows up for the phone call). 4 of those have involved Capaldi - more than the entire Classic era combined.
If you look to the extended media, there were a further 26 comics, novels, or audiobooks involving multiple Doctors in the Classic era, and 38 in the Modern era - 8 of those were in 2020 alone.
The Modern era really has stepped up the pace for multiple Doctor stories - and Capaldi has been in the majority of the ones on TV. I can understand him wanting to step back a bit from those.
Edit: Archangle covered the numbers way better than me
It’s not about him regressing, it’s about writers flattening a three-dimensional character to a two-dimensional version, like in The Five Doctors (done ok!) or Twice Upon a Time (wtf!)